Amnesty Welcomes Release of Uncharged Guantánamo Detainee, Urges Biden to Free Others


"President Biden must transfer these men before he leaves office, or he will continue to bear responsibility for the abhorrent practice of indefinite detention without charge or trial by the U.S. government."


Demonstrators at a January 12, 2018 Amnesty International protest outside the White House in Washington, D.C. call for the closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
(Photo: Safvan Allahverdi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Dec 17, 2024
COMMON DREAMS
Human rights defenders led by Amnesty International on Tuesday welcomed the Pentagon's announcement that a Kenyan man imprisoned in the notorious Guantánamo Bay military prison in Cuba for nearly 18 years without charge or trial has been released and repatriated to Kenya, while imploring U.S. President Joe Biden to transfer other uncharged Gitmo inmates before leaving office next month.

"We welcome the news that Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu, who has been indefinitely detained without charge at Guantánamo for more than 17 years, is finally being transferred out of the prison," Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security With Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA, said in a statement. "The U.S. government now has an obligation to ensure that the government of Kenya will respect and protect his human rights."




Twenty-nine men now remain imprisoned at Guantánamo, which became a symbol of deadly torture, extraordinary rendition, illegal indefinite detention, and an allegedly "rigged" military commissions regime during the so-called War on Terror launched after 9/11 by the George W. Bush administration and ongoing to this day.


"Transferring Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu is certainly a move in the right direction, but it isn't enough," Eviatar stressed. "We hope to see more transfers in the coming days. Fifteen men remain who have never been charged with any crimes and have long been cleared by U.S. security agencies to leave Guantánamo, some for more than a decade. As a matter of justice, they should be transferred as soon as possible."

"President Biden must transfer these men before he leaves office, or he will continue to bear responsibility for the abhorrent practice of indefinite detention without charge or trial by the U.S. government," Eviatar added. "It has been 23 years; President Biden can, and must, put an end to this now."

Sanders Rips Lawmakers Saying 'We Don't Have the Money' While Backing $900 Billion for Military

"I think it's time to tell the military-industrial complex they cannot get everything they want," said Sen. Bernie Sanders. "It's time to pay attention to the needs of working families."


U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on November 19, 2024 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Dec 17, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday derided those of his colleagues who claim it's too expensive for the federal government to take ambitious action on national crises in housing and healthcare while simultaneously supporting a military budget that's approaching $1 trillion a year.

"I find it amusing that any time we come to the floor and members point out that we have a housing crisis, that we have some 600 million Americans who are homeless, that we have millions and millions of people in this country spending 40, 50, 60% of their limited incomes on housing and that we need to invest in low-income and affordable housing, what I hear is, 'We don't have the money,'" Sanders (I-Vt.) said on the floor of the Senate.

"When we talk about increasing Social Security benefits, well, 'we just can't afford to do that. We just can't afford to expand Medicare to cover dental, hearing, or vision. We just cannot afford to make higher education in America affordable.' That's what I hear every single day. When there's an effort to improve life for the working class of this country, I hear, 'No, no, no, we can't afford it.' But when it comes to the military-industrial complex and their needs, what we hear is 'yes, yes, yes' with almost no debate."

Watch Sanders' full remarks:




Sanders' floor speech came shortly before the Senate—in an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 83-12—advanced the $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025. Sanders was among the dozen senators who voted no.

The legislation, which would authorize roughly $850 billion for the Pentagon despite its inability to pass an audit, is expected to pass the Senate as early as Wednesday.

Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has openly celebrated the federal government's prioritization of military spending over social programs, wrote for Foreign Affairs ahead of Monday's vote that the roughly $900 billion the U.S. spends annually on its military is "not nearly enough" and urged the incoming Trump administration to "commit to a significant and sustained increase in defense spending."

According to the National Priorities Project, militarized funding such as the Pentagon budget, foreign military aid, and nuclear weapons programs already account for close to two-thirds of all federal discretionary spending, resulting in "consistent under-investment in human needs."

In his floor speech on Monday, Sanders said that "when it comes to the needs of the military-industrial complex and their lobbyists and that industry which makes millions in campaign contributions, we give them what they want, despite the overwhelming evidence of waste and fraud."

"I think it's time to tell the military-industrial complex they cannot get everything they want," the senator added. "It's time to pay attention to the needs of working families."

HERE IT COMES AGAIN

'Calculated Cruelty': Report Details Lasting Harms of Trump Family Separation Policy

Up to 1,360 children who were separated from their parents under the Trump administration have not been reunited six years later, according to the new report from a trio of human rights groups.


Family members embrace after a six-year-old boy who was separated from his mother returned from the United States on August 8, 2018 near San Marcos, Guatemala.
(Photo: John Moore/Getty Images)



Jake Johnson
Dec 16, 2024

COMMON DREAMS

A report published Monday by a coalition of human rights groups estimates that as many as 1,360 children who were separated from their parents under the first Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy have yet to be reunited, causing immense suffering for families ensnared in the punitive effort to deter border crossings.

The 135-page report was produced by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), and the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, and it comes as immigrant rights advocates brace for President-elect Donald Trump's return to power alongside officials who helped develop and implement the large-scale family separations.

"Forcible separation of children from their families inflicted harms that were severe and foreseeable," states the report, which examines public and internal government documents, materials from legal proceedings, and the findings of government investigations and features interviews with parents and children who were forcibly separated by the Trump administration.

"Once parents realized they would not be immediately reunited with their children, they were distraught," the report continues. "Some children sobbed uncontrollably. Many felt abandoned. Nearly all were bewildered, not least because immigration officials would not tell them where their parents were or gave responses that proved to be lies."

The groups estimate that the first Trump administration separated more than 4,600 children from their families during its four years in power, and nearly 30% of the children are unaccounted for and "may remain separated from their parents."

"A government should never target children to send a message to parents."

While family separations predated Trump's first term and have continued under President Joe Biden, experts argue the Trump administration's policy was uniquely expansive and cruel. The groups behind the new report said the Trump administration's family separation efforts "constituted enforced disappearance and may have constituted torture."

"We need to take away children," Jeff Sessions, then Trump's attorney general, reportedly said during a May 2018 call with five federal prosecutors, the report observes, citing handwritten notes from one of the prosecutors.

Michael Garcia Bochenek, senior children's rights counsel at HRW and an author of the new report, said in a statement Monday that "it's chilling to see, in document after document, the calculated cruelty that went into the forcible family separation policy."

"A government should never target children to send a message to parents," Bochenek added.

The separations traumatized both parents and children, according to the report.

"Migrant children who have been forcibly separated from their parents demonstrate greater emotional and behavioral difficulties than children who have never been separated," the report notes. "Parents repeatedly told Al Otro Lado, a legal services organization based in Tijuana, that forced separation from their children was 'the worst thing they had ever experienced' and reported 'continued disturbances in sleep, nightmares, loss of appetite, loss of interest, fear for the future, constant worry, hopelessness, and loss of the ability to concentrate.'"

"In May 2018," the report adds, "a man killed himself after [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] agents forcibly separated him from his children."

HRW, TCRP, and the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic called on Congress and the Biden administration to "put in place comprehensive measures to remedy the wrongs these families suffered" and urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—soon to be led by far-right South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem—to "adopt standards that presumptively keep families together, separating them only when in a child's best interest."

Trump campaigned during the 2024 election on a pledge to launch the "largest domestic deportation operation in American history," and he said during an interview aired last week that "we don't have to separate families."

"We'll send the whole family, very humanely, back to the country where they came," Trump said, suggesting he'll also deport children who are U.S. citizens.

When pressed on whether he intends to revive the "zero tolerance" policy, Trump said, "We need deterrence."

"When somebody comes here illegally, they're going out. It's very simple," he added. "Now if they come here illegally but their family is here legally, then the family has a choice. The person that came in illegally can go out, or they can all go out together."

The ACLU, which has represented separated families in court, has pledged to take swift legal action if the incoming Trump administration brings back "zero tolerance."

"I am hopeful that the Trump administration recognized the outpouring from the American public and the worldwide revulsion to ripping little children away from their parents and will not try to separate families again," ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt toldTIME magazine last month. "But if it does we will be back in court immediately."

More Than 120 House Democrats Call On Biden to Ratify ERA

"Solidifying your legacy on equal rights with a final action on the ERA would be a defining moment for the historic Biden-Harris administration and your presidency," said the lawmakers.

U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) are seen as a news conference on November 13, 2023 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Dec 16, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

With weeks to go until President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office with a Republican trifecta in the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, more that 120 Democratic lawmakers on Sunday called on President Joe Biden to take a crucial step toward protecting millions of Americans from Trump's far-right MAGA agenda by ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment.

The ERA was passed by Congress in 1972, and met the requirement for it to be ratified by three-fourths of U.S. states in 2020, when Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the amendment.

Yet during his first term, Trump and the Republican party blocked the implementation of the ERA, claiming that since nearly 50 years passed in between the amendment's passage and the meeting of the ratification requirement, the threshold was not achieved by the deadline set by Congress.

"No Republican would care about" the deadline, said journalist Emma Vigeland, "if roles were reversed."





Citing the U.S. Code, Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus for the Equal Rights Amendment—led their colleagues in telling Biden that the national Archivist, Colleen Shogan, is required to certify an amendment "when the National Archives and Records Administration receives official notice that a proposed amendment to the Constitution has been approved by enough states."

All Biden has to do to ratify the amendment, which would explicitly outlaw sex and gender discrimination, is direct Shogan to publish the ERA, said the lawmakers.

"Solidifying your legacy on equal rights with a final action on the ERA would be a defining moment for the historic Biden-Harris administration and your presidency," wrote the representatives, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.), and James McGovern (D-Mass.).

Earlier this month, 46 U.S. senators joined the call for Biden to ratify the ERA.


As Trump has bragged about his hand in the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade and Republicans have advocated for a national abortion ban, reproductive right advocates have said that after being officially added to the U.S. Constitution, the ERA could be invoked by judges to overturn anti-abortion laws.


In Utah, a state-level ERA was invoked in September to place an abortion ban on hold.

"A constitutional guarantee against sex discrimination would strengthen the protection of reproductive rights, ensuring that people have the right to make decisions about their own bodies without political interference or unequal treatment," wrote the lawmakers.

The signatories noted that portions of the Civil Rights Act and Education Amendments protect people from government-based sex discrimination, but gender equality is still "vulnerable to changes in the political landscape, judicial interpretations, and shifts in public opinion" because the Constitution does not explicitly protect it.

"By adding the ERA to the Constitution, it would establish an unambiguous guarantee that sex-based discrimination is unconstitutional," wrote the lawmakers. "The ERA would help eliminate gender-based pay gaps, improve workplace protections, and ensure that gender biases no longer affect hiring, promotions, or job security. With the ERA enshrined in the Constitution, people who experience sex-based discrimination would have a clearer legal path to challenge discriminatory laws or policies. California's state ERA did just that, securing protections for women in the workforce and ensuring equal treatment in education and healthcare."

By directing Shogan to ratify and publish the ERA, they added, Biden would be throwing his unequivocal support behind an amendment supported by 78% of Americans, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center poll.

Biden said on August 26, Women's Equality Day, that he has "long supported the ERA" and called on Congress "to act swiftly to recognize ratification of the ERA and affirm the fundamental truth that all Americans should have equal rights and protections under the law."

But by simply "directing the archivist to publish the ERA," said the lawmakers, Biden would "leave an indelible mark on the history of
this nation, demonstrating once again that your legacy is one of expanding rights, protecting freedoms, and securing a more inclusive future for all Americans. We urge you to take this final, transformative step toward ensuring the full promise of equality for every person in the United States."

Senators Urge Biden to Grant Palestinians Special Status to Avoid Deportation

The group says a Temporary Protected Status designation would give Palestinians the “strongest possible protection.”

By Sharon Zhang ,

Truthout

December 17, 2024

Sen. Bernie Sanders, joined by fellow senators Sen. Jeff Merkley (center) and Sen. Peter Welch, speaks at a news conference on restricting arms sales to Israel at the U.S. Capitol on November 19, 2024, in Washington, D.C.Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images

Agroup of senators is urging President Joe Biden to designate the occupied Palestinian territories for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in order to grant Palestinians in the U.S. the “strongest possible protection” against moves like deportation.

In a letter effort led by Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vermont), the senators say that neither Gaza nor the occupied West Bank are safe for Palestinians to return to, making the need for the TPS designation clear.

“Congress established TPS to allow noncitizens who are unable to return home safely to remain in the United States for a temporary, but extendable, period. The ongoing conflict in Gaza and the West Bank is precisely the kind of crisis Congress envisioned when crafting TPS,” the lawmakers wrote.

The letter was signed by eight senators, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont).

In February, the Biden administration issued an 18-month Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) program for Palestinians that, similarly to TPS, allows people from certain places to remain in the U.S. and apply for employment. The administration granted the status after over 100 members of Congress and a number of rights groups wrote to Biden asking for TPS or DED for Palestinians in November 2023.

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However, the senators note that DED may not be enough to protect Palestinians amid Israel’s genocide of Gaza and escalated attacks in the occupied West Bank.

“DED may be insufficient in this instance. It derives from a president’s constitutional authority to conduct foreign affairs and thus does not offer the strongest possible protection for this vulnerable population. TPS, on the other hand, is firmly rooted in statute and therefore more durable,” the senators explain. “It can and should be applied here to protect Palestinians present in the United States.”

The Biden administration has previously acknowledged that TPS grants stronger protections. In October, Biden granted TPS to Lebanon, despite having already granted DED to people from Lebanon in July. As immigration experts have explained, it is harder for presidents to take away TPS benefits than DED protections, while TPS also allows people who have recently reached the U.S. to receive protections.

Incoming president Donald Trump has previously threatened to implement inhumane, fascist immigration policies regarding Palestinians, including bringing back his travel ban and extending it to Gaza. He has pledged to deport supposed “pro-Hamas radicals” — meaning anyone who supports Palestinian rights, regardless of whether or not they actually support Hamas.

Republicans have also been gearing up for a huge deportation campaign. Trump has promised to revoke TPS for a number of countries, some of which have been in place for decades; Trump had tried to revoke TPS for people from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan during his first term, but the effort was temporarily blocked in the courts after rights groups sued.

Palestinian Families Sue US for Sending Israel Arms Despite “Gross Violations”

The U.S. “has irresponsibly embraced, ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,’” toward Israel, the lawsuit says.

By Sharon Zhang , 

Truthout

December 17, 2024

Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on December 7, 2024.Majdi Fathi / NurPhoto via Getty Images


As we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation, your support is urgently needed. Please make a year-end gift to Truthout today.

Agroup of Palestinians in Palestine and the U.S. have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, accusing officials of breaking domestic law by continuing to send Israel weapons despite numerous “gross violations” of human rights in the past year in Gaza and for decades beforehand.

The lawsuit was filed by five Palestinians who have lost family or face threats due to the U.S.’s weapons transfers to Israel. The lead plaintiff, under pseudonym Amal Gaza, is a teacher in Gaza who has lost 20 of her family members in the genocide and has been forcibly displaced by Israel seven times since October 2023.

Also among the plaintiffs is the executive director of Al-Haq, a West Bank human rights group, and Palestinian Americans who have lost numerous family members or risk losing family due to the U.S.-funded genocide in Gaza.

The lawsuit says that the plaintiffs’ fear over the threats to their families would be diminished if the U.S. adhered to the Leahy Law, which prohibits the U.S. from sending assistance to foreign military units credibly accused of human rights violations.

“The State Department’s calculated failure to apply the Leahy Law is particularly shocking in the face of the unprecedented escalation of Israeli [gross violations of human rights] since the Gaza War erupted on October 7, 2023,” the lawsuit says.

It goes on to list numerous allegations of human rights violations from sources like the International Court of Justice and UN experts, saying, “Despite this overwhelming record of [gross violations of human rights] committed by Israel’s security forces, the State Department has irresponsibly embraced, ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,’ in contempt of the Leahy Law.”

“If the State Department had done its job and sanctioned U.S.-funded Israeli military units for arbitrarily detaining Palestinians for years without evidence or charge based on secret evidence, including myself, it could have prevented my suffering in prison and deprivation of liberty,” said Shawan Jabarin, the head of Al-Haq. Israeli forces have imprisoned Jabarin on no charges for six years and continue to restrict his movements.

“Instead, I continue to live in fear of imminent harm by abusive, U.S.-funded Israeli units who know that they can get away with anything because the State Department will ignore the U.S. law prohibiting aid to them,” Jabarin said.

The lawsuit is backed and advised by numerous former State Department and other U.S. government officials, including former Leahy Law vetter Josh Paul and Tim Rieser, a former foreign policy adviser for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), after whom the legislation is named, who helped draft the legislation.

“Despite years of credible reports of gross violations of human rights by Israeli defense and police units, including in the State Department’s own annual Human Rights Reports, as far as we are aware not a single unit has been denied U.S. aid under the Leahy Law,” said Rieser. “[The senator] repeatedly made the point that the Leahy Law applies equally to all countries that receive U.S.aid. While the State Department claims that to be the case, the facts show otherwise.”

It’s also backed by U.S.-based human rights group DAWN, which notes that, if the Leahy Law were implemented, “most, if not all, of Israeli security force units would be found ineligible for U.S. military assistance in light of the vast scale of Israeli security force abuses,” especially in Gaza.

The lawsuit highlights how the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum (ILVF), as experts have said, is not designed to determine whether or not Israeli units are eligible to receive assistance under U.S. law, but rather to give the Israeli military a pass no matter the violations they allegedly commit.

“The ILVF operates under a unique, complex, lengthy, high-level Leahy vetting process that is arbitrary and capricious, and is not rationally related to advancing the purpose of the Leahy Law,” the lawsuit says, pointing out that the ILVF has never once deemed a unit ineligible for assistance. “On the contrary, the ILVF appears designed to frustrate the 2019 Leahy Amendment, and avoid designating any Israeli unit ineligible for military assistance.”

Advocates have long said that the U.S. is violating not just the Leahy Law, but also numerous other domestic and international laws regarding foreign military aid in sending Israel arms. Recently, Amnesty International found that Israel is indeed committing genocide, meaning that ending arms shipments to Israel would be acting in accordance with international law.

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'Tired of Amazon's Lies,' California Teamsters Join Strike Threat

"Amazon is responsible for our low pay and unsafe working conditions," said a driver at the City of Industry facility.


Freight semi-trailers are docked at the Amazon warehouse in Palmdale, California, on July 25, 2023.
(Photo: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Dec 17, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

Amazon faces a growing threat of a major walkout in the United States, with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announcing Tuesday that workers at four of the online retail giant's Southern California facilities have "overwhelmingly" voted to authorize strikes, joining employees at sites in Illinois and New York City.

The announcement for DFX4, DAX5, KSBD, and DAX8 in California came after authorizations at the Amazon delivery station DIL7 in Skokie, Illinois on Monday as well as the Staten Island warehouse JFK8 and the DBK4 delivery station in Queens on Friday. Workers at all seven sites want Amazon to recognize their union and negotiate wages, benefits, and working conditions.

"It's past time that we fight for the pay and benefits we deserve," Raymond Scarborough, a driver at DFX4 in Victorville, said in a Tuesday statement. "Amazon isn't going to bully us out of demanding our rights."

Fellow driver Alexis Ayala, who is based at DAX5 in the City of Industry, declared that "we're tired of Amazon's lies."

"Amazon is responsible for our low pay and unsafe working conditions," Ayala continued. "My co-workers and I are ready to stand with our brothers and sisters around the country and fight back against this abusive company."

Following the NYC votes, the Teamsters gave Amazon until Sunday to start talks. The union said Tuesday that "after ignoring a December 15 deadline from the Teamsters to come to the bargaining table, Amazon now faces potential large-scale labor actions at a critical time of year when the company should be putting workers and customers ahead of corporate profits."

Tobias Cheng, a worker at the KSBD air hub in San Bernardino, also highlighted the anticipated impact of a holiday season strike.

"We know how important our air hub is to Amazon's operations," Cheng said. "If Amazon forces a strike, it might have a serious impact on customers throughout the region and beyond."




Increasing pressure on Amazon to improve conditions, U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday published a report detailing how, as he put it, "executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries at its warehouses."

While Amazon—which was founded by Jeff Bezos, the second-richest man on Earth—released a lengthy statement decrying the report as "misleading," Teamsters leaders and unionized workers have echoed its conclusions in recent days.

"The corporate elitists who run Amazon are leaving workers with no choice," Teamsters general president Sean O'Brien said of the looming strikes on Tuesday. "Greedy executives are pushing thousands of hardworking Americans to the brink."

"Amazon rakes in more money than anybody, they subject workers to injury and abuse at every turn, and they illegally claim not to be the rightful employer of nearly half their workforce," he asserted. "This rigged system cannot continue. Amazon must be held accountable to workers and consumers alike. If workers are forced onto the picket line, Amazon will be striking itself."

Riley Holzworth, a worker at DIL7, similarly noted Monday that "Amazon is one of the biggest companies on Earth, but we are struggling to pay our bills."

"Other workers are seeing our example and joining our movement," Holzworth added, "because we are only going to get the treatment we deserve if we fight for it."

Sanders-Led Investigation Finds Amazon 'Manipulates' Workplace Injury Data

"Amazon's executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries at its warehouses," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.


Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) arrives for a Senate hearing on September 24, 2024 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Eloise Goldsmith
Dec 16, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

The online retailer Amazon repeatedly ignored or rejected worker safety measures that were recommended internally—and even misleadingly presents worker injury data so that its warehouses seem safer than they actually are, according to report from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions that was unveiled on Sunday.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is chairman of the HELP Committee, called the revelations in the report "beyond unacceptable."

"Amazon's executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries at its warehouses. This is precisely the type of outrageous corporate greed that the American people are sick and tired of," added Sanders, who has scrutinized Amazon's safety record in the past.

According to the report, Amazon's warehouses are "far more dangerous" than competitors' or the warehousing industry in general. The committee found that in comparison with the industry as a whole, Amazon warehouses tallied 31% more injuries than the average warehouse in 2023, when comparing Amazon's reported data and industry averages calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What's more, the company's injury rate is nearly double the average injury rate for all non-Amazon warehouses stretching back to 2017, according to the report.

This runs counter to how Amazon frames their injury rates in public statements. For one, according to the report, the company touts a 30% decline in injury rates since 2019, but that year saw a spike in injuries compared to the two years prior, meaning that the comparison is misleading. In fact, the injury rate for 2020 and 2023 were essentially the same, 6.59 and 6.54, respectively.

The report also alleges the company manipulates injury data by repeatedly comparing injury numbers stemming from Amazon warehouses of all sizes to the industry average for just large warehouses, a category that includes warehouses with 1,000 employees or more and tend to have a higher injury rate. Only 40% of Amazon's warehouses fall in this category, making the comparison a "false equivalence," the report states.

The report, which was based on an investigation that began in 2023 and included interviews with over 130 Amazon workers, also concluded that the company does in practice impose productivity quotas on workers—even though Amazon claims publicly that it does not—and this drive toward productivity and speed contributes to the company's unsafe working environment.

"Most workers who spoke to the Committee had experienced at least one injury during their time at the company; those injuries ranged from herniated disks and torn rotator cuffs, to sprained ankles and sharp, shooting muscle pains.Workers also reported torn meniscuses, concussions, back injuries, and other serious conditions," according to the report.

Amazon itself is aware of the connection between speed and worker safety, but "refuses to implement injury-reducing changes because of concerns those changes might reduce productivity," the report argues.

For example, four years ago the company launched an initiative called "Project Soteria," which found evidence of a link between speed and injuries and made a recommendations based on this link—but Amazon did not implement changes in response to the findings, per the report.

Later, in 2021, another team called "Project Elderwand" calculated the maximum number of times workers who have a specific role can repeat a set of physical tasks before increasing their risk of injury. That team developed a method to make sure that workers do not exceed that number, but upon learning how much this would impact the "customer experience," the company decided not to implement the change, the report states.

"My first day was the day [the facility] opened. People of all ages were there. Most were like me, though—young and healthy. Within weeks everyone is developing knee and back pain," said one former Amazon worker, who was quoted anonymously in the report.

In a public statement released Monday, Amazon rejected the HELP Committee's findings, writing that the premise of the report is "fundamentally flawed" and, in response to the report's section on injury rates, "we benchmark ourselves against similar employers because it's the most effective way to know where we stand."

The company also calls the Project Soteria paper "analytically unsound" (the report details that Amazon audited the initial findings of Project Soteria, and a second team hypothesized that "worker injuries were actually the result of workers' 'frailty'") and says that Project Elderwand is merely proof that the company regularly looks at its safety processes to "ensure they're as strong as they can be."

"As we have publicly disclosed and discussed with committee members during this investigation, we've made, and continue to make, meaningful progress on safety across our network," according to the statement.

Amazon's record on worker safety has been under close scrutiny in recent years. The Strategic Organizing Center, which is a democratic coalition of multiple labor unions, has also put out research on injuries at Amazon. Safety was among the reasons that workers at an Amazon facility in Staten Island chose to unionize in 2022. That Amazon facility and another in New York recently authorized a strike. Additionally, over the summer, California's Labor Commissioner's Office fined Amazon nearly $6 million for tens of thousands of violations of a California law aimed at curbing the use of worker quotas.

Amazon Hit With Potential Strike and Damning Senate Report Ahead of Holiday Rush


Bernie Sanders released a report on abusive conditions at Amazon warehouses as workers prepare for a pre-holiday strike.

By Mike Ludwig , 

Truthout

December 17, 2024

Workers pack and ship customer orders at the 750,000-square foot Amazon fulfillment center on August 1, 2017, in Romeoville, Illinois.Scott Olson / Getty Images

Thousands of Teamster workers overwhelmingly voted in the past week to authorize strikes at two major Amazon warehouses in New York City and one near Chicago at the height of the holiday shopping season in an effort to force the company to recognize their union and come to the bargaining table.

The Teamsters, a major labor union, says Amazon is violating federal labor law by refusing to negotiate a contract that addresses the company’s “low wages and dangerous working conditions.” The union set a December 15 deadline for contract negotiations, one that it said the company ignored. That means Amazon workers in New York and Illinois could go on strike at the busiest time of the year.

“If these white-collar criminals want to keep breaking the law, they better get ready for a fight,” Teamsters’ General President Sean O’Brien said in a statement.

On the heels of the strike authorization vote, Sen. Bernie Sanders released a report detailing the dangers of the corporate culture at Amazon that obsesses over speed and productivity at the expense of worker safety. The result of an 18-month investigation by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which Sanders chairs, the report found that Amazon warehouses recorded 30 percent more injuries than the warehouse industry average in 2023.

In each of the past seven years, Amazon workers were nearly twice as likely to be injured on the job than workers at other warehouses, according to the report’s analysis of company and industry data. The problem is widespread, with injury rates at more than two-thirds of Amazon warehouses exceeding the industry average.

“The shockingly dangerous working conditions at Amazon’s warehouses revealed in this 160-page report are beyond unacceptable,” Sanders said in a statement on Monday. “Making matters even worse: Amazon’s executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries at its warehouses.”

Amazon has pushed back on the report, pointing out that it was released by Sanders and his staff, not the Democratic majority on the HELP Committee. In a statement, the company alleged that the documents and testimonies the report relies on are anecdotal, outdated and taken out of context.

“Sen. Sanders’ report is wrong on the facts and weaves together out-of-date documents and unverifiable anecdotes to create a pre-conceived narrative that he and his allies have been pushing for the past 18 months,” said Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel in an email.

Workers have raised alarm over health and safety at Amazon warehouses for years, especially during the holiday rush, when customers expect millions of gifts to be delivered on time. As part of its investigation, the Senate HELP Committee conducted 135 interviews with 500 Amazon workers who provided more than 1,400 documents to back up their stories.

“I don’t even use Amazon anymore, I’d rather wait … than have some poor employee in an Amazon warehouse get battered and bruised so I can get my book within six hours,” one Amazon warehouse worker told the committee last year. “People don’t see that; they think it just appears by magic. But it doesn’t, it appears by blood, sweat, and tears.”

Concern over low wages and injuries on the job inspired union organizing efforts at Amazon warehouses in Kentucky, Alabama, Florida, Missouri, New York, and beyond. Amazon has responded with a yearslong union-busting campaign and spent $14 million on anti-union consultants in 2022 alone.

That year, Amazon workers at the JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island made history by voting to form the company’s first union. Since then, the union has voted to affiliate with the Teamsters and expanded to represent a second warehouse, DBK4, which is the company’s largest delivery station in New York City. Both of those warehouses authorized strikes last week.

The Teamsters represent Amazon workers at a total of 10 facilities across the United States, but the union says Amazon has “repeatedly failed in its legal obligation to bargain with its unionized workforce.”

“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” O’Brien said. The Teamsters say Amazon is leaving its employees with no choice besides a strike that would disrupt “key operations for customers nationwide” during the most profitable season in retail.

“We aren’t asking for much,” said James Saccardo, a worker at JFK8, in a statement. “We just want what everyone else in America wants — to do our jobs and get paid enough to take care of ourselves and our families. And Amazon isn’t letting us do that.”

The report released by Sanders sheds light on the conditions stoking the unionization push at Amazon. Sanders said the committee’s investigation uncovered new evidence that Amazon knows its productivity standards for workers are the reason so many get injured but continues to ignore internal recommendations to improve safety.

Sanders lashed out at Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO and the world’s second richest person, for running a company that made more than $30 billion in profits last year while failing to protect its workers. Amazon should be one of the safest places to work, not one of the most dangerous, Sanders said in a statement.

“Amazon forces workers to operate in a system that demands impossible rates and treats them as disposable when they are injured,” Sanders said. “It accepts worker injuries and their long-term pain and disabilities as the cost of doing business.”

The report’s key findings suggest that Amazon’s widely-publicized efforts to improve working conditions are largely window dressing. The committee found that Amazon manipulates and cherry picks data on injuries to obscure the fact that its warehouses suffer from higher rates of injury than the industry average.

Nantel said the company’s public data on injuries is accurate. Data reported to the federal government shows a 28 percent drop in injuries since 2019, Nantel said.

“There’s zero truth to the claim that we systemically under-report injuries,” Nantel said.

Contrary to the company’s public claims, Amazon imposes “speed and productivity requirements,” commonly known as “rates,” on workers, according to the report. Amazon closely monitors its workers’ every movement during a shift with scanning devices and AI-powered cameras, and an automated system initiates disciplinary proceedings when workers can’t keep up.

Amazon does have many safety protocols and measures in place, but the required “rates” force workers to regularly bypass safety measures in order to meet the company’s labor demands, according to worker testimony.

Amazon workers are also required to move in unsafe ways and repeat the same movements thousands of times over the course of 10- or 12-hour shifts. Although the company is aware such repetitive movement causes musculoskeletal disorders, Amazon refuses to take action to prevent such injuries, according to the report. Warehouse workers also reported chronic pain, loss of mobility, temporary and permanent disabilities and diminished quality of life because of the injuries on the job.

Alarmingly, Amazon executives appear to be well aware of the connection between worker injuries and its demand for speed and productivity. In 2020, Amazon launched “Project Soteria” to identify risk factors for injuries in its warehouses and to propose changes. Project Soteria found a connection between the speed required of workers and their injuries and made recommendations for improvement, but Amazon did not implement policy changes in response, according to the report:


Project Soteria studied two policies that Amazon had put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic: pausing disciplinary measures for workers who failed to meet speed requirements and giving workers more time off. Project Soteria found that both policies resulted in lower injury risks. Although the policies were intended to be temporary, the Project Soteria team requested they be formally adopted. But Amazon denied the request. In explaining their reasoning, the company’s senior leaders expressed concern about “negatively impacting rate/productivity and the ability to deliver on time to customers.”

Nantel said teams at Amazon are encouraged to question and evaluate company practices in order to improve safety, and Project Soteria was part of that process.

“Project Soteria is an example of this type of team evaluation, where one team explored whether there’s a causal link between pace of work and injuries and another team evaluated the methodology and findings and determined they weren’t valid,” Nantel said.

The report released by Sanders relies heavily on testimony from workers. One of these workers, named in the report as “RS,” fell while working at an Amazon warehouse in Missouri when an unsecured mat slipped from underneath her feet. RS hit the floor hard and was in pain, so she reported to the company’s on-site first aid facility. RS said her pain was severe, but she was only provided ibuprofen and pain-relieving cream, told to stretch her hip, and sent back to work.

Three days later, RS was once again in debilitating pain. Amazon sent her to Concentra, the company’s preferred occupational health care provider, which did no internal imaging and prescribed physical therapy for a strained hip. Two months later, RS was back at work experiencing shooting pain through her leg and back, but Amazon’s in-house health provider said they could do nothing and sent her home.

Four months after her fall, RS finally saw a specialist for a second opinion, who discovered that she had a dislocated joint on her lower back and several bulged discs that required surgery to fix. The report found RS was just one of many workers who said Amazon dismissed their pain and delayed referral to outside care, which in some cases contributed to worse medical outcomes and long-term impacts to quality of life.

“When I started, I thought the company was there for you,” RS told the Senate HELP Committee. “They told us to report any injuries. Then I got injured and saw what it really was and couldn’t believe that a huge company that preaches how they’re there for workers really treats people.”

SEE

U$

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UPDATED

Canada finance minister quits after clash with Trudeau over Trump tariffs, spending

MOST OF ALL OVER GST REBATE

By David Ljunggren and Ismail Shakil  

REUTERS

December 16, 2024

Summary

Freeland was a key Trudeau ally, served as deputy prime minister

Resignation letter blasts "political gimmicks"

Economic update shows much larger deficit than expected

OTTAWA, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland quit on Monday after clashing with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on issues including how to handle possible U.S. tariffs, dealing an unexpected blow to an already unpopular government.
Freeland said she was quitting in the wake of a meeting last Friday with Trudeau, who asked her to take on a lesser post after the two had been arguing for weeks over spending.
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Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc - a member of Trudeau's inner circle - was quickly named finance minister of the minority Liberal government.
The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also served as deputy prime minister, is one of the biggest crises Trudeau has faced since taking power in November 2015. It also leaves him without a key ally when he is on track to lose the next election to the official opposition Conservatives.

A Liberal source said Trudeau wanted Freeland to serve as minister without portfolio dealing with Canada-U.S. relations in name only - in effect a major demotion.
Trudeau met the national Liberal caucus later on Monday - including Freeland - but legislators declined to say afterwards what had happened.

Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said there had been a good and frank conversation but gave no details.

Trudeau later told a Liberal Party fundraiser in Ottawa that being prime minister was the privilege of his life.

"It's obviously been an eventful day. It has not been an easy day," he said.

The potential threat to his future was underlined when a top member of the opposition New Democrats, who have been helping keep the Liberals in power, said the party would vote to bring down Trudeau next year unless he quit.

"If we're coming up to a straight up non-confidence motion at the end of February, early March, that's one of the tools that we have," House of Commons leader for the NDP Peter Julian told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

"We simply cannot continue like this," he said, adding he expected Trudeau to have resigned by then.

Party leader Jagmeet Singh had earlier been less equivocal when asked about bringing down Trudeau, whom he insisted should resign.

Freeland quit just hours before she was due to present a fall economic update to parliament. The document showed the minority Liberal government had run up a 2023/24 budget deficit of C$61.9 billion, much higher than predicted.

Trudeau can be toppled if the opposition parties unite against him on a vote of no confidence, though that cannot happen until next year.

"Will the Prime Minister stay on? I think he will, but he's certainly been seriously threatened ... it could be that this is the event that will push him over the edge," said Jonathan Malloy, a political science professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Parliament is due to break for Christmas on Tuesday and not return until Jan. 27.
Domestic media reports said Freeland and Trudeau had clashed over a government proposal for temporary tax breaks and other spending measures.

Canada's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada December 3, 2024.

 REUTERS/Blair Gable/File Photo


"For the last number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds over the best path forward for Canada," Freeland said in a letter to Trudeau posted on X.

Freeland said the threat of new U.S. tariffs represented a grave threat.

"That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a tariff war. That means eschewing costly political gimmicks, which we can ill afford," she wrote.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said the government was spiraling out of control.
"We cannot accept this kind of chaos, division, weakness, while we're staring down the barrel of a 25% tariff from our biggest trading partner," he told reporters.

'LEADERSHIP CRISIS'

"This will likely trigger a leadership crisis within the Liberal caucus ... (it) is politically and personally devastating for Trudeau," said Nik Nanos, founder of the Nanos Research polling firm.

Polls show the Liberals are set to be crushed in an election that must be held by late October 2025.

Freeland served as trade minister and then foreign minister before taking over the finance portfolio in August 2020. As minister, she oversaw the massive government spending campaign to deal with the damage done by COVID.

Trudeau has been under pressure for months from Liberal legislators alarmed by the party's poor polling numbers, in part due to unhappiness over high prices, and the loss of two safe parliamentary seats in special elections.

The party is due to contest another special election in the province of British Columbia later on Monday.

'BOMBSHELL' DECISION

"This is quite a bombshell," said Nelson Wiseman, political science professor at University of Toronto. "I think the problem the Liberals have is that they have no mechanism to remove Trudeau. Only a full blown caucus revolt could do that."

Canada's 10-year note yields climbed to their highest level since Nov. 28. They were last up 4.2 basis points at 3.2%. The Canadian dollar weakened to a four and a half year low at 1.4268 per U.S. dollar before reversing course.

When Trump came to power in 2017 he vowed to tear up the trilateral free trade treaty with Canada and Mexico. Freeland played a large role in helping renegotiate the pact and saving Canada's economy, which is heavily reliant on the United States.

Although tensions between prime ministers and finance ministers are not unusual - Trudeau's first finance minister quit in 2020 in a clash over spending - the level of invective in Freeland's letter was remarkable by Canadian standards.

Freeland left the same day as Housing Minister Sean Fraser announced he was resigning for family reasons. Another six ministers have either already quit or announced they will not be running again in the next election.

Before entering politics in 2013, Freeland worked as a journalist and in senior editorial roles with several media companies, including the Financial Times, the Globe and Mail, and Reuters where she worked from 2010 to 2013.

Additional reporting by Nivedita Balu in Toronto; Editing by Nick Zieminski. Deepa Babington and Sandra Maler

Canada's finance minister resigns, posing biggest test of Trudeau's political career

December 16, 2024
By The Associated Press



Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau looks on at the start of a cabinet swearing in ceremony for Dominic LeBlanc, not shown, who will be sworn in as Finance Minister, at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Ontario, on Dec. 16, 2024.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP

TORONTO — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced the biggest test of his political career after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, long one of his most powerful and loyal ministers, resigned from the Cabinet on Monday.

The stunning move raised questions about how much longer the prime minister of nearly 10 years — whose popularity has plummeted due to concerns about inflation and immigration — can stay on as his administration scrambles to deal with incoming U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

"The Great State of Canada is stunned as the Finance Minister resigns, or was fired, from her position by Governor Justin Trudeau," Trump posted on Truth Social. "Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. She will not be missed!!!"

Trump previously trolled Trudeau by calling Canada a state. And during his first term in his office — when he renegotiated the free trade deal with Canada and Mexico — Trump said Freeland wasn't liked.

Trudeau swiftly named longtime ally and close friend Dominic LeBlanc, the pubic safety minister who recently joined him at dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, to replace Freeland. Freeland did not make that trip.

Canadian Cabinet voices support for Trudeau as some Liberals prepare to confront him

After being sworn in, LeBlanc told reporters he and Trudeau are focused on the cost of living facing Canadians and on finding common ground with Trump on border security and economic issues.

"It's not been an easy day," Trudeau later told a room of party supporters. He called it one of his party's "toughest days" but he did not say what he planned to do.

Trudeau faces calls to resignJagmeet Singh, leader of the opposition New Democratic Party which Trudeau's ruling Liberals have relied upon to stay in power, called for him to resign earlier Monday.

"He has to go," NDP leader Singh said.

The main opposition Conservatives have not called for Trudeau's resignation but demand an election.

But a no confidence vote in the government is not imminent with Parliament about to break for the holidays .

Freeland, who was also deputy prime minister, said Trudeau had told her on Friday he no longer wanted her to serve as finance minister and offered her another role in the Cabinet. But she said in her resignation letter that the only "honest and viable path" was to leave the Cabinet.

"For the past number of weeks, you and I have found ourselves at odds about the best path forward for Canada," Freeland said.

Freeland warns against 'costly political gimmicks'Freeland and Trudeau disagreed about a two-month sales tax holiday and 250 Canadian dollar ($175) checks to Canadians that were recently announced. Freeland said Canada is dealing with Trump's threat to impose sweeping 25% tariffs and should eschew "costly political gimmicks" it can "ill afford."

Canada's Trudeau says he had an 'excellent conversation' with Trump after tariffs threat

"Our country is facing a grave challenge," Freeland said in her letter. "That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war."

A Liberal party official said Freeland was offered a position as minister in charge of Canada-U.S. relations without portfolio and without a department. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of not being authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said the position would have been in name only and wouldn't have come with any of the tools Freeland previously had when she negotiated the trade with the United States.

Freeland, who chaired a Cabinet committee on U.S. relations, had been set to deliver the fall economic statement and likely announce border security measures designed to help Canada avoid Trump's tariffs. Trump has threatened to impose a 25% tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico unless the neighbors stem the numbers of migrants and drugs.

The statement shows a much larger deficit than expected for the fiscal year and more than a billion for border security.

Can Trudeau survive?Trudeau has said he plans on leading the Liberal Party into the next election, but many party members have said they don't want him to run for a fourth term, and Freeland's departure was a huge blow.

Trudeau met with his lawmakers on Monday evening. Later, most of them brushed past reporters, declining to say what was said in the meeting.

Liberal lawmaker Chad Collins said they were "not united."

"There's still a number of our members that want a change in leadership. I'm one of them," he said. "I think the only path forward for us is to choose a new leader."

No Canadian prime minister in more than a century has won four straight terms.

The federal election has to be held before October. The Liberals must rely on the support of at least one other major party in Parliament, because they don't hold an outright majority themselves. If NDP pulls support, an election can be held at any time.

Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, right, and Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc arrive for a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, on Dec. 11, 2024.Spencer Colby/Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press via AP

Singh said all options are on the table.

Trudeau channeled his father's popularityTrudeau channeled the star power of his father, late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, in 2015, when he reasserted the country's liberal identity after almost a decade of Conservative Party rule.

But Canadians are now frustrated by the rising cost of living and other issues, including immigration increases following the country's emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Justin Trudeau's legacy includes opening the doors wide to immigration. He also legalized cannabis and brought in a carbon tax intended to fight climate change.

Freeland also said in her letter that Canadians "know when we are working for them, and they equally know when we are focused on ourselves. Inevitably, our time in government will come to an end."

Trudeau tries to bring in another Cabinet memberSeparately, Trudeau has been trying to recruit Mark Carney, the former head of the Bank of England and Bank of Canada, to join his government. Carney has long been interested in entering politics and becoming the leader of the Liberal Party. LeBlanc's appointment to finance suggests that won't happen

Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, called Freeland's resignation a political earthquake.

"This is clearly a minority government on life support but, until now, the (opposition) NDP has rejected calls to pull the plug on it," Béland said. "It's hard to know whether this resignation will force the NDP to rethink its strategy."

Trump slammed over persistent 'antagonizing of a neighbor

Maya Boddie

December 17, 2024
ALTERNET

President-elect Donald Trump on Monday continued to call Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the country's "governor."

Wall Street Journal national politics reporter Vivian Salama reported via X: "Trump weighs in on the resignation of Canada’s Finance Minister Christie Freeland amid his threats to impose tariffs and continues to refer to Prime Minister Trudeau as 'governor.'"

The incoming president posted to his social media platform, Truth Social: "The Great State of Canada is stunned as the Finance Minister resigns, or was fired, from her position by Governor Justin Trudeau. Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. Shewill not be missed!!!"

READ MORE: Calls for Trudeau to resign as exiting Canadian Finance Minister warns of Trump tariffs

CNN anchor Jim Schiutto replied: "Canada fought alongside the U.S. in World War Two, the Korean War and in Afghanistan post-9/11. In Afghanistan, they did some of the hardest, frontline duty of any U.S. ally and suffered more than 150 killed in action. The antagonizing of a neighbor and longtime treaty partner makes little sense historically."

India Today reported on Monday that "Trump as been teasing Trudeau by calling him 'governor' after he quipped during a recent meeting that Canada should become the 51st US state if it can't handle aggressive US tariffs. Trump made the offer during a meeting with Trudeau last month."