Montana in grip of 4th driest year on record

David Murray, GreatFalls
Wed, December 22, 2021

There's an old weather adage that's been passed over cups of coffee and glasses of beer for nearly a century: "It's not a drought 'til it breaks your heart."

Today, the hearts of thousands of Montanans have broken across the bare back of one of one of the worst droughts in Montana history: farmers trying to balance their books after a paltry harvest, stockmen paying too much to feed already skinny cattle, outfitters and fishermen prevented from landing a fish because the streams were either too warm or too dry, conservationists and recreationists of all types who watched Montana's forests burn and its prairies shrivel.

On Dec. 15, 2021, every county in Montana was identified as experiencing some level of drought, with a third of the state is in the grips of a "D4" or "exceptional" drought, a designation the U.S. Department of Agriculture expects to occur in any one location just once every 50 to 100 years. The entire state is, on average, 4.66 inches behind in annual precipitation. The only years that have been drier were 1931, 1919 and 1952.

There have been longer droughts, both in the first half of the 1930s and again in the early 2000s, and isolated portions of Montana have withered under more extreme stretches of heat and dryness for limited periods of time, but according to the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) in only three of the past 127 years have Montanans as a whole endured such bone dry conditions.

"Since 2000, the longest duration of drought (D1–D4) in Montana lasted 307 weeks beginning on May 16, 2000, and ending on March 28, 2006," the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) states. "The most intense period of drought occurred the week of November 23, 2021, where D4 affected 33.10% of Montana land."

"It's been quite a year," said Michael Downey, supervisor of the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation's (DNRC) Water Planning Section. "I've been in Montana for 27 years, and I've never seen anything like this."
A drought like few others

Within living memory, a few years stand out for their damaging drought conditions. Among them are 1988, 2012 and 2017. Downey notes that those harsh years were characterized by intensely hot, dry summers, but late-season rains shortened those drought's impacts — albeit too late for that year's growing season.

"A large-scale drought event occurred in 2012, which was unique in that it followed a devastating flood across the Missouri River Basin in 2011," the NIDIS explains. "The upper Missouri River Basin was hit again in 2017 with a flash drought that was characterized by a rapid decline in soil moisture, low spring rainfall, high temperatures and above-average wind speeds. Agricultural losses alone totaled in excess of $2.6 billion dollars."

2021 has been different, and has the potential to be more damaging.

"In 1988, we saw really good moisture come in September and October, which is really similar to 2017 when we had a really dry, hot summer," Downey explained. "2017 was kind of a one and done, and by 2018, we were out of the drought. We have not had that wet fall this year. In fact, we had an extremely dry fall."

"Although short-term rain events may begin to replenish near-surface soil moisture, it can take months or multiple seasons to percolate into deeper subsoils, into groundwater aquifers, and to recharge reservoirs," a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) advisory states. "It will be important to see how winter precipitation develops, in addition to the timing of melt and quantity of spring precipitation, to fully understand what conditions might be moving into next year’s growing season."

Downey put it more succinctly.

Much of the current drought's impacts are attributed to the often referenced "La Niña" weather pattern. La Niña develops when sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean are consistently cooler than average for an extended period of time. These cool waters affect the location of the jet streams, which impacts weather in North America. According to NOAA, some of the most notable impacts of La Niña typically occur in winter."For the Missouri River Basin states, the typical winter La Niña pattern leads to increased chances for below-normal temperatures across the upper Basin," a NOAA report from November 2021 explains. "The northern Rockies may also have increased chances for above-normal snowpack."

A drought stricken wheat field near Wolf Point Montana

"For Montana, it's not super unusual to be in some drought conditions even during the winter," he noted. "The trouble is that it's only worsened since then. We're not coming out of this drought for a while, regardless of the weather we have."

Unfortunately, that's not always the case. In early August of this year Arin Peters, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service, noted that 2020 was also a La Niña year, but the abundant precipitation expected that winter never materialized.

“That didn’t really pan out as far as precipitation sometimes does with La Niña,” Peters said.

Thus far, the La Niña pattern of 2021 has returned the same disappointing outcomes. According to NOAA, snowpack depths across much of Montana are currently less than 60% of their normal values for this time of year.

"When we look at the snowpack in general, not too deep," said climatologist Justin Glisan, a representative of the Northern Plains Climate Hub. "We are seeing a below-average snow water equivalent within that basin-wide percentage. Of course, this is early within the snowfall season so we do have time to go, but these are relatively low compared to where we are at this time of year."

While 2021 may end up being one of the driest years on record, it didn't start out that way.

"The year actually started out above normal for precipitation," explained Jim Brusda, chief meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Great Falls. "We started out the year a little bit below normal, then this past May, Great Falls had 4.38 inches of rain. It was actually 1.87 inches above normal and we made up our deficit. Then the faucet turned off, and that's where the problems began."

Brusda pointed to a 10-week period between the end of May and mid-August when most of Montana received almost no precipitation whatsoever.

"It was also very warm," he added. "It was comparable to 2007, which was a very warm year. We had a few wet days in August and a few wet days in September, but since then, we haven't had any significant amounts of precipitation. So it hasn't been a whole year of dryness, it's just been the past six months that have been really dry."

According to Downey, the second half of 2020 was a lead-in to the harsh drought conditions of 2021

"If you look back to when this drought started, it really goes back to June of 2020," Downey said. "Down in southwest Montana, we had moderate drought conditions and about 30% of the rest of the state was abnormally dry. In January 2021 across a lot of the state, we were abnormally dry and did have severe drought conditions in parts of the state."

Abnormally high winds have also contributed to the current severe drought conditions.

"Part of the reason why the dryness was so bad in November and December was the wind," Brusda said. "We've had numerous windy days and the wind was very strong. We had a couple inches of snowfall in November, but it just melted off and dried up. So the grass went dormant with the couple of cold days that we had. You combine that with the very strong winds and the low humidities - it just remains dry."
Timing is everything

The severity of any drought is not just a function of how much or how little precipitation an area gets. The timing of the rains, snowpack accumulation, and how quickly the snowpack melts off all interact to mitigate or worsen a drought's overall impacts.

Solid rains in September do little to improve fall crop yields. A big snowpack in February doesn't add a whole lot to irrigation and summer time stream flows if it all melts off by May. "Effective precipitation" is the key phrase, and timing is everything.

According to Dr. Lance Vermeire, range ecologist at Fort Keogh, forage production across the state is predominately determined by precipitation received during the months of April and May, and the growing conditions experienced during the months of May and June. In an interview with the Prairie Star, Vermeire noted that in 2021 precipitation was low and temperatures were warmer than normal during this crucial time.

"It's important to keep in mind that by the first of July, 90% of forage production in Montana is already complete," Vermeire told the Prairie Star. "Timely rain in June, July, and August can help keep range grass green, but they don't do much for actual growth. The same theory applies to fall rains. While late-season moisture will soften the grass and replenish water reserves, on average it does little to initiate forage growth."

Heat and high winds have made things worse. Not only has 2021 been the fourth driest year in recorded history, it has also been the sixth warmest since 1895, averaging 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the mean year-round daily temperature of 46 degrees.

And that points to the real driver of exceptional drought conditions in Montana over the past century. NIDIS data from the past 127 years shows that annual precipitation levels across the state have remained remarkably stable. There have been both dry and wet years, even extended periods of drought or flood, but overall, Montana has maintained a fairly consistent statewide average of 18.65 inches of precipitation annually.

The average temperature in Montana on the other hand has been trending progressively warmer since the 1970s. Six of the eight warmest years on record have occurred over the past 15 years. One of the most dramatic impacts of rising temperatures has been a dramatic increase in wildland fire activity across the western United States.

A June 2021 report published by the National Academy of Sciences notes "the average warm season burned area in the western United States during 2001 to 2018 was about 3.35 million acres, nearly double (+98%) that of the previous period of 1984 to 2000 (1.69 million acres)." According to a National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) report, "the area burned by wildfire during the 2020 warm season reached 8.8 million acres, more than five times the average during 1984 to 2000."

Recent devastating wildfires across Montana this winter provide additional evidence that drought and warmer temperatures are on the verge of creating a year-round wildfire season in the state.

"We've seen significant wildlife potential for December," said Justin Glisan of the Northern Plains Climate Hub. "Most of ... Montana has large precipitation deficits going back several months. We have soil moisture that's telling us something, we have snowpack that's telling us something and they're converging on these drought conditions."
A plan for the future

All this may seem overwhelmingly pessimistic, but there are things that can and are being done to better prepare Montana for a warmer if not drier future.

"If you look at the projections in looking at climate change, we've got a drier future ahead of us," Downey said. "There is data showing some places in Montana actually getting more precipitation, but part of the problem is when we get it. At the end of the year we could have had average rainfall, but still experience serious drought because of when it came."

Montana has recently begun an in-depth revision of its statewide Drought Management Plan, with the goal of providing communities and individuals with information and resources to effectively respond to and mitigate the impacts of drought. Understanding past drought conditions and improving monitoring are going to be key elements of the state’s updated drought management plan. The update was announced in October and is scheduled to be completed in early 2023.

"This is way overdue," said Downey, who is one of four DRNC planners for the new Drought Management Plan. "Our last official Drought Management Plan was done in 1995, and the metrics that we use to measure drought have changed. I think that getting this new drought management plan is going to get people more resources, and will generate new policy and program recommendations that, hopefully, the state legislature can take up. Hopefully, we can really make some progress on this front."

Downey said many Montana ag producers are already incorporating an improved understanding of soil health into their own drought management plans to help maintain productivity on drought-stressed fields. Increased utilization of marginally productive upland acreages and off-stream water development projects are also playing a role.

Montana's cities and towns also have a role to play.

"If you look at where most domestic water at the community level is used ... often up to 60% to 70% of that water (during the hot summer months) is used for lawns and trees and things like that," Downey noted. "I think we can do a lot better in terms of that water use. That really adds up. Grass is really resilient and it will go dormant, so instead of keeping your grass green, keep your shrubs and trees alive."

"Communities also need to look at where they get their water at, and to develop alternative sources of water. For municipalities that rely on a watershed, what happens in the case of a large fire in that watershed? Have you developed your alternative supplies so you can make that switch?"

No matter how detailed the planning, there is only so much that can be done to offset the impacts of extended and severe drought. Downey acknowledges that there may come a point when some ag producers may have to face the cruel reality of being "droughted out." Even under these extreme circumstances the state has options to help victims of drought to move forward.

"Part of our problem is that here in Montana, unlike some other states, is that we haven't created emergency funds to help people dealing with drought," he observed. "Is it time to have that conversation? How do we put together a network that gets people through this? Then the question becomes, well where do we get the money? I certainly don't have an answer, but I do think that engaging in this planning process is going to bring up some of those questions and hopefully provide some answers and generate some ideas."

"There once again, we tend not to think about these things until we're in the middle of a drought, and then it's too late," Downey added.

The DNRC is actively seeking public comment and input in the formation of Montana's new Drought Management Plan. To learn how you can get involved in this multi-agency, stakeholder-driven effort to make Montana more drought resilient, log on to the Montana Drought Plan Information Hub at dnrc.mt.gov/divisions/water/drought-management.

This article originally appeared on Great Falls Tribune: Montana farmers, ranchers and towns struggle under extreme drought

Do right by California’s tribes through the 30×30 conservation effort

Morning Star Gali and Kate Poole 

Guest Columnists
Thu, December 23, 2021

A deer forages on grasses growing in the rocks of the Klamath River east of Happy Camp, California.

Designated months that recognize Native American Heritage and governor-appointed advisory councils are opportunities for Californians to reflect on the history of Indigenous peoples in our state, but they are not sufficient for us to redress the historic wrongs suffered by California’s tribes.

In 1851, the state’s first governor declared “a war of extermination will continue to be waged between races, until the Indian race becomes extinct.” Many California Indians survived the genocide of colonial settlement in California but have nonetheless been deprived of their traditional way of life by being dispossessed of their lands and culture.

Californians now have an opportunity to begin to repair these historic wrongs through Gov. Gavin Newsom’s initiative known as 30×30.

30×30 is also a global effort to address the planet’s biodiversity and climate crises by protecting 30% of lands, inland waters and oceans by 2030. Newsom issued an executive order in 2020 that puts California on a path to lead this endeavor. A key part of the governor’s effort must be restoring tribal ownership and control of lands stolen during white settlement of the state. But another critical piece of the 30×30 initiative must be restoring the health and vitality of California’s rivers and native fish.

We need strong commitments as the state finalizes implementation of 30×30 in its Pathways to 30×30 document, released in draft form this week.

Rivers are an intrinsic part of California’s Native American culture. Many Northern California tribes define themselves by their relationship to rivers. The name of the Yurok Tribe, for example, means the “downriver” people, reflecting the importance of the tribe’s homeland at the mouth of the Klamath River to its identity. Similarly, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe’s name means the “middle water” people, whose ancestral lands along the McCloud River watershed were flooded by the construction of Shasta Dam.

Many of California’s most iconic rivers, such as the Smith River, have original names that are the same as the tribes that lived on them. The native language of the Hoopa Tribe on the Trinity River lacks words for north, south, east, west, because tribal members define their location by where they are in reference to the river.

Rivers, and the salmon they sustain, form the heart and soul of many of California’s Indigenous peoples. But our rivers are ailing. Dams and water diversions on the Klamath, Trinity, Sacramento, Eel and many others have decimated salmon runs and caused toxic algae outbreaks. Salmon populations are a tiny fraction of what they were 50 years ago, when tribal members caught hundreds per day. Today, the trauma of massive fish kills on the Klamath and elsewhere have left deep scars on tribal peoples who honor salmon as part of our communities.

The Pathways to 30×30 document calls for strengthening tribal partnerships. To do so, it must make restoring these mighty rivers a priority.

Newsom has taken laudable strides by supporting removal of Pacificorp’s aging dams on the Klamath River. But more must be done. The state must protect and restore the floodplains, estuaries and riparian forests that give rivers room to roam. It must use its authority to reduce harmful water diversions enabled by a racist water rights system established in the 19th century. And it must respect tribal sovereignty over management of the rivers, lands and fisheries that define their cultures.

We look forward to working with the state to strengthen these goals over the 45-day comment period on the draft Pathways document and as 30×30 moves from vision to reality in California.

Morning Star Gali is a member of the Ajumawi band of the Pit River Tribe in Northeastern California. She serves as the Tribal Water Organizer for the Save California Salmon and advocates for Indigenous sovereignty issues. Kate Poole is a senior director on the nature team at Natural Resources Defense Council, where she leads efforts to protect and restore freshwater ecosystems at the local, state and national levels.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Do right by California’s tribes through conservation effort

MNI WISCONI WATER IS LIFE

USA
$2.5B headed to tribes for long-standing water settlements









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A boat moves along Wahweap Bay along the Upper Colorado River Basin, Wednesday, June 9, 2021, at the Utah and Arizona border near Wahweap, Ariz. Included in the infrastructure deal that became law last month is $2.5 billion for Native American water rights settlements, which quantify individual tribes’ claims to water and identify infrastructure projects to help deliver it to residents. On the Navajo Nation, the largest reservation in the U.S., the money could fund a settlement reached in 2020 over water in the upper Colorado River basin. 

AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

SUMAN NAISHADHAM and FELICIA FONSECA
Thu, December 23, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — For over a decade, residents of the rural Fort Apache Reservation in eastern Arizona have been promised miles of pipeline that would bring clean drinking water to their communities.

Now, a one-time windfall to help carry out the agreement could be on its way.

The federal infrastructure bill signed last month includes $2.5 billion for Native American water rights settlements, a tool tribes have used to define their rights to water from rivers and other sources and get federal funding to deliver it to residents.

The federal government has not disclosed how the money will be divvied up. But tribes involved in more than 30 settlements — many in the U.S. West, including the White Mountain Apache of the Fort Apache Reservation — are eligible and eagerly awaiting specifics.

“These are longstanding lapses in the building out of infrastructure ... to make sure that people in Indian Country are not left behind,” said Heather Whiteman Runs Him, who is from the Crow Nation of Montana and directs the University of Arizona’s Tribal Justice Clinic.

Access to reliable, clean water and basic sanitation facilities on tribal lands remains a challenge for hundreds of thousands of people. The funding for settlements is part of about $11 billion from the infrastructure law headed to Indian Country to expand broadband coverage, fix roads and provide basic needs like running water.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1908 that tribes have rights to as much water as they need to establish a permanent homeland, and those rights stretch back at least as long as any given reservation has existed. As a result, tribal water rights often are more senior to others in the West, where competition over the scarce resource is often fierce.

Litigation can be expensive and drawn-out, which is why many tribes have turned to settlements. The negotiations generally involve tribes, states, cities, private water users, local water districts and others and can take years if not decades to hash out.

“What makes them a complicated and often very slow-moving process is there are huge potential ramifications for how a tribal water right gets quantified and developed,” said Richard “Jim” Palmer, the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s attorney general from 2010 to 2018.

Nearly 40 water rights settlements have been reached with tribes, some of which include more than one tribe. The Interior Department said 31 of the settlements are eligible for funds from the infrastructure bill.

“This money will really help us to fulfill our end of the deal,” said Elizabeth Klein, senior counselor to the Interior secretary.

Congress approved the White Mountain Apache settlement in 2010. The tribe received more than one-third of the water it claimed it was entitled to from two rivers that flow on the mountainous reservation in exchange for the promise of federal money to deliver the water to tribal communities.

The tribe has said it needs federal funding for water storage, surface water treatment facilities and miles of pipeline so residents can have a reliable and clean source of drinking water.

The projects stalled, however, because of cost overruns and technical issues that took years to resolve and even more negotiations to secure additional funding, Palmer said. He added that’s typical of many tribal water rights settlements.

“It’s a situation of having a lot of money on paper but it being very, very difficult to access and implement ... without a staggering amount of red tape getting in the way,” said Palmer, who is White Mountain Apache.

As a result, residents of the reservation still rely on over-pumped wells or consume water that’s potentially contaminated with heavy metals, Palmer said.

Congress' piecemeal approach to funding tribal water rights settlements is what makes the $2.5 billion in the infrastructure deal important, said Jay Weiner, an attorney and Native American water law expert.

“It kind of clears the decks on these annual funding cycles so you have less competition for ... limited dollars,” he said.

The Navajo Nation — the largest Native American reservation in the U.S. — said it expects to receive funding from the infrastructure law for a 2020 settlement it reached with Utah for water in the upper Colorado River basin.

Congress authorized $210 million for water delivery infrastructure and agricultural conservation projects to help bring running water to the Utah side of the reservation, but lawmakers did not provide full funding.

Meanwhile, residents and public health experts are concerned about groundwater contamination from uranium and arsenic. On the Utah portion of the Navajo Nation, the tribe has said hundreds of households — or roughly 40% of the residents — lack running water or proper sanitation facilities.

The 27,000-square-mile (70,000-square-kilometer) reservation is larger than West Virginia and also stretches into Arizona and New Mexico. Homes are scattered on the landscape, adding to the difficulties in transporting water.

Tribes say the faster they get the funding, the sooner they can start long-anticipated projects to make use of water deemed theirs on paper.

“Ultimately, it really is about allowing and facilitating tribes to be able to put their water to use, which is the point of the whole exercise,” Weiner said.

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Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/environment

US tribes see hope for clean water in infrastructure bill


By GILLIAN FLACCUS, FELICIA FONSECA and BECKY BOHRER

WARM SPRINGS, Ore. (AP) — Erland Suppah Jr. doesn’t trust what comes out of his faucet.

Each week, Suppah and his girlfriend haul a half-dozen large jugs of water from a distribution center run by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs to their apartment for everything from drinking to cooking to brushing their teeth for their family of five. It’s the only way they feel safe after countless boil-water notices and weekslong shutoffs on a reservation struggling with bursting pipes, failing pressure valves and a geriatric water treatment plant.

“About the only thing this water is good for is cleaning my floor and flushing down the toilet,” Suppah said of the tap water in the community 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Portland. “That’s it.”

In other, more remote tribal communities across the country, running water and indoor plumbing have never been a reality.

Now, there’s a glimmer of hope in the form of a massive infrastructure bill signed last month that White House officials say represents the largest single infusion of money into Indian Country. It includes $3.5 billion for the federal Indian Health Service, which provides health care to more than 2 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives, plus pots of money through other federal agencies for water projects.

Tribal leaders say the funding, while welcome, won’t make up for decades of neglect from the U.S. government, which has a responsibility to tribes under treaties and other acts to ensure access to clean water. A list of sanitation deficiencies kept by the Indian Health Service has more than 1,500 projects, including wells, septic systems, water storage tanks and pipelines. Some projects would address water contamination from uranium or arsenic.

About 3,300 homes in more than 30 rural Alaska communities lack indoor plumbing, according to a 2020 report. On the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American reservation, about one-third of the 175,000 residents are without running water.

Raynelle Hoskie attaches a hose to a water pump to fill tanks in her truck outside a tribal office on the Navajo reservation in Tuba City, Arizona, in April 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Jonathan Greyhatt, hauls water in July 2007 on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. He and 70,000 other Navajos haul water daily or weekly to meet their basic needs. (Mark Henle/The Arizona Republic via AP, File)



(Dec. 23)

Residents in these places haul water for basic tasks such as washing and cooking, sometimes driving long distances to reach communal water stations. Instead of indoor bathrooms, many use outhouses or lined pails called “honey buckets” that they drag outside to empty. Some shower or do laundry at community sites known as “washeterias,” but the equipment can be unreliable and the fees expensive.

“You look at two billionaires competing to fly into outer space, yet we’re trying to get basic necessities in villages of interior Alaska,” said PJ Simon, a former chairman of an Alaska Native nonprofit corporation called the Tanana Chiefs Conference.

Many more tribal communities have indoor plumbing but woefully inadequate facilities and delivery systems riddled with aging pipes.

The coronavirus pandemic, which disproportionately hit Indian Country, further underscored the stark disparities in access to running water and sewage systems.

In Warm Springs, the water crisis has overlapped with COVID-19.

“During a worldwide pandemic, we’ve had a boil-water notice. How are we supposed to wash our hands? How are we supposed to sanitize our homes to disinfect, to keep our community members safe? How can we do that ... when our water isn’t even clean?” said Dorothea Thurby, who oversees the distribution of free water to tribal members and food boxes to those who are quarantined.

Hazen Bru, left, and Johnson Bill deliver donated water to residents of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs on Dec. 6 in Warm Springs, Oregon. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Erland Suppah Jr., left, and CeCelia LeClaire use donated water to cook lunch in their home on Dec. 7 in Warm Springs, Oregon. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

A 2019 report by a pair of nonprofit groups, U.S. Water Alliance and Dig Deep, found Native American homes are 19 times more likely than white households to lack full plumbing. And federal officials note tribal members without indoor toilets or running water are at increased risk of respiratory tract, skin and gastrointestinal infections.

On the Navajo Nation, Eloise Sullivan uses an outhouse and often drives before dawn to beat the crowd at a water-filling station near the Arizona-Utah border to get water for the five people in her household. They use about 850 gallons (3,200 liters) a week, she estimated.

Sullivan, 56, doesn’t mind hauling water, but “for the younger generation, it’s like, ‘Do we have to do that?’”

“It’s kind of like a big issue for them,” she said.

She once asked local officials what it would cost to run a water line from the closest source about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) away. She said she was told $25,000 and never pursued it.

Libby Washburn, special assistant to President Joe Biden on Native American affairs, recently told tribes the infrastructure bill included enough money to complete all the projects on the Indian Health Service list. The agency said it’s consulting with tribes and won’t make allocation decisions before that process is over.

Until now, tribes and outside organizations have worked to address needs with their own funding, donations or federal money, including pandemic relief.

“If you live without running water, you understand the importance and the connection you have with it, deep down as a person, as a human being,” said Burrell Jones, who sets up water systems and delivers water around Dilkon, Arizona, with Dig Deep’s Navajo Water Project. “You can’t exist without water.”

Andrew Marks recently moved back to Tanana, a community of about 190 people in Alaska’s interior. He initially relied on a washeteria but found the equipment unreliable. He now has running water and plumbing where he lives but hauls water for family members who don’t.

“I believe if we had more people with water, more people connected to the grid, it would drastically improve their life,” he said.

In Oregon, tribal officials have handed out about 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of water — almost all of it donated — from a decommissioned elementary school on the reservation. A steady stream of residents pick up a combined 600 gallons (2,270 liters) of water a day from the building. Former classrooms overflow with 5-gallon (19-liter) containers and cases of bottled water.

Dan Martinez, emergency manager for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, pauses in the hallway of a storage building filled with donated water on Dec. 7 in Warm Springs, Oregon. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Emergency management workers Perseus Bradley, right, and Waymon Harry, store pallets of water and other donated supplies on Dec. 6, 2021, in Warm Springs, Oregon. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)


Emergency management worker Brittany Archer unloads COVID-19 supplies and donated water on Dec. 6, 2021, in Warm Springs, Oregon. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

“The infrastructure bill brought joy to my heart because now it gives me hope — hope that it’s going to be repaired,” said Dan Martinez, the tribes’ emergency manager, who expects to receive federal funds to replace underground pipes and address the 40-year-old treatment plant.

“If you came to work one day and someone said, ‘Hey, you need to go and find water for a community of 6,000 people.’ ... I mean, where do you start?’”

The money won’t provide immediate relief. Funding to the Indian Health Service is supposed to be distributed over five years. There is no deadline for its use, and projects will take time to complete once started. The money won’t cover operation and maintenance of the systems, a point tribes have criticized.

In Warm Springs, tribal members don’t pay for their water, and proposals to charge for it are deeply unpopular. That provides little incentive for tribal members to conserve water and raises questions about how new infrastructure will be maintained.

“There are some Natives who say — and I believe this myself — ‘How do you sell something you never owned? The Creator has given it to us,’” said Martinez, a tribal member.

Building out infrastructure in remote areas can be onerous, too. Most roads on the Navajo Nation are unpaved and become muddy and deeply rutted after big storms.

In Alaska, winter temperatures can fall well below zero, and construction seasons are short. Having enough people in a small community who are trained on the specifics of a water system so they can maintain it also can be a challenge, said Kaitlin Mattos, an assistant professor at Fort Lewis College in Colorado who worked on a 2020 report on water infrastructure in Alaska.

“Every bit of funding that is allocated is going to help some family, some household, which is wonderful,” she said. “Whether it’s enough to help every single household, I think, remains to be seen.”

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Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona. Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska.

Defense bill authorizes Catawba Nation to operate its casino near Charlotte


Danielle Battaglia
Thu, December 23, 2021, 4:00 AM·4 min read

A federal bill passed in Congress last week could settle a North Carolina land dispute between two Native American tribes and allow North Carolina’s newest casino to keep operating.

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the Catawba Nation both claim that 17 acres of land in Kings Mountain originally belonged to their tribe.

But last week, Congress gave the force of law to Catawba ownership of the land.

The decision came in the form of a provision found in the National Defense Authorization Act that passed Congress last week. The bill funded military operations, including making improvements to three bases in North Carolina. But on the 905th page of the NDAA, senators took a standalone bill addressing the land and moved it into the larger military spending bill to ensure it passed.

Giving the land to the Catawbas allows the tribe to build a casino in Kings Mountain.

The N.C. Family Policy Council, a nonprofit education and research foundation founded in 1991 with the stated aim of upholding Judeo-Christian values, is opposed to gambling. The nonprofit’s executive director John Rustin called the move “a dangerous precedent” in a news release published Wednesday, saying it is the first time Congress has passed a bill to create an off-reservation tribal casino.

Some off-reservation casinos do exist. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has said that for such a casino to operate, it must be within commuting distance of the reservation and the Secretary of the Interior must find that the casino would not be detrimental to the community and would benefit the tribe.

The bill is a strong win for the tribe but isn’t a deviation from where things currently stand. The U.S. Department of Interior announced last year that it found that the Catawba tribe stretched into six counties in North Carolina and placed the land in Cleveland County into a trust for the Catawbas.

That allowed the tribe to hold a soft opening for the Catawba Two Kings Casino in July with 500 machines in a trailer surrounded by excavated dirt just off an exit ramp in Kings Mountain. The casino was so successful the tribe expanded to 1,000 machines last week on the same day the NDAA passed Congress.

That put the tribe at odds again with the Cherokees who, until then, operated the only casinos in North Carolina. Harrah’s Cherokee Hotel and Casino boasts video gaming, table games and more than 1,000 slot machines.

So far, the Cherokee have not commented on the NDAA, but the tribe criticizes the Department of Interior’s decision in a statement on its website with attached documents to support its position that the land belongs to the Cherokee and court filings fighting for the land to be returned.

“This flawed decision is a plain example of ‘reservation shopping,’ the practice of casino developers pairing a willing Indian tribe with a city or county open to a casino and seeking to have the federal government create a new reservation outside the willing tribe’s aboriginal territory,” the statement reads. “Both Congress and Indian Country have repeatedly denounced the practice of reservation shopping and have repeatedly engaged the Department of the Interior to press for changes in the Department’s rules to limit these kinds of deals.”

Catawba Tribal Chief Bill Harris said in a news release this month that he believes the NDAA will have a large impact on the federal lawsuit filed by the Cherokee against the Department of Interior and Bureau of Indian Affairs. He thanked North Carolina’s U.S. senators, Thom Tillis and Richard Burr, for helping to make the law happen.

“The Catawba Indian Nation Lands Act reaffirms the U.S. Department of Interior’s action recognizing our historical and ancestral ties to North Carolina,” Harris said in a news release. “Congress, Interior and the State of North Carolina and a federal court have now all confirmed what the Catawba people said from the beginning – these lands are the ancestral homelands of the Catawba people and we intend to use them to improve life of all people in the community.”

The Catawbas estimate building the casino will create thousands of construction jobs and around 2,600 permanent jobs at the casino and boost the local economy.

“Make no mistake, this legislation means more people will have good paying jobs, more kids will have a better education and more people will have better housing and health care,” Harris said. “That’s what this bill really means.”

Every member of North Carolina’s delegation voted in favor of the NDAA, except for Rep. Dan Bishop, who took issue with some of the military requirements within the bill.

President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill.
Under the Dome

On The News & Observer's Under the Dome podcast, we’re unpacking legislation and issues that matter, keeping you updated on what’s happening in North Carolina politics twice a week on Monday and Friday mornings. Check us out here and sign up for our weekly Under the Dome newsletter for more political news.

MNI WISCONI WATER IS LIFE

CANADA

Courts approve settlement agreement to resolve class action litigation related to safe drinking water in First Nations communities

Canada NewsWire
Thu, December 23, 2021

OTTAWA, TRADITIONAL ALGONQUIN TERRITORY, ON, Dec. 23, 2021

This news release may cause an emotional response. If you require support, please call the toll-free Help for Wellness Line at 1-855-242-3310 or connect to the online chat at www.hopeforwellness.ca

OTTAWA, TRADITIONAL ALGONQUIN TERRITORY, ON, Dec. 23, 2021 /CNW/ - The Government of Canada is firmly committed to improving reliable access to safe drinking water in First Nations communities.

Yesterday, the Federal Court and the Court of Queen's Bench of Manitoba issued a joint decision approving an agreement to settle class-action litigation related to safe drinking water in First Nations communities. An appeals period of approximately 60 days will follow the courts' approval of the settlement agreement.

The parties welcome the courts' approval of their settlement agreement, and they look forward to implementing this historic settlement once the appeal period concludes.

The class actions are led by representative plaintiffs Tataskweyak Cree Nation, Curve Lake First Nation and Neskantaga First Nation.

The terms of the settlement agreement were previously announced on July 30, 2021, and include the following:


$1.5 billion in compensation for individuals deprived of clean drinking water


the creation of a $400 million First Nation Economic and Cultural Restoration Fund


a renewed commitment to Canada's Action Plan for the lifting of all long-term drinking water advisories


the creation of a First Nations Advisory Committee on Safe Drinking Water


support for First Nations to develop their own safe drinking water by-laws and initiatives


a commitment of at least $6 billion to support reliable access to safe drinking water on reserves


the planned modernization of Canada's First Nations drinking water legislation

The Government of Canada will continue to work with all First Nations, including Tataskweyak Cree Nation, Curve Lake First Nation and Neskantaga First Nation, to address water concerns. Together, we will develop sustainable, long-term solutions so that future generations do not have to worry about the safety of their drinking water.

Quick facts

Since 2016, the Government of Canada has committed over $5.2 billion to First Nations to build and repair water and wastewater infrastructure and support effective management and maintenance of water systems on reserves.

In November 2019, legal action was initiated against Canada in a proposed class action on behalf of all members of First Nations and members resident on reserves that had a drinking water advisory for at least one year since 1995.

In May 2020, Indigenous Services Canada consented to the Tataskweyak Cree Nation certification order, as well as the draft litigation plan.

On May 29, 2020, Neskantaga First Nation and Chief Christopher Moonias were added as plaintiffs.

In September 2020, Canada expressed their consent to certification of the Curve Lake First Nation–Neskantaga First Nation–Tataskweyak Cree Nation proposed class-action litigation.

On October 8, 2020, certification of the class action was granted by the court.

Associated link

The Government of Canada reaches an Agreement in Principle to resolve class-action litigation related to safe drinking water in First Nations communities - Canada.ca

SOURCE Indigenous Services Canada

 Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe known for helping Pilgrims will keep land after 'Trump tried to take it away'

Doug Fraser, Cape Cod Times
Thu, December 23, 2021

MASHPEE, Mass. — The U.S. Department of the Interior has reversed a Trump administration order that rescinded the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's right to 321 acres of reservation land that helped establish the tribe as a sovereign government.

The land had been held by the U.S. government for the sovereign use of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe since 2015, when the federal government declared hundreds of acres in Massachusetts the tribe's reservation.

If the Trump administration order had stood, about 170 acres of reservation land in Taunton, Mass., would have been earmarked for the building of a casino.

"I think it is important for people to understand that the land was still in trust. Trump tried to take it away, but this reaffirms that (it remains in trust)," said Brian Weeden, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council.

Brian Weeden has been elected tribal council chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. He said he wants to improve the tribe’s finances and increase transparency in how the tribe operates.

Just as the pandemic reached the U.S. in March 2020, then-Mashpee Wampanoag chairman Cedric Cromwell learned in a phone call that Trump's Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt had ordered the tribe's land taken out of trust and the reservation disestablished.

At the time, Cromwell said "we've been dropped off into a new world we've never seen before" and it felt like "direct, hard-core blow to dissolving and disestablishing the tribe."

The Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, which has inhabited Massachusetts and parts of Rhode Island for thousands of years, is known for supposedly helping English pilgrim settlers during the first year after their arrival at Plymouth, Mass., in 1620.

A series of state and federal court decisions on whether the land could be put into a trust and whether the Mashpee tribe qualified as a tribe placed the case back in the hands of the Interior Department for a decision.

The tribe gained a powerful ally when President Joe Biden appointee Rep. Deb Haaland became the first Native American to serve as interior secretary. She had worked alongside Rep. William Keating, D-Mass., during the Trump administration to help pass bills to protect Mashpee Wampanoag's reservation lands.

What really happened during the first Thanksgiving?

The language had gone quiet. She brought it back, saving far more than just words.
Avoided 'extinction of the Tribe of the First Light'

Keating said the decision Wednesday was historic in terms of avoiding what could have been "for all practical purposes, the extinction of the Tribe of the First Light, the tribe that dealt with the Pilgrims."

"This news is so welcome, so important and it strikes a blow for justice in a history marred by this country's treatment of Native Americans," Keating said. "A decision to the contrary would have perpetuated clearly what was a darker moment in our country's history."

Keating said that without the land the Mashpee tribe would also not be able to access funds from the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill recently signed by Biden.

"There are great opportunities for the tribe to pursue much needed infrastructure funding that would have been more difficult without this decision," Keating said.

Follow Doug Frase on Twitter: @DougFraserCCT.

Jessie Little Doe Baird poses in her Wampanoag regalia in her home in Mashpee, Massachusetts, on July 17, 2020. Baird is a linguist best known for her work to revive and teach the Wampanoag language through The Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Mashpee Wampanoag tribe can keep land Trump tried to take away

Rivian subcontractors to pay nearly $400,000 in back wages to Mexican laborers building Illinois production line following state investigation



Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune
Tue, December 21, 2021

Rivian subcontractors agreed to pay nearly $400,000 to resolve allegations they denied overtime wages to 54 Mexican laborers building a new production line at the EV startup’s plant in Normal, Illinois.

The Illinois attorney general’s office announced the settlements Tuesday following a joint investigation with the Illinois Department of Labor that revealed a “chain of subcontractors” employed an “elaborate arrangement” to allegedly avoid overtime pay to Mexicans working on visas at electric vehicle plants in the U.S., including the Rivian facility.

“Any company doing business in our state must follow laws that require workers to be fairly compensated for the hours they work,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a news release. “This settlement should send a message that employers cannot hide behind subcontractors to avoid responsibility for stolen wages.”

A Rivian spokeswoman did not return a request for comment Tuesday.

The investigation found that after Rivian hired Guangzhou Mino Equipment to build out its production line, the China-based company then subcontracted work to Spain-based IT8 Software Engineering, which then further subcontracted to Mexico-based LAM Automation to obtain much of the workforce for the job. The subcontractors helped laborers in Mexico obtain visas to do construction work at Rivian and other EV plants in the U.S., according to the attorney general’s office.

While LAM was responsible for issuing payments to the workers, Mino and IT8 “shared significant control” over the 54 workers at Rivian’s Normal plant, who typically worked between 60 and 80 hours per week, according to the attorney general’s office. Illinois law requires an overtime premium of 150% of regularly hourly wages above 40 hours worked in a week, which the LAM employees allegedly did not fully receive.

The workers started at the Rivian plant in late May, and the investigation was launched in early July after receiving a tip about potential overtime pay violations, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said Tuesday.

Under the settlements, Mino and IT8 agreed to pay $145,000 each in overtime wages and penalties to the 54 employees who worked at the Normal plant. In addition, LAM agreed to pay $100,000 to the workers. Illinois minimum wage law allows employees to recover up to triple the amount of damages for any underpayment of wages. The attorney general’s office said the settlements total 270% of the overtime wages the employees were entitled to receive.

Founded in 2009, Rivian is building an electric truck and SUV, as well as 100,000 custom EV delivery vans for Amazon, an investor in the company. California-based Rivian has nearly 3,900 employees working at its sole production facility, a former Mitsubushi plant in Normal, a college town about 130 miles south of Chicago.

The newly public company, which raised $13.7 billion through a massive initial public offering last month, launched production in September, and is struggling to keep up with demand for its $70,000 EV trucks. Rivian announced last week it is planning to build a second $5 billion assembly plant in Georgia.

NLRB to review order blocking Nissan plant small union vote


FILE - Workers at the Nissan plant in Smyrna, Tenn., walk by the latest model of the Altima sedan on May 15, 2012. A federal labor board is reviewing a decision by one of its regional officials to deny a union from trying to organize fewer than 100 employees at the Nissan assembly plant in Tennessee. A 3-2 decision Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021, by the National Labor Relations Board ordered a review of the June ruling that prevented a vote of 87 tool and die technicians at Nissan’s Smyrna plant.

AP Photo/Erik Schelzig, 

JONATHAN MATTISE
Wed, December 22, 2021


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal labor board is reviewing a decision by one of its regional officials to deny a union from trying to organize fewer than 100 of the thousands of employees at Nissan's auto assembly plant in Tennessee.

A 3-2 decision Tuesday by the National Labor Relations Board — now with a Democratic majority under President Joe Biden — ordered a review of the June ruling that prevented a vote limited to 87 tool and die technicians at Nissan’s Smyrna plant, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) outside Nashville.

The NLRB's new order says the decision by an acting regional director “raises substantial issues warranting review.”

The regional official ruled against the smaller bloc vote after finding the few dozen workers share an “overwhelming community of interest” with the rest of the facility’s production and maintenance workers, and that the only appropriate unionized group through the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers campaign would be one representing about 4,300 plantwide production and maintenance workers. The union did not want the larger vote and didn't pursue it.

Three Democratic NLRB members picked by President Joe Biden voted to review that ruling. Two Republican members selected by former President Donald Trump voted against it.

The decision restores some hope for unions in what had been the latest failed foray in the uphill fight to gain traction at foreign-owned auto assembly plants in the traditionally anti-union South.

The union has argued that the 87 employees sought for a bargaining unit have extremely specialized skills for a job that others at the plant cannot do and should be eligible for standalone representation.

“We are pleased to see the Board acknowledge the importance of this case, particularly within the scope of how employees choose to organize themselves under the NLRA," machinists union spokesperson DeLane Adams said. "Tool and Die Maintenance Technicians at Nissan Tennessee have fought hard for a union and deserve to have a voice on the job.”

Meanwhile, the company has contended that the employees are not sufficiently distinct from other plant workers to be eligible for their own small unionized subgroup.

“Nissan believes the Regional Director’s decision is supported by the evidence," Nissan spokesperson Lloryn Love-Carter said. "Nissan remains committed to all of our employees before, during, and after the NLRB’s process.”

Nissan does work with organized labor in the rest of the world, but votes to unionize broadly at the U.S. two plants have not been close. Workers in Smyrna rejected a plantwide union under the United Auto Workers in 2001 and 1989. The Japan-based automaker’s other U.S. assembly plant in Canton, Mississippi, rejected facilitywide representation by the UAW during a 2017 vote.

The margin was much closer in 2014 and 2019 votes at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where workers twice rejected a factorywide union under the UAW.

The year after the 2014 vote failed, a group of 160 Chattanooga maintenance workers won a vote to form a smaller union, but Volkswagen refused to bargain. The German automaker had argued the bargaining unit needed to include production workers as well. The dust-up led to the 2019 factorywide vote.

Unions also have run into opposition from Republican politicians when they attempt to organize at foreign automakers in the South, including in Tennessee.

Tennessee does have a big union presence at an American automaker: The General Motors plant in Spring Hill has about 3,000 production and skilled trades workers represented by UAW.

There's also an open question about whether workers will unionize at four sprawling new factories planned by Ford in Kentucky and Tennessee by 2025, with an aim of hiring nearly 11,000 workers. Three of the plants — two in Kentucky, one in Tennessee — will be built with Ford’s South Korean corporate partner, SK Innovation, to produce electric vehicle batteries. A fourth, in Tennessee, will make electric F-Series pickup trucks.

Amazon workers at two Chicago warehouses walk out to demand better treatment



Amanda Silberling
Wed, December 22, 2021

This morning, dozens of warehouse workers at two Amazon facilities near Chicago staged a pre-Christmas walkout during the busiest time of the year to demand better treatment and higher wages.

"We have been passed over for raises. We are being overworked, even when there is sufficient people to work here," a worker at the DLN2 facility in Cicero said on a livestream posted by the Amazonians United's Chicago chapter, which is not affiliated with Amazon. "We have not received the bonuses we were promised. There are people here who were hired as permanent workers, and then they took their badges away and made them temporary workers. They are staffing this place unsafely, making people work too fast, even though we don't have to."

These workers, who work between 1:20 AM and 11:50 AM, are also demanding a $5 per hour raise. Amazon told TechCrunch that the current starting pay is $15.80 per hour at the two facilities that staged walkouts, DLN2 in Cicero and DIL3 in Gage Park. The Amazonians United speaker also said that the facility used to have 20-minute breaks as a pandemic precaution, but these have been reduced to 15 minutes. However, the pandemic is not over, especially as the omicron variant spreads -- three workers tested positive for COVID yesterday at the Cicero facility, according to the speaker.

Before walking out, the workers presented management with a petition listing their demands, but they said they didn't receive a response, thus prompting the walkout.

The speaker also claimed that workers were told by management that whoever participates in the walkout "might as well leave their badges," meaning that they wouldn't be coming back. It's illegal to take action against the employees of private companies for staging a walkout. But employees reportedly returned after the strikes to find that their schedules were blank and they had been clocked out for the day, sparking concern about retaliation among walkout participants.

“We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so. We are proud to offer employees leading pay, competitive benefits, and the opportunity to grow with our company," an Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement.

The Amazon representative added that no workers are being fired or suspended due to their participation in the walkout. The company said that workers were repeatedly reassured that no retaliation would occur if they protested.

But across the country, Amazon workers have accused the company of trying to quash labor organizing. Last year, Amazonians United co-founder Jonathan Bailey filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), stating that the company violated labor laws by retaliating against him for organizing. He said he was detained and interrogated by a manager for 90 minutes after organizing a walkout. The NLRB found merit to these allegations and filed a federal complaint against Amazon. The company settled, and as part of the settlement agreement, was required to remind employees via emails and on physical bulletin boards that they have the right to organize.

Bailey's complaint to the NLRB was one of 37 against Amazon between February 2020 and March 2021, according to NBC News. But just months after this settlement, Amazon was found to have unlawfully prevented a Staten Island employee from distributing pro-union literature in the break room.

Labor board authorizes new Amazon union vote

Even corporate employees have filed complaints against Amazon with the NLRB. In September, the company settled a complaint from two former Seattle office employees, Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, who were terminated after advocating for warehouse workers at the onset of the pandemic. The settlement requires Amazon to compensate Costa and Cunningham for lost wages, and once again, notify employees of their right to speak out about issues at Amazon.

But in recent weeks, tensions have escalated further. On December 10 in Edwardsville, Illinois, six Amazon employees were killed when a tornado destroyed the DLI4 facility. For years, Amazon workers weren't allowed to carry cell phones on warehouse floors, but the company relaxed this policy during the pandemic. Recently though, Amazon began reinstating the policy. So, when the National Weather Service issued an emergency alert urging people to take shelter, some Amazon employees had no way of knowing that a lethal storm was on its way.

As Amazon workers in facilities across the country seek better compensation and conditions, the e-commerce giant is in the midst of its busiest time of the year.

"We will work hard to make sure that everyone gets their Christmas gifts, everyone gets their packages," a Chicago warehouse worker told FOX 32 Chicago. "But, you know, we just want to be treated fairly. That's all."

Amazon warehouse workers are walking out and Whole Foods workers are striking

Amazon workers in New York make another attempt at forming a union




Mariella Moon
·Associate Editor
Thu, December 23, 2021, 5:35 AM·2 min read

Former and current warehouse workers at JFK8, Amazon's fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York, have refiled an application to hold a vote on unionization. The workers originally filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board back in November, but they had to withdraw it after failing to gather enough signatures to be approved. This time, the organizers were reportedly able to gather over 2,500 worker signatures or half of the 5,000 people employed at the facility.

The workers are hoping to form the Amazon Labor Union, which will be an independent group that's not connected to any major national union. One of their lead organizers is Christian Smalls who led a walkout at JFK8 over the e-commerce giant's handling of COVID safety at the warehouse. Amazon fired Smalls after that, telling CNBC that he "received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines." Even so, Smalls is still very much involved in the facility's renewed efforts to unionize. In an email to The Washington Post, he referenced what happened at Amazon's Bessemer warehouse, saying that "long drawn-out voting processes are controlled by the bosses who use that period to lie to, intimidate and threaten the workers into voting no for the union."


Majority of the workers at the company's Bessemer, Alabama facility voted against unionization back in April. However, the election was fraught with controversy, with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) — the union the workers were supposed to join — accusing Amazon of interfering with the elections. One of the main issues they pointed out was that the company installed the ballot box in front of the warehouse and in view of security cameras, making workers feel as if their votes were being monitored. After looking into the RWDSU's complaint, the NLRB ordered Amazon to hold another vote.

Amazon has been adamantly opposed to its workers joining unions. When the people at JFK8 first filed a petition to unionize, the e-commerce giant told Engadget in a statement:

"As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees. Every day we empower people to find ways to improve their jobs, and when they do that we want to make those changes — quickly. That type of continuous improvement is harder to do quickly and nimbly with unions in the middle. The benefits of direct relationships between managers and employees can’t be overstated — these relationships allow every employee’s voice to be heard, not just the voices of a select few. We’ve made great progress in recent years and months in important areas like pay and safety. There are plenty of things that we can keep doing better, and that's our focus — to keep getting better every day."

The NLRB has confirmed to The Post that it received the group's petition and would be reviewing signatures over the coming days.

Amazon settles with NLRB to give workers power to unionize

 Dec. 23, 2021

Associated Press

In this March 30, 2021 file photo, a banner encouraging workers to vote in labor balloting is shown at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. AP/JAY REEVES

Under pressure to improve worker rights, Amazon has reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board to allow its employees to freely organize — and without retaliation.

According to the settlement, the online behemoth Amazon AMZN, +0.02% said it would reach out to its warehouse workers — former and current — via email who were on the job anytime from March 22 to now to notify them of their organizing rights.

The settlement outlines that Amazon workers, which number 750,000 in the U.S., have more room to organize within the buildings. For example, Amazon pledged it will not threaten workers with discipline or call the police when they are engaging in union activity in exterior non-work areas during non-work time.

According to the terms of the settlement, the labor board will be able to more easily sue Amazon— without going through a laborious process of administrative hearings — if it found that the online company reneged on its agreement.

“Whether a company has 10 employees or a million employees, it must abide by the National Labor Relations Act,” said NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a statement. “This settlement agreement provides a crucial commitment from Amazon to millions of its workers across the United States that it will not interfere with their right to act collectively to improve their workplace by forming a union or taking other collective action.”

She added that “working people should know that the National Labor Relations Board will vigorously seek to ensure Amazon’s compliance with the settlement and continue to defend the labor rights of all workers.”

Amazon.com Inc., based in Seattle, couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.

This year, Amazon has faced organizing efforts at warehouses in Alabama and New York.

In November, the labor board ordered a new union election for Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, based on objections to the first vote that took place in April.

The move was a blow to Amazon, which spent about a year aggressively campaigning for warehouse workers in Bessemer to reject the union, which they ultimately did by a wide margin. The board had not yet determined the date for the second election and it hasn’t determined whether it will be conducted in person or by mail.

The campaign is being spearheaded by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store union.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Amazon Labor Union, an independent group representing workers in New York’s Staten Island borough, refiled its petition for a union election. The group of workers withdrew its first petition in mid-November to hold a vote to unionize after falling behind the adequate number of workers pledging support.

The organizing drive is also happening during a moment of reckoning across Corporate America as the pandemic and ensuing labor shortage has given employees more leverage to fight for better working conditions and pay. Workers have staged strikes at Kellogg’s U.S. cereal plants as well as at Deere & Co., and at Starbucks to name a few.

Amazon will email 1 million employees to inform them of their right to organize as part of a new settlement with the NLRB

Mary Meisenzahl
Thu, December 23, 2021

Scott Olson/Getty Images


Amazon reached a settlement with the NLRB this week.


It agreed to email current and past warehouse workers about their organizing rights.


Amazon continues to face union challenges in some warehouses.

Amazon has to email all current and former warehouse workers information about their rights as part of a new agreement with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) The New York Times reported.

The emails are one stipulation in a settlement between Amazon and the government organization that would make it easier for warehouse workers to organize. They will go out to approximately 1 million workers.

The retail giant has been involved in several labor fights recently. There have been more than 75 charges brought to the NLRB accusing Amazon of unfair labor practices since the onset of the pandemic, per the NLRB database. Last month, the agency ordered a union election at an Alabama warehouse be re-held after Amazon's illegal interference made a "free and fair election impossible."

The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) just filed a petition on Wednesday to hold an election at Amazon's Staten Island JFK8 warehouse. The group's petition had 2,500 signatures from the more than 5,000 workers at the warehouse, organizers said.

Worker demands include a return of pandemic policies.

"In light of the increasing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Omicron variant, we are demanding the return of hazard pay and unlimited unpaid time off," The ALU's letter to the site leader read. Amazon previously instituted a $2 per hour pay increase at the beginning of the pandemic, which it eliminated in June 2020. The unlimited time off policy ended in April 2020.

"Our focus remains on listening directly to our employees and continuously improving on their behalf," an Amazon spokesperson previously told Insider. Amazon did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

An Amazon worker says the company has shortened employee breaks because the pandemic is 'supposedly' over even though new cases continue to pop up

Huileng Tan
Wed, December 22, 2021


Dozens of workers walked off their jobs at two Amazon facilities in the Chicago area.


They are demanding higher wages and longer break times.


Amazon has been scrutinized over labor and workplace safety issues this year.

Amazon warehouse employees at two facilities in the Chicago area have walked off their jobs just days ahead of last-minute Christmas deliveries.

The workers were demanding higher wages and longer break times, according to a video from Amazonians United Chicagoland — a group representing local Amazon workers — posted to Facebook. Dozens of employees participated in the walkouts at Amazon's delivery centers in Gage Park and Cicero on Wednesday, according to the Chicago Tribune.

"We're here demanding a $5 increase for our wages, and as well, a return to the 20-minute breaks that we had during the pandemic," said a worker in a video posted on the Facebook page.

He added that the company had cut five minutes from their break time as the pandemic's "supposedly" over — "yet we got three cases yesterday."

According to Amazon, starting wages at the two facilities are around $16 an hour. The company also said it would not retaliate against employees who joined in the walkout.

"We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so," Amazon spokesman Richard Rocha told Insider. "We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so. We are proud to offer employees leading pay, competitive benefits, and the opportunity to grow with our company."

The e-commerce giant has been under scrutiny for labor and workplace safety issues this year.

Last month, six people died when Amazon warehouse in Illinois collapsed was hit by a tornado. Employees told Insider tornado drills were rarely held in the hit warehouse. A driver also said he was told to continue delivering packages even though there were tornado warnings in the area, Bloomberg reported.

Issues with the company's payroll system have also caused employees on leave to be systematically underpaid, The New York Times reported in October.

Calls mount for changes at Amazon after tornado, but no one commits to IL code revisions

Kelsey Landis, Mike Koziatek
Thu, December 23, 2021

More elected officials on Wednesday called for a review of safety policies at Amazon’s warehouses following a deadly tornado earlier this month, but none have yet committed to leading an investigation into possible building code revisions.

Democratic U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, along with 13 U.S. representatives from Illinois, sent a letter Wednesday to the president and CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, urging him to “develop and implement a stronger emergency action plan at Amazon warehouses.”

Six people died on Dec. 10 in the tornado that hit the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville.


It isn’t the first time a tornado has caused deaths in similarly constructed building, said Larry Tanner, an architectural engineer who worked at Texas Tech University for 20 years testing shelters. For instance, eight people died in a Joplin, Missouri, Home Depot in 2011, Tanner said.

“They all fail similarly in that the winds are sufficient enough from 130 mph to lift up the roof decking, the steel decking, and when you lift those up, you start a chain of failures,” Tanner said. “That same set of dominoes has occurred forever in these storms. The taller the building, the longer the spans, the greater catastrophe.”

“That’s not to say the buildings aren’t built properly. They are built to code,” he added. “You really can’t prevent these buildings from failing under high winds, but what you can do is you can protect the people that are inside the buildings.”

In Edwardsville, the EF-3 tornado hit estimated peak winds of 150 mph, and toppled about 150 yards of roof and concrete walls at the warehouse on Gateway Commerce Drive.

Duckworth and Durbin welcomed an investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, but that investigation will not examine the construction of the structure or whether it met building codes or whether those codes should change, according to an OSHA spokesman.

An Amazon spokeswoman has said the warehouse was built to code.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at a news conference held near the warehouses last week that, even if the buildings were up to current standards, codes may need to be updated because of increasingly unstable weather patterns due to climate change.

“It makes us wonder, to say, there are legislators here too, about whether or not we need to change code based upon the climate change that we’re seeing all around us,” Pritzker said in the news conference on Dec. 13. “Suffice to say that’s something we’re deeply concerned about.”

Yet neither Pritzker nor any local elected officials have said they will lead the charge in going beyond whether existing code was followed and investigating how it might be changed.

A spokeswoman for Pritzker has not returned multiple requests for comment since Dec. 15. Edwardsville Mayor Art Risavy could not be reached for comment on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The warehouse’s construction came into question after Amazon officials said the six people who died were not in the building’s shelter in place area. The Edwardsville facility measured 1.1 million square feet, said Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel at a Dec. 13 news conference in nearby Pontoon Beach.

“By the time the (tornado) warning came through, it was a matter of minutes. It moved very quickly,” Nantel said.

Thirty-nine people were in the shelter area on the north side of the building, while the six people who died and a seventh person who was injured were on the south side where there was no shelter, said Amazon senior vice president of global delivery services John Felton at the same news conference. It’s not clear why the workers didn’t make it to the shelter area.

The north and south ends are constructed the same. The shelter area is safer during a tornado because there are no windows there, Nantel said.

State Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, urged OSHA to do an audit of building codes. But after OSHA said it doesn’t review building codes, a representative from Stuart’s office said the “important thing” is to “determine if it provides for adequate protection and safety in buildings such as these warehouses during natural disasters.”

Stuart did not return multiple requests for comment on who would be making those determinations.

A representative from Amazon could not be reached for comment on Wednesday regarding the senators’ letter but last week Nantel said the company welcomed all investigators reviewing what happened.

“Obviously we want to go back and look at every aspect of this. There’s always going to be tremendous learning after any type of catastrophic event like this,” Nantel said at the Dec. 13 news conference. “We want to make sure our policies, our practices are consistent with any learnings that we have from this event.”

State Sen. Chris Belt, D-Swansea, said building codes “should be looked into,” but said he hasn’t started an investigation into how codes could be improved. Other metro-east officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Pritzker said at the Dec. 13 news conference he was still focused on recovery but pledged to look at possibilities for revising code.

“We will work on it together, again, to examine what happened here, the effects of the tornado on the building, the architect’s design, the engineer’s design and so on.”
How could codes be changed?

Tanner, the architectural engineer, said it’s relatively easy to construct tornado shelters in warehouses, though he hasn’t heard of any building codes to require them.

In 2015, the International Building Code — a minimum set of building standards followed by most municipalities in the U.S. — updated its recommendations for buildings such as schools where a tornado poses a high risk for loss of life, Tanner said. He worked with school districts to update buildings and make them safer by including shelters in gymnasiums, locker rooms, classrooms and other locations.

“It costs more per square foot, but it’s well worth it,” Tanner said.

Warehouses could be constructed so interior walls are shorter than the exterior walls, making them less likely to collapse. Locker rooms, break rooms or restrooms could be built with reinforced concrete blocks.

Those are things lawmakers could mandate through legislation, he said. Illinois has done it for schools, for instance.

“For those kinds of companies, it’s really a drop in the bucket. It’s really not all that expensive,” Tanner said. “It’s so logical and all these big companies with these big warehouses, they have big bucks, they have big dollars. They have much deeper pockets than school districts, that’s for sure.”

Reporter DeAsia Paige contributed to this report.


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