In the UK and the US, populism can’t stop a declining steel industry

By Cristina Maza December 2019

A billboard for British Steel photographed in Scunthorpe,

 England on 25 September 2019.
(Joseph M. Giordano)


Michael Murphy, 61, was born and raised in Scunthorpe, a small industrial city in the north of England that sprang up in the late 19th century following the discovery of large deposits of iron ore.

The steel industry is a vital part of the global economy that each year transforms iron ore into products worth around US$2.5 trillion. The material is used to make everything from home appliances to cars to skyscrappers.

For over 100 years, labourers flocked from around the British Isles to work in Scunthorpe’s steelworks. Michael’s late father, a manual labourer from Ireland, arrived in the city as a young man to work for the British Steel Company. The job allowed him to support his children and purchase a semi-detached house for his growing family.

When Michael was a young man, he too worked for British Steel during the summers, shoveling piles of fine steel dust. And Michael’s sister started her career as a secretary working for the company. Michael remembers his childhood in Scunthorpe fondly, and he says that British Steel played a central role in his upbringing.

“We were a working-class family,” he tells Equal Times. “I had a perfect childhood because I had loving parents. Once a year we would go on a trip to the coast organised by British Steel.”


“Almost every family in this town has some connection to British Steel,” Michael, a longtime Labour Party activist, continues. “If the company folds this town will become a ghost town, or heroin central.”

For months, this was the cloud of fear that hung over Scunthorpe after British Steel, the country’s second largest steel producer, went into liquidation in May. Between the main production site in Scunthorpe and rolling facilities in Teeside in the north-east of England, an estimated 4,000 jobs were at risk, not to mention 20,000 jobs in the supply chain. Last month, affected workers were able to breathe a sigh of relief after the Chinese firm Jingye announced plans to purchase the plant for £70 million (approximately US$90 million) and invest over £1.2 billion (approximately US$1.5 billion) in British Steel over the next decade.

Scunthorpe’s predicament is familiar to people living in what was once the centre of the steel industry in the United States. Places like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania were, like Scunthorpe, built on the steel industry and ultimately transformed when forced to face the industry’s decline. The Bethlehem Steel steelworks in Sparrows Point outside of Baltimore, Maryland provided high wages and union-protected jobs that supported tens of thousands of families in the mid-20th century. The company shuttered for good in 2012. Places like Youngstown, Ohio and Gary, Indiana had their economies decimated in the late 1980s after steel plants closed. And these are just a few examples.

Andrew Morton, a 67-year-old former steel worker from Baltimore, was one of the last people working for Bethlehem Steel before it closed its doors in 2012, slashing the roughly 2,000 jobs that remained. He had been working for the company since he was 18 years old.

“A lot of people lost their jobs. It caused a lot of hardship,” Morton says. “Bethlehem Steel played a major part in the economy and allowed middle income families to do things like pay for college. When they lost those incomes some people adapted, but some people committed suicide. Most people didn’t do very well.”
Trump’s trade war and the UK’s Brexit-related chaos

The steel industry has been in decline in both the United Kingdom and the United States since the 1980s, thanks to shifting global markets, new technologies and governments that have been reluctant to prop up a struggling industry. China now dominates global steel production, an industry that the US and UK commanded together in the 19th century. But right-leaning populists on both sides of the Atlantic recently promised that the steel industry could be revived with the right policies.

Populists have attempted to win political points by exploiting the discontent of workers who see their wages stagnate as living costs rise. They have promised to revive struggling industries for steel and coal workers, even though economists say that their goals are unrealistic in the current global economy.

US president Donald Trump levied tariffs of up to 25 per cent on steel imports in an effort to boost the US steel industry. Meanwhile, the UK’s Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage claimed that British Steel could have avoided going into liquidation if the United Kingdom had left the European Union sooner, citing the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme – which incentivises heavy industry to cut carbon emissions – as a factor contributing to the industry’s decline.


Instead, Trump’s trade policies and the UK’s Brexit-induced political turmoil have thrown their respective steel industries into chaos. The US Steel Company lost around 70 per cent of its market value, or around US$5.5 billion, and shuttered several mills after the Trump administration levied its tariffs on steel imports.

The US Steel Company did not respond to requests for comment.

Much of the turmoil is thanks to competition from Beijing. Last year, China produced around 51 per cent of global steel output, or 928.3 million metric tons. By comparison, the US comes in fourth globally, producing 86.7 million metric tons of steel in 2018. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, only produces between five and six million metric tons annually, according to recent data. It is the fifth largest steel producer in the European Union, but it does not make the top ten list of global steel producers.

In early October, the US credit ratings agency Moody’s downgraded its outlook for the entire US steel industry from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’ and released a statement affirming that the situation is not expected to improve. Prices that hovered above US$800 a ton dropped to US$520 a ton in the last half of 2018.

Meanwhile, economists note that the uncertainty caused by Brexit has sped up the decline of the UK’s steel industry. Many buyers of British steel have opted to cancel their contracts until it becomes clear which tariffs they will pay in the wake of the UK’s eventual exit from the European Union.

Steel unions have warned that a no-deal Brexit, in which the country would leave the European Union without a deal, would leave their industry vulnerable. EU regulations against steel dumping from China have long protected British steelworkers.

“British Steel would not have gone into liquidation but for the threat of a no-deal exit from the EU. That’s an incontrovertible fact,” says Nic Dakin, who is standing to be re-elected as a Labour Member of Parliament for Scunthorpe during the upcoming UK general election on 12 December.

Hit hard by voting to leave

Still, 68.68 per cent of the people in Scunthorpe who voted in the Brexit referendum voted to leave the European Union.

Denise Thompson, who runs a hotel near the British Steel plant, says she voted in favour of Brexit because she didn’t want money that could be spent on the UK’s National Health Service to line the pockets of diplomats in Brussels. She still wants the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, but she admits that business has been bad since the Brexit referendum. The number of contractors that British Steel employs has dropped precipitously, leading to fewer guests at the hotel, she says.

“People come for one night instead of for three or four weeks,” she tells Equal Times. “We used to have a couple of thousand guest workers stay every season. Now it’s virtually none, perhaps between 40 and 50.”

Thompson says that a lot of her friends and acquaintances in Scunthorpe are reluctant to spend money because they don’t know if they’ll still have a job tomorrow. And many worry that their working conditions will become more precarious.

Gwylim Glyndwr Williams, 60, began working for British Steel at the age of 19 and rose to become a team leader and a union member on the National Trade Union Steel Coordinating Committee. He recently retired after 40 years with the company, but he voted for the UK to remain in the EU because he trusts the employment laws made in Brussels more than those established by the ruling Conservative Party, which he says has abandoned British Steel’s workers.

“Over the years, the Conservatives have been in power more times than Labour. It’s just the way it is,” Williams says. “But the European Union had some great employment laws over the years. The laws that came in were far superior to our old health and safety laws. In this country the government has always watered down the legislation, but under the European banner we’ve been protected.”

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The renewable energy sector may ‘pass’ the environmental test, but what about labour and human rights?

By María José Carmona 20 December 2019

The UN Guiding Principles clearly state that all companies have a responsibility to ensure respect for human rights throughout their supply chain. Therefore, the same transparency that is beginning to be demanded from the textile or technological industries with respect to its suppliers should be demanded equally from renewables. In the picture, a wind farm in Mexico.
(Alberto Matarán)

The morning that Josefa Sánchez and her neighbours found the first dead birds they knew immediately it was a bad omen. It was the beginning of the year 2000 and by then the entire community, located on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico, knew perfectly well who the culprit was: the huge forest of steel growing up around them and posing a threat to their way of life.

With winds up to 30 and 40 kilometres an hour for at least two-thirds of the year, the Isthmus of Tehuantepec has become the El Dorado of wind power. This majority indigenous rural fishing region is set to become the largest wind corridor in Latin America with 5000 80-metre-high wind turbines, 2,129 of which have already been built. This victory for the environment is a defeat for the local community, whose rights have been disregarded.

From the outset, the wind turbines were installed without their consent, in violation of indigenous rights according to International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 169. And the death of the birds has not been the most serious consequence: construction of the mega wind farm has increased inequality in the area and fractured the community.

“Most of the territory is communal, meaning that the assembly is responsible for making decisions regarding this land. This legal status has endured for more than a century but the companies have not respected it. They’ve made contracts with small landowners and bribed local leaders, which has given rise to internal conflicts. We are currently experiencing levels of violence that we haven’t seen in years,” says Sánchez, one of the leaders of the citizens movement which for years has been speaking out against this land grab in the name of sustainable development that doesn’t even serve the energy needs of its neighbours. Nearly all of the electricity produced by the turbines is supplied to foreign companies, including the US-based retail Walmart.

“These companies tout their green credentials, which has made it hard to speak out against these megaprojects,” explains Sánchez. Hers is not the only case: in the urgent and necessary energy transition, labour and human rights are being neglected throughout the world. Renewable energy companies are repeating the same business practices for which the fossil fuel industry has been criticized – practices that are very far from being clean.
And what about human rights?

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global renewable capacity is set to increase by 50 per cent, or 1200 GW, between 2019 and 2024, thanks above all to the expansion of solar photovoltaic and wind power. The green energy industry is accelerating due to the need to shorten times in the face of the climate challenge and achieve the goal of zero emissions from CO₂ by 2050.

However, as the Business and Human Rights Research Centre (BHRRC) has pointed out, this rapid acceleration often comes at the expense of the most fragile communities. Over the last 15 years, the international organisation has received around 150 complaints linked to sustainable projects. “Renewable energy is essential to our transition to a low-carbon economy but the human rights policies and practices of companies are not yet strong enough,” the centre warns.

The majority of abuses occur in central and south America, east Africa and south-east Asia (though there are also cases in Europe and the United States) and include land confiscation and contamination, violation of the right to consultation, violation of labour rights such as collective bargaining and unsafe working conditions, as well as threats, intimidation and violence against opponents.


Renewable energy ranks as the third most dangerous sector for people defending their land, behind only mining and agribusiness. One particularly violent example is the 2016 murder of activist Berta Cáceres for opposing a hydroelectric project in Honduras.

Green energy companies preach respect and environmental responsibility but often don’t apply the same to people. “The problem with these megaprojects is big companies looking for resources the same way they always have: finding cheap locations that they can control and maintaining a high level of consumption,” says Alberto Matarán, professor of Urbanism and Land Management at the University of Granada in Spain.

According to Professor Matarán, the renewables industry is increasingly concentratedin the hands of a few. In the wind energy sector, for example, five wind turbine manufacturers alone make up more than half of the global market share: Vestas (Denmark), GE (United States), Siemens Gamesa (Germany and Spain), Goldwind (China) and Envision (China). At the same time, workers are increasingly concentrated in the same countries. Of the 11 million ‘green jobs’ created in 2018, four million were in China, which has a near monopoly on the construction of solar panels and accounts for half of the jobs linked to wind energy.

On the opposite side of this trend is Europe, where some companies have begun to relocate part of their production in order to become more competitive, leaving more and more orphaned green employees, as was the case with Vestas in Spain.

In 2019, the multinational wind power company closed its turbine manufacturing plant in Villadangos del Páramo, in the province of León, to move production to emerging countries after benefiting from a European subsidy of €12.5 million. “We are talking about 362 workers permanently employed by the plant and about 2000 directly or indirectly employed workers. The impact has been significant,” says Gonzalo Diaz, secretary of the CCOO union in the region.

After months of mobilisation and long negotiations, the Vestas workforce was taken over by another company in the steel sector. Diaz insists that such “not particularly clean” operations should not be allowed. “These practices have been shown to be speculative. Europe must put measures in place and demand a commitment from these companies that goes beyond the environmental.” Otherwise, trade unions warn, the objective of a just transition included in the Paris Agreement on climate change will be put at risk. If renewable energy companies represent the main hope for relocating workers from coal and other dirty energy, what will happen if they leave?

Starting at the source

Perhaps the least visible side of energy transition is the origin of the materials currently used to build solar panels, wind turbines, batteries for electric cars. Where do these materials come from?

In recent years the demand for minerals such as lithium, cobalt, copper and nickel has increased with the growth of the renewables industry and, in many cases, the ways in which these raw materials are obtained are highly questionable. “One striking case is the cobalt needed to build batteries. Sixty per cent of the world’s cobalt is produced under unethical conditions in the Congo, where there are high levels of artisanal mining and child labour,” explains Helios Escalante, geographer and member of Ecologistas en Acción. In fact, five of the world’s biggest tech companies are currently facing legal action for their alleged complicity in the deaths of child miners in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Another issue of concern is the so-called rare earth elements, a group of 17 elements that are very difficult to extract and are used to manufacture products such as telephones, wind turbines and electric vehicles.

Most of these minerals come from mines in northern China and Mongolia, where adequate environmental protection is lacking. “Acids are used to separate the elements. These residues then accumulate in pools that leak into the aquifers,” says Escalante. This accounts for the high rate of disease in the surrounding villages.

The UN’s Guiding Principles clearly state that all companies have a responsibility to ensure respect for human rights throughout their supply chains. For this reason, the same transparency that is beginning to be demanded of the textile and tech industries with respect to their suppliers should be similarly demanded of the renewable energy industry.

At present, only a few companies have made voluntary commitments, such as the agreement on human rights and sustainable work that Siemens Gamesa has signed with the trade union federation IndustriALL Global Union. It is currently the only company in the sector to sign the document.

The BHRRC calls on green multinationals to adopt firm human rights policies and commit to rigorous consultation processes, to respect land tenure and the rights of indigenous peoples, and to share the benefits of renewable development with local communities, both for the sake of these communities as well as for their own reputation.

“Slowing down on the implementation of renewables is not feasible because we are running out of time,” says María Prado, head of energy transition at Greenpeace. “But obviously being in a hurry is not at odds with doing things right. It is crucial that these companies have due diligence criteria. They must be accountable for their activities and impact.”

According to the ILO, sustainable development encompasses three dimensions: economic, social and environmental. A company that refers to itself as ‘sustainable’ should thoroughly comply with these three requirements. As Sánchez puts it: “Energy transition should never involve the extermination of a village.”

This article has been translated from Spanish.
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Soundtrack to the streets: 

a year of global protests – and the songs that underscored them

By Mathilde Dorcadie

10 January 2020
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Around 100 Chilean musicians at an anti-government 

demonstration pay tribute to the singer-songwriter 

Víctor Jara, who was tortured and killed during the

 Pinochet dictatorship. 25 October 2019, Santiago, Chile.
(AP/Esteban Felix)

“Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao...” Its insistent and catchy refrain has made it a rallying cry for protesters all over the world. Originally sung by Italian farm workers at the beginning of the 20th century, Bella Ciao became an anti-fascist anthem in Mussolini’s Italy. Today, the song can be heard at protests throughout the world, from Paris to Kurdistan to New Delhi. So many different versions and interpretations of Bella Ciao have been made over the years that many are unaware that its origin predates the credit music of the Spanish television series La Casa de Papel, which brought the song to the attention of a worldwide audience in 2018.

“Because it can move people and make them move, because it speaks to everyone, because for so long it was the art of people whose voices were not heard, music has been part of popular protests since the Middle Ages,” writes French historian Clyde Marlo-Plumauzille in the newspaper Libération. La Marseillaise, now France’s national anthem, is one of the most well-known examples of a song written against a revolutionary backdrop (in 1792) which has endured through the centuries with its verses calling for patriotism, liberty and resistance against tyranny. Despite the song’s ‘institutionalisation’ and the attempts of right-wing nationalists to claim it as their own, this “War Song” (as it was originally called) continues to be used in protests, most recently by the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) and the musicians of the Paris Opera, who went on strike in December 2019 in protest against the pension reforms of the Emmanuel Macron government.

Today, at political protests in places like Chile, Algeria and Hong Kong, the classics of protest music can be heard alongside songs taken from popular culture, often from the most unlikely of sources. At the same time, new songs by socially engaged artists are also making history as the new revolutionary anthems of the turn of the decade.
Tradition and virality

Chile has a long tradition of political music, which resurfaced during the uprisings of autumn 2019. El pueblo unido jamás será vencido (The People United Will Never be Defeated), written in 1970 by Sergio Ortega and the group Quilapayún during the Pinochet dictatorship, has already enjoyed a certain degree of international success.

Recently it has been sung numerous times by crowds of protesters (and even in front of military forces by one man alone with his instrument), as has another standard from the same period, El derecho de vivir en paz (The Right to Live in Peace) by Víctor Jara, a musician murdered by the military junta in 1973. This heritage of Chile’s past political struggles has been used to galvanize the current protest movement – which began in October in response to deteriorating social conditions and has claimed around 20 lives – and bring the Chilean people together. Hundreds of amateur musicians took to the streets to sing the song, while a collective of 29 professional musicians recorded a 2019 update. Unsurprisingly, the emotional power of this combination of music, symbolism and communal action has caused videos of these performances to go viral on social media.

The 2010 decade, which began with the ‘Arab revolutions’ and the Indignados movement and was characterised by the power of internet virality, ended with a flurry of movements around the world, each one inspiring the next, in which music has proved to be connecting factor, both with gravity and with humour.

One example, before leaving Chile, is the success of Un violador en tu camino (A Rapist in your Path), performed for the first time on the occasion of International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, 25 November, by the Las Tesis collective in the city of Valparaiso. Within weeks, the chanted lyrics and choreography of this feminist anthem were performed by groups of women all over the world. The song has rapidly assumed a place in the repertoire of feminist protest movements alongside L’hymne des femmes (or Hymn of the MLF, the French Women’s Liberation Movement, popularised after May 1968), or the more recent Huelga feminista (Women’s Strike).

In contrast, other songs have become rallying cries for political demonstrators despite their apolitical content. In Austria, a ‘summer hit’ from 1999 resurfaced in May 2019 during anti-corruption protests. We’re Going to Ibiza! by the Dutch group Vengaboys was used humorously by protesters denouncing the practices of the extreme right in the context of the ‘Ibizagate’ scandal. Even more eccentric was the use of the children’s song Baby Shark during anti-government protests in Lebanon. As writer Rabih Alameddine reminds us in the New York Times, even when mobilising in protest of their difficult living conditions, the Lebanese don’t lose their festive temperament: “Only in Lebanon would a song like Baby Shark, which is now being played at every crowd gathering, become the anthem of a revolution. The song is both catchy and repetitive, inspiring and interminable.” The origin of the song’s role in the protests was a video in which demonstrators attempt to reassure a small boy who is scared by the crowd. “The video is both sweet and uplifting. It’s also surprising, because a Lebanese crowd acting in unison is such a rarity,” the author adds. “The Lebanese are showing the world how to hold a great demonstration.”
From the stadiums and the opera to the streets

In 2019, another country stood out for the originality of its political movement and the central role that music played: Algeria. From the very first demonstrations, protesters were singing La Casa del Mouradia, yet another reference to Casa de Papel, and to El Mouradia, the seat of Algeria’s presidential palace. The song, which mocks Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s four terms as president, started on the terraces of Algiers-based football club USMA and quickly became an anthem for protesters as they marched to prevent the former president from seeking a fifth term. Another song that came out of the stadiums, Ultima verba (Last Warning), inspired the French-language single La liberté by rapper Soolking, which has received millions of views and is also critical of the Algerian regime. “It [protest songs] has become something of a musical genre in Algeria,” says Mahfoud Amara, professor of social sciences at the University of Qatar.

These two songs along with a third, Libérez l’Algérie (Free Algeria) sung by a collective of Algerian artists who support the hirak (movement), are competitors for the title of ‘anthem of the revolution’. But as journalist Leila Assas explains on the website Pan African Music, Algeria’s playlist of political protest songs is extensive.

“The first several months of protests were characterised by an abundance of musical creativity. Songs came out every Friday and criss-crossed the country. Music, biting, trivial and lyrical, has become a vehicle for protest. Professional and amateur musicians are energising the marches to the beat of a drum. National songs are sung alongside local traditional rhythms, both updated and reinterpreted to serve the current revolutionary context.”

Somewhat less elaborate than the Algerian melodies, two noteworthy protest hits of 2019 emerged from the stadiums of Europe. The first, Nous, on est là! (We’re Here!), was adopted by the Gilets Jaunes and striking French railway workers from the supporters of the football teams RC Lens and Olympique de Marseille. One of a multitude of often sarcastic songs criticising the French government, its lyrics – “We’re here, we’re here, even if Macron doesn’t want us to be! For the honour of workers and for a better world, even if Macron doesn’t want it, we’re here!” – have been sung at almost every rally for the last year.

Moving across the Channel, a famous guitar riff consisting of just a few notes has received a new life in the United Kingdom. For about fifteen years, the chorus of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army has been used to make supporters jump up and down to “oh, oh, oh” at festivals and sporting events all over the world. But ever since Labour Party activists set the words “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn!” (Leader of the Labour Party and candidate in the most recent elections of December 2019) to the melody, people in Britain have been going mad, believing they are hearing the Labour Leader’s name every time the song is played.

Because our musical tastes are as diverse as our societies, political mobilisation can also be carried out with the help of classical music. Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (Va, pensiero) from Verdi’s opera Nabucco, has been used for its powerful call to freedom by, among others, the striking choir members of Choeur de Radio France in January 2020 and by Italian conductor Riccardo Muti in 2011, both in protest of cuts to cultural funding. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy (9th Symphony) is also often heard when instrumentalists take part in political festivities.

Popular protest, popular culture

As we continue on our tour of the world, it’s interesting to see the multiple intersections that result from cultural globalisation, which mixes and remixes references, as we’ve seen in the case of Casa de Papel (which in addition to musical inspiration, provided protesters with a new mask to wear: the face of Salvador Dali) or Lebanese protesters dancing to the Korean version of the nursery rhyme Baby Shark.

In another striking example, protesters in Hong Kong have adopted Do You Hear the People Sing?, which they most likely took from the 2012 blockbuster Les Misérables, which was adapted from a French musical from the 1980s, itself adapted from Victor Hugo’s novel of the same name. The song’s lyrics “Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music if a people who will not be slaves again,” are relevant to so many popular movements that the origin has become less important than the universal nature of the message “singing as one people.”

In their struggle to preserve their independent status from the rest of China, the people of Hong Kong have placed particular emphasis on their unity and uniqueness, symbolised in particular by a large network of mutual assistance on the ground. They even anonymously and collaboratively wrote their own anthem, Glory to Hong Kong, using the power of the internet to create and disseminate it and make history in just a few days.

While we have continued to see images of violence from all these demonstrations, of which we have named only a few, we have also seen the beauty of music used for political struggle and the intelligence and collective creativity of the demonstrators.

We have witnessed the emergence of new figures such as Ala’a Salah, a young Sudanese woman dressed all in white, encouraging the crowd gathered around her to join her in revolutionary song, or Noah Simons, a young Indigenous American boy whose vocal performance at a climate rally with Greta Thunberg in Canada in October caused a sensation.

But we can’t forget that music can still cause problems for those who use it as a peaceful weapon. In Indonesia, Robert Robertus, a university professor and activist was arrested in March and is facing trial on charges of defaming institutions for publicly singing an old anti-militarist song (the video was broadcast on social networks). In India, the Urdu song Hum Dekhenge (1979) by Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, sung in resistance to fundamentalism, created fierce controversy after demonstrators sung it at the large protests against the amendment of the citizenship law that began in December. Some authorities saw this as an expression of ‘anti-Hindu’ sentiment and sought to ban the song. It is now played everywhere as an act of affirmation and resistance.
This story has been translated from French.

Ousted Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg to receive $60m in stock and pensionDESPITE KILLING 346 PEOPLE
Muilenburg left after two 737 Max aircraft crashed, killing 346
Boeing says ex-CEO will forfeit stock worth $14.6m

Dominic Rushe in New York
@dominicru
Fri 10 Jan 2020 23.21 GMT
 

Dennis Muilenburg was appointed CEO of

 Boeing in July 2015. 

Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

Boeing’s chief executive, Dennis Muilenburg, ousted amid the worst crisis in the company’s history, will depart with stock and pension awards worth more than $60m, the company announced on Friday.

Boeing: internal emails reveal chaos and incompetence at 737 Max factory

Muilenberg, 56, will forfeit stock worth $14.6m, according to Boeing, but is contractually entitled to receive $62.2m in stock and pension awards.

“We thank Dennis for his nearly 35 years of service to the Boeing Company,” the company said in a statement. “Upon his departure, Dennis received the benefits to which he was contractually entitled and he did not receive any severance pay or a 2019 annual bonus.”

Muilenberg presided over Boeing as two of its top-selling 737 Max jets crashed, killing 346 people. The disasters led to a global grounding for the jet and criticism of the company’s cosy relationship with its regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration.

On Thursday Boeing released emails to a congressional committee investigating the tragedies in which its own executives mocked the regulator, joked about safety and said the Max had been “designed by clowns”.

Muilenberg was appointed chief executive officer of Boeing in July 2015. He started working as an intern at the company in 1985.

The 737 Max, the latest iteration of its popular passenger jet, was Boeing’s bestselling plane ever until two fatal crashes led to its grounding. In October 2018 a Lion Air jet crashed in Indonesia killing all its passengers. In March 2019 another Max crashed in Ethiopia killing everyone onboard.

The company is now being investigated by regulators across the world and sued by the relatives of passengers.

In congressional testimony last October Muilenberg told lawmakers: “If we knew everything back then that we know now, we would have made a different decision.” He said Boeing officials had asked themselves “over and over” again why they didn’t ground the plane sooner.

But evidence has since emerged that Boeing and the FAA were aware of potential problems with the anti-stall software Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) installed on the Max that has been blamed for both crashes.

Those issues were ignored even after the Lion Air disaster as the FAA gave Boeing breathing space to address a problem that the regulator predicted could lead to one fatal crash about every two or three years without intervention.

In 2018 – before the second deadly crash – Muilenberg was awarded a $23.4m pay package, up 27% from the previous year.

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SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BOEING

US army veteran has prosthetic legs repossessed after government refuses to cover cost

'Medicare did not send me to Vietnam - I was sent there by my country,' Jerry Holliman says

IN AMERICA HEALTHCARE IS FOR PROFIT
Vincent Wood
Mr Holliman said he was told the Department of Veterans

Affairs would not cover the cost of the prosthetics 

A US military veteran had his prosthetic legs repossessed after the government department tasked with his care said they would not cover the cost.

Jerry Holliman, 69, fought in both the Vietnam War as an 18-year-old specialist and volunteer, and in the Iraq War as a 53-year-old master sergeant, before being honourably discharged in 2010 after 40 years of service.

But he told local newspaper the Clarion Ledger that a dispute over payment left him without the prosthetic limbs that would allow him to leave care and live independently in his own home in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

It was during his first tour he was exposed to Agent Orange – the herbicide used by the US to kill vegetation which has been linked to a number of diseases suffered by soldiers who served in Vietnam. A survivor of both cancer and diabetes, Mr Holliman’s right leg was amputated following a bout of gangrene in November 2018 – while the left was taken the following April.

He had hoped to regain his mobility in August when he received a pair of prosthetics from Hanger, a company with offices in Hattiesburg.

However, after attending rehabilitation through a nursing home and undertaking a few sessions with Hanger employees, Mr Holliman said he was told the Department of Veterans Affairs would not cover the cost of the prosthetics. The governmental wing had previously paid for him to have an electric wheelchair, but much of his home remains inaccessible for wheelchair users.

On the day before Christmas Eve he was asked to sign paperwork for Medicare – the federal health insurance programme for the elderly and people with disabilities – while being told to put forward his own money as a co-payment.

Instead, the veteran declined, saying the legs should instead be paid for by the VA’s office in full. In response, a Hanger employee removed his legs.

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"Medicare did not send me to Vietnam," Mr Holliman told the newspaper. "I was sent there by my country ... with the understanding that if something bad happened to me, that it would be covered by the VA."

The prosthetics were returned shortly after the veteran spoke to his local newspaper, according to reports, but he has since claimed the company will not make adjustments required so that he can use the legs properly – adding that they are essentially useless to him without modifications.

Meghan Williams, a spokeswoman for Hanger, said: “It is our policy, in accordance with regulatory guidelines, to follow up with every patient we see and make necessary device adjustments through delivery and for at least 90 days afterwards.

“We are committed to empowering human potential, and want to see our patients regain their mobility and independence."

Susan Varcie, a spokeswoman at the VA Medical Center in Jackson, said she could not comment on Mr Holliman's case due to privacy laws.

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'Disturbingly misogynistic' conference run only by men pledges to 'Make Women Great Again'

Conference talks will focus on how to 'become the ultimate wife' and 'get pregnant and have unlimited babies'

WHICH IS WHY THESE GUYS ARE HAVING A CONFERENCE THEY CAN'T GET A DATE 
Maya Oppenheim 

Women's Correspondent @mayaoppenheim

The event is billed as the 'mansplaining event of the century' by organisers ( AP )

A “disturbingly misogynistic” conference that promises to “make women great again” but only has male speakers has drawn fierce criticism from campaigners.

The event, which organisers have billed as the “mansplaining event of the century”, will be held in Orlando in Florida in May.

Discussions at the three-day conference, which costs £764 ($999) to attend, will focus on how to “destroy the feminist establishment”, “become the ultimate wife” and “get pregnant and have unlimited babies”.

“Women today are being taught to act more like men,” organisers warned. “Where has that led us? Skyrocketing rates of broken families, a documented decline in female unhappiness since the 1970's, endless social and dating dysfunction, and America at the #1 spot in the world for single motherhood”.

The event’s promoters continued: “No longer will you have to give in to toxic bullying feminist dogma and go against your ancient, biological nature as a woman, the men have arrived to help make women great again”.

The event, which is only open to women, is not affiliated with Donald Trump's administration but its organisers have red hats which say “Make Women Great Again” and resemble the president's “Make America Great Again” (Maga) hats.

“Make America Great Again” was a key catchphrase used by Mr Trump throughout his presidential campaign and many see Maga hats as synonymous with the administration’s perceived racism and xenophobia.

Kate Kelly, a New York based human rights lawyer at Equality Now, a non government organisation which aims to promote the rights of women and girls, raised concerns about the event.

“This conference demonstrates that this administration has emboldened even those with more latent anti-female tendencies to come out in the open,” she told The Independent. “It has made the unacceptable acceptable again. This is not a celebration, it’s a denigration. Misogyny is always couched as a celebration of womanhood. It’s the oldest trick in the book. You can’t be pro-women and anti-feminist.” 

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An image posted on the event’s website includes a man wearing a red “Make Women Great Again” hat next to screen displaying a photo of a woman emblazoned with the slogan “men prefer debt-free virgins without tattoos.”

The conference, which is advertised as “the world’s ultimate event for women, by men”, pledges to help women “raise” their “femininity by 500 per cent”.

“Our speakers will teach you how to get wifed up, knocked up, and have as many babies as your heart desires,” say organisers.

Vivienne Hayes, chief executive of the Women’s Resource Centre, the leading national umbrella organisation for the women’s sector in the UK, said: “This is yet another highly disturbing development linked to the MAGA ‘brand’.

“There is undoubtedly severe regression in women’s rights both here in the UK and Europe as well as the USA, which is part of a dangerous and frightening growing ideology which promotes human rights abuses.

“Indeed we are witnessing an escalation of state sanctioned violation of our human rights. Women’s human rights defenders will be mobilising to meet this deadly threat head on. Silence is no longer an option.”

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