Jobless Americans can only hang on as pandemic rages

Chris Stein, AFP•May 7, 2020



The unemployment rate in the United States is set to skyrocket well into the double digits, a level not seen in decades (AFP Photo/Frederic J. BROWN)

Washington (AFP) - The coronavirus pandemic has hit the United States harder than any other country, sending unemployment skyrocketing and undoing the lives of countless Americans. Meet three of them:

- Finding her way -

Laya Hamilton was watching President Donald Trump speak on television from the bar where she worked in Atlanta one day in mid-March when he announced all restaurants should switch to serving food to-go. That's when she realized she'd be losing her job.

It was a setback for 23-year-old Hamilton, who had committed herself to bartending at a restaurant serving barbecue and comfort food a few months earlier after deciding she couldn't juggle working there alongside studying for a journalism degree. Plus, the money was good.

"The main thing about serving is you can make as much or even more than somebody that went to the office that day," she said.

Sure, that could mean nine hours on your feet without a break for base pay of just $2 an hour, but the tips regularly added up to hundreds of dollars a day.

It's her savings from those lucrative months earlier this year that Hamilton is now surviving on, since her unemployment claim has yet to be approved by the state.

In the meantime, she's thinking about a career, something at the intersection of public relations and politics.

And when the bar re-opens, she'll go back, even if social distancing protocols mean the customers won't be as plentiful as they were before.

"It's not that much contact at all," she said of the work. "I make their drink and give it to them."

- At all hours -

Sandra Mahesh has taken to waking up at strange times, picking up her phone and dialing the same number: the Maryland state unemployment office.

At 57, she'd just gotten back on her feet after moving to the suburbs of Washington, beginning a new job in February working the front desk of an upscale apartment building.

But then she got sick: fever, cough, dizziness. She feared it was the coronavirus but tested negative.

By the time she was well again, the virus was rife, and her doctor said it was best if she stayed home.

But after getting unemployment payments for a few weeks, the state cut her off, apparently believing she'd been hired again, sending Mahesh on a thus far fruitless quest to get them to fix the problem.

"I have been literally waking up all times of the night, of the day, trying to call or get online," Mahesh said.

Born in Guyana, Mahesh is a naturalized American citizen who said she's used to living frugally, skills she's put to use in recent weeks as she negotiated a deferment of her car loan, but she's still behind on her rent.

Most of her time is spent inside, on the phone with her daughters or looking online for jobs she can do remotely. When she does go outside, it's to walk around the parking lot of a closed shopping mall.

"That's how I'm surviving, but this kind of situation would make anybody go crazy," Mahesh said. "I don't see a good future with America right now."

- Career, interrupted -

In the rarified world of New York sommeliers, 35-year-old Evan White was good enough to be hired away from Babbo, a fine dining restaurant once owned by disgraced celebrity chef Mario Batali, for another eatery with an even better wine selection.

Then the coronavirus reached the city, both restaurants closed and White was put out of work.

"I think I will be able to get a job in the restaurant business once things do start to become more normal again. Will it be the exact some position as before? I can't say," White said.

He's been working in restaurants for 15 years, beginning as a server before discovering his love of wine, though after long days surrounded by the stuff he often finds himself craving anything but -- cider, beer, or something without alcohol.

White can't remember the last time he's had months of free time, but hasn't let his career slip; he's trying to take classes on wine certification by video conference, all while wondering if the pulsing restaurant scene New York is famous for will ever return.

White is receiving unemployment, and when he compares himself to some of his coworkers -- those making hourly salaries or supporting families or relatives in other countries -- he can only feel lucky.

"It puts worrying about selling wine in a totally different perspective, makes it seem so frivolous in a way," he said.

Over 500 Employees at Trump’s Las Vegas Hotel Have Been Laid Off Amid Coronavirus

Pilar Melendez,The Daily Beast•May 7, 2020

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Over 500 workers at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas have temporarily lost their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The resort, which is part-owned by the Trump Organization, broke the news to employees last month in a letter to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation.

“Based on the fluid and rapidly evolving nature of this situation, however, at this time we are unable to provide a specific date at which we will be able to recommence regular hotel operations and return affected employees to work,” Human Resources Director LaDawndre Stinson wrote in the letter posted to the agency’s website.

The April 3 letter added that because of the “sudden, dramatic, and unexpected nature of this unforeseen emergency” and the demands of Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak’s decision to shut down non-essential businesses amid the pandemic, the hotel would be “unable to provide employees with additional notice of these temporary layoffs.”

Cuomo Blasts Trump: Your Bailout Strategy Will Doom Us All

As first reported by The Washington Post, the president’s properties in New York, D.C., Miami, Chicago, Las Vegas, Vancouver, and Honolulu have all laid-off workers amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has gutted the hospitality industry.

To date, 1,500 employees at hotels owned by the Trump Organization have been laid off or furloughed.

“You can’t have many hundreds of employees standing around doing nothing,” Trump said at the White House on April 21, addressing job cuts. “There’s no customer. You’re not allowed to have a customer.”

During the same press conference—which took place two weeks after the Las Vegas employees learned they were out of a job—Trump expressed his support for Sisolak’s decision to lock down Sin City, despite its cold reception from other elected officials and the Las Vegas mayor, who called it “total insanity.”

“They closed a big hotel down in Nevada that I have in Las Vegas. It’s a very severe step he took. I’m OK with it," Trump said. “But you could call that one either way.”

Bethany Khan, the communications director for the Culinary Union in Las Vegas—which represents nearly all of the Trump employees who were laid off—told The Daily Beast on Thursday that 98 percent of their members are currently furloughed or laid off.

The Culinary Union is Nevada’s most powerful labor organization, representing about 60,000 hotel-casino workers.

In addition to Las Vegas, more than 200 employees were laid off at the president’s hotel in Vancouver, and over 75 percent of his Chicago hotel was placed on leave.

“In an effort to conserve energy, most common areas...are illuminated and heated at a minimum level,” the Chicago hotel told its investors in a letter, stating that the “heartbreaking decision” to lay off two-thirds of its staff also included suspending 401(k) contributions.

Trump Shakes Everyone’s Hands at Coronavirus Press Conference—Ignoring CDC Guidelines

According to the Post, the combined closed properties used to generate about $650,000 every day for the Trump Organization. The family business, which is now managed by the president’s two sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, racked up a property-tax bill in April of more than $1.8 million.

The group reportedly reached out to the Deutsche Bank in March to ask about delaying payments on at least some of its hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and other financial obligations.

According to The New York Times, a Florida-based company executive also emailed and called Palm Beach County officials to talk about whether they had planned to keep asking for payments on land the Trump Organization rents from the county for a 27-hole golf club.

“These days everybody is working together,” Eric Trump told the Times. “Tenants are working with landlords, landlords are working with banks. The whole world is working together as we fight through this pandemic.”

Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., which sits just blocks away from the White House, is also looking for a government break on its rent payments. On April 21, the Times also reported the hotel has asked to delay its monthly rent payments of about $268,000 a month in an effort to curtail their ongoing money troubles. The hotel is housed in the Old Post Office Building, a federally-owned property.

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.

Democrats demand details of Trump Organization requests for UK coronavirus aid

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington,The Guardian•May 7, 2020

 Photograph: Getty Images

Congressional investigators in Washington are demanding information about loans and other funds that the Trump Organization has requested from foreign governments, including Britain, in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

The demand for information follows a media report last month that said the Trump Organization was seeking UK and Irish bailout funds to cover wages of employees who had been furloughed from the company’s golf properties in Europe due to the pandemic.

In a letter to Eric Trump, the president’s son and vice president of the Trump Organization, Carolyn Maloney, the Democratic chairwoman of the House oversight and reform committee, suggested the decision to seek funding in the UK was problematic and potentially a violation of the US constitution, which calls for a president to have undivided loyalty to the US.

The US Congress has already passed legislation prohibiting US taxpayer funds from being used to benefit companies in which Donald Trump holds a stake.

“Apart from the grave emoluments clause problems your actions cause in the United States, officials in the United Kingdom have raised serious concerns about using their own taxpayer funds to bail out President Trump’s companies,” Maloney wrote.

She pointed to reported remarks by Martin Ford, a councillor in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, where one of Trump’s two Scottish luxury properties is located, who said he did not believe UK taxpayers ought to be helping Trump given the president’s own personal wealth. “The huge tab for this will be borne throughout the whole population through higher taxes,” Ford told Bloomberg News.

In her request, Maloney called on Eric Trump to deliver by 21 May “all documents and communications relating to the Trump Organization’s application for any loans or other funds from any domestic or foreign government entity, including the British government”. The congresswoman is also seeking all documents and communications between the Trump Organization and any US federal employees and officials that relate to the novel coronavirus.

Bloomberg News reported in April that the Trump Organization was seeking the bailout money to help pay for bartenders, bagpipers, and other employees who have been furloughed. Trump, who still retains a personal stake in the company, owns three golf resorts in the UK and Ireland.

The demand for information by the powerful chairwoman of the House oversight committee, which has the power to subpoena documents and investigate “any matter”, does not automatically mean the documents will be delivered to Congress. The Trump administration has refused previous demands for information, in defiance of congressional authority.

In a previous statement to USA Today, Eric Trump said the British government’s job retention plan, which allows companies to seek government funds to pay for most of furloughed employees’ salaries, was intended to help the company retain and support its staff.

“The job retention plan created by the UK Government has nothing to do with the Trump Organization and does not benefit the business – it is solely about protecting people and their families who would otherwise be out of work,” he said.

Subway and bus drivers in New York City say the government did too little, too late to protect them from the coronavirus as thousands of their colleagues got sick and 98 died
Marisa Palmer, Graham Rapier and Amelia Kosciulek May 5, 2020,

A Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker cleaning a subway station during the coronavirus outbreak. Braulio Jatar / Echoes Wire/Barcroft Media via Getty Images


Thousands of transportation workers in New York City have fallen ill with the coronavirus, crippling bus and train service.

Business Insider spoke with five Metropolitan Transportation Authority workers who revealed the inside story about how the agency has handled the pandemic.
The workers, who are subway and bus operators, said that their fears weren't taken seriously and that help from leaders came too late.

The MTA responded that it had distributed more than 1 million masks and "continues to adapt" its response to the crisis.

As the coronavirus swept through the ranks of New York City's transportation workforce, employees began taking matters into their own hands.

And with nearly 100 dead and thousands more confirmed positive for COVID-19, subway operators, bus drivers, and other workers for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority say their leaders did too little, too late to prevent the losses.

"The transit workers have suffered the most casualties," Roberto Martinez, a bus operator, told Business Insider. "Why? Because we are in contact with more people on a daily basis."

Martinez and four other MTA workers told "Business Insider Today" that the local and state response to the worst health crisis in America's largest and most densely populated city had left them feeling expendable.

Workers started falling ill in mid-March, leading to service cuts. The MTA's first positive case came three days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the closures of all Broadway theaters and restrictions on gatherings of more than 500 people. Five days later, Cuomo announced "New York on Pause," effectively closing all but essential businesses like hospitals and grocery stores.

MTA workers made signs and cordoned off areas near their drivers' seats. MTA EmployeeIn the meantime, MTA workers, terrified of falling ill, stopped waiting around for personal protective equipment to arrive. They cordoned off areas around drivers' seats and brought their own disinfectant, masks, and gloves to work.

They were met with threats of official discipline.

"They said, well, if you decide that you want to wear personal protective equipment without a plan being in place per the governor of New York state, then you might be violating uniform policies, and you could be questioned or addressed about it and maybe disciplined for it," said Nasar Abdurrahman, a New York City bus driver of nine years who recovered from the disease.

The MTA told Business Insider in an email that no employee was ever disciplined for wearing a mask.

On March 27, the MTA said it would provide 75,000 masks for workers. And two weeks later, Cuomo ordered all New Yorkers to wear masks in public. Buses, meanwhile, became free to ride, and the areas near drivers were officially chained off.

But for many transit workers, it was too late. An internal list created by MTA employees said that about 10 transit workers had already died of COVID-19 by then.

While employees were given access to protective gear, supplies were limited, Martinez and others said.

"I got my bus, and they gave me a paper bag, and inside that bag has one mask, one pair of gloves, and a hand sanitizer," Martinez said. "Those three items are supposed to last five days."

Others said the agency quickly ran out.

"They dropped the ball," said Kimberly McLaurin, a train operator, adding: "When I came to work, there were no masks. I just happened to have my own. They ran out of gloves. They ran out of hand sanitizer."

All the while, a driver and train-crew shortage due to sick employees caused interruptions with the skeleton service already running. In some cases, it led to crowded buses and trains where social distancing simply wasn't possible.

In response to the workers' claims, an MTA representative gave the following statement to Business Insider:
"As the biggest transportation system in the United States and despite worldwide supply shortages, the MTA has led the nation with the scope and scale of its COVID-19 response, distributing more than one million masks and breaking away from CDC guidance to recommend that all employees and riders wear masks before the CDC reversed course and recommended the same.

"The MTA's aggressive efforts are designed to save lives as we continue to adapt to this dynamic and unprecedented pandemic."

Still, the deaths ticked up. By Friday, the number stood at 98, MTA Chairman Pat Foye said, as the agency prepared to take an unprecedented step: shutting down overnight service. The city that never sleeps will on Wednesday have four hours of overnight quiet — underground at least — from 1 to 5 a.m. to disinfect every bus and train.

"In the 116-year history of the subway system, going back to 1904, it has never closed as it will Wednesday morning at one o'clock," Foye said on MSNBC on Friday, according to a transcript provided by the agency. "We believe we've got an obligation to our employees, to our current riders, and to our future riders to take every step we can to assure public health and that our system has been disinfected."

He also announced that the agency's board had approved a $500,000 family benefit for deceased employees.

"There has been a tragic toll obviously in New York City and New York state and across the nation, but at the MTA, 98 of our colleagues have succumbed to the virus," he said. "That is a tragic loss of life. We grieve and mourn the loss of every one of our colleagues."

WAGNER NOT SMERSH
Wagner, shadowy Russian military group, 'fighting in Libya'

BBC•May 7, 2020

The forces of renegade general Khalifa Haftar have been trying to take the capital

Hundreds of mercenaries from Russia's shadowy Wagner Group are operating in Libya, a leaked UN report says.

They have been supporting renegade general Khalifa Haftar's battle against the Tripoli-based government, it says.

Since 2014, Libya has been split between areas controlled by the sides.

Wagner is believed to have been involved in conflicts in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere. The Russian government denies any state involvement in the militant group.


Who are Russia's shadowy Wagner mercenaries?


What are Russia's intentions in Africa?


Powerful 'Putin's chef' Prigozhin cooks up murky deals

What does the UN report say?

The report was compiled by independent monitors for the UN's Libya sanctions committee. It has not been made public yet but it has been seen by news agencies.

It is the first time the UN has confirmed reports of Wagner's involvement in Libya, putting the number of operatives at between 800 and 1,000.

The 57-page report says Wagner operatives have been in Libya since October 2018, "providing technical support for the repair of military vehicles and participating in combat operations".

Khalifa Haftar: The Libyan general with big ambitions


Libya in chaos as endless war rumbles on


Why is Libya so lawless?

Its members have been acting as artillery and air observers, as well as "providing electronic countermeasures expertise and deploying as sniper teams".

The personnel were mainly Russian, but there were also nationals of Belarus, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine, the report said.

Early this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said any nationals in Libya did not represent Moscow, nor were they paid by the state.

The UN report also says that Syrian mercenaries are fighting alongside Gen Haftar.
What's the background to the Libyan conflict?

Libya has been wracked by war since the 2011 uprising which ousted long-time strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

There is an internationally recognised Government of National Accord based in the capital, Tripoli. It is supported by Qatar and Turkey. Pro-Turkish Syrians have been fighting for the GNA, which mainly controls areas in the nation's north-west.

Ranged against it is the Libyan National Army (LNA), loyal to Gen Haftar, which is based in eastern Libya but controls many other areas. It is backed by Egypt, Russia and the UAE.

Gen Haftar launched an offensive against the capital in April 2019 but has been unable to take it.

A truce brokered by Turkey and Russia in January has been repeatedly violated.
What is known about Wagner?

It was reported to have been founded by Dmitry Utkin, believed to be a former member of a special forces brigade of Russian military intelligence, the GRU. Media have reported Dmitry Utkin's call sign was Wagner, given to him due to his admiration of the Nazi regime, which appropriated the composer's work to support its vision of Germany.

Wagner made its presence felt first in Russia's military takeover of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in March 2014 and in the pro-Russian insurgency which erupted in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions the following month.

How the group is run and funded is open to speculation. Some media sources suggest the GRU secretly oversees it.

Investigations by Western journalists have linked the wealthy Russian businessman nicknamed "Putin's chef" - Yevgeny Prigozhin - to the group. Mr Prigozhin, part of Mr Putin's elite circle, has denied it.

Analysts say that as the Russian government does not officially recognise the mercenaries' existence, it can deny or play down any Russian casualties while maintaining a military presence.

Wagner has been reported as operating in a number of nations hit by conflict.

A BBC Russian investigation in 2018 highlighted the deaths of Russian mercenaries fighting in Syria. As many as 2,500 members were serving there, with officers reportedly earning up to 300,000 roubles (£3,800; $5,300) a month.

Wagner activities have also been reported in Madagascar and the Central African Republic (CAR). Three Russian journalists investigating Wagner's involvement were shot dead in the CAR in 2018.
What's the latest in the Libyan conflict?

The UN mission in Libya on Wednesday urged the two warring sides to resume talks on a lasting truce. They have been suspended since February.

The UN has urged Gen Haftar and the GNA to resume talks

Gen Haftar, whose forces have had setbacks in recent weeks, on Wednesday called for a unilateral ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, but the GNA rejected it, saying it needed international safeguards.

The battle for the capital has left hundreds dead, with more than 200,000 people displaced.

A GNA minister has also accused Gen Haftar's forces, and Wagner in particular, of carrying out a chemical attack in the Salah al-Din area south of Tripoli.

Interior minister Fathi Bashaga said GNA forces were "exposed to nerve gas, paralysed and then sniped". There has been no independent confirmation.

There have also been reports of a rift between Wagner and Gen Haftar over unpaid fees.

FOR PROFIT HEALTH CARE USA KA-CHING

America's biggest health insurers have been so profitable during the coronavirus that one is already giving cash back to customers, while hospitals lose billions

BIDEN WALL ST DEMOCRATS BACK BIG INSURERS AGAINST MEDICARE FOR ALL

Lydia Ramsey BUSINESS INSIDER MAY 7, 2020

Crystal Cox/Business Insider


While many healthcare companies have taken financial hits amid the coronavirus pandemic, health insurers have managed to stay afloat.

A review of the largest publicly-traded health insurers' first-quarter results for 2020 show that most have weathered the initial weeks of the pandemic financially, maintaining their financial guidance for the year.

The insurers have been boosted in large part by paying out fewer medical claims as hospitals have deferred surgeries and visits, a trend insurers expect to see continuing in the second-quarter of 2020.

 
Health insurers responsible for covering the cost of healthcare for Americans find themselves in a curious spot during the coronavirus pandemic.

Even as some hospitals are overwhelmed with coronavirus patients, the insurers are posting strong profits. The six largest publicly traded insurers made $8.6 billion in profit combined from their health plan businesses in the first three months of 2020.

Health insurers are saving a significant amount of money because many people aren't getting other types of costly care, such as surgeries and procedures. That means the insurers are doing well financially, despite taking measures to waive costs associated with testing and treatment for the novel coronavirus.

Hospitals, on the other hand, are struggling. Caring for coronavirus patients is far less lucrative than the surgeries that have been put on hold, and the facilities expect to lose close to $203 billion in revenue between March and June. Companies that make medical devices are seeing their business disrupted, too.

A survey conducted by Boston Consulting Group found that there's been a 60% decline in medical procedures across the US. By BCG's calculations, procedure volumes will continue to be 30% lower than they were before the pandemic over the following 12-18 months. 

Because so many Americans get insurance through work, many of those people now have to get insurance from the individual exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act or through Medicaid. They can also pay the full price for their work-based coverage via an option called COBRA. Others might not be able to pay premiums on their existing health plans. 

While reporting their first-quarter earnings, the insurers shared a snapshot of how their businesses fared through the early days of the pandemic and what's ahead for the rest of the year:

Humana beat estimates in late April based on its growth in membership for its Medicare Advantage plans. It maintained its annual financial guidance. It made $1 billion in adjusted pre-tax income. 

Cigna, reported having a "strong" first quarter of the year, also maintaining its financial guidance. Its insurance business made $1.2 billion in adjusted income from operations. 

CVS Health, which owns the health insurer Aetna, grew its business in the first-quarter of 2020. It left its 2020 guidance unchanged. Its healthcare benefits segment made $1.1 billion in operating income. 

Anthem, the $69 billion health insurer that offers health plans under the Blue Cross and Blue Shield brand in 14 states, beat on revenue projections for the first quarter and upheld its projections for 2020. It made $1.8 billion in operating gain from its health plan business. 

UnitedHealth Group, which operates the biggest health insurer in the US, in April didn't change its 2020 guidance, maintaining a forecast for net earnings per share between $15.45 and $15.75. Its insurance arm made $2.9 billion in earnings from operations. 

Centene, the largest Medicaid insurer, raised its revenue guidance amid the pandemic, citing higher unemployment in the US. The insurer made $476 million in adjusted net earnings in the first quarter.

UnitedHealth on Thursday said it was providing $1.5 billion worth of support for customers by way of discounts to their premiums and waiving of copays for doctors' visits. Some of the moves were required by rules that require health insurers to refund customers when they make too much money, but UnitedHealth said "the vast majority" are not. Humana also said it's giving members free primary care, behavioral health and telehealth visits for the rest of the year.

CVS Health noted that it saw a 30% drop over the last two weeks of March and through April in discretionary or deferred care. In places around the country that have started to lift the shelter-in-place orders, visits to the doctor have started to tick back up, CEO Larry Merlo told Business Insider. But it won't be as straightforward as resuming visits — people have to feel comfortable stepping into a doctor's office or hospital.

"There's an element of consumer behavior that is in play here as it relates to discretionary care," Merlo said. "When will people be comfortable doing whatever it was, that they would have done had the pandemic never occurred. It's hard to gauge that trajectory. It's a real unknown at this point."

In the second-quarter, CVS expects to spend the least on medical care in 2020, with spending picking up again in the second half of the year.

"We do expect that to pick back up as we move forward through the balance of the year," Merlo said.

Jeff Bezos has become too removed from employees to see what's really going on, say the fired Amazon tech workers who inspired a VP to publicly quit

FIRST IT WAS WAREHOUSE WORKERS, NOW ITS ENGINEERS, 

THORESTEIN VEBLEN THOU ART AVENGED 

Julie Bort BUSINESS INSIDER 

Axel Springer/Blue Origin/ Business Insider

Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, the two fired Amazon tech workers at the center of a PR firestorm, spoke to Business Insider about their experiences at the ecommerce giant. 

Costa and Cunningham were leaders of an internal group of Amazon employees protesting the company's treatment of its warehouse workers. The group also called for Amazon to take more urgent action on climate change.

The two say they were both fired on the same day and at the same time for violating Amazon's external communications and non-solicitation policies. Soon after they were fired, Costa and Cunningham organized a protest of Amazon. 

The firing of Costa and Cunningham, and the protests that followed, caused Amazon VP Tim Bray, a highly-respected coder, to resign and publicly condemn the company.

The entire episode has led to an upswing in Amazon engineers speaking out against their employer's tactics, even as state attorneys general start looking for answers. 

The fired workers, one of whom has been with Amazon for 15 years and has internally worked on many changes, say the whole situation is caused by one thing: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has become too insulated from his own company.

At 3 p.m. Pacific Time on April 10, Maren Costa — a user experience designer and 15-year veteran of Amazon with 9 patents pending — joined a video call with her boss's boss. The invite, sent to her last minute, was odd: It didn't have a subject line. 

It wasn't unusual to speak to him on a video call with the company still on work-from-home orders so she didn't think much about it until she logged on and saw an HR person had joined the call.

The HR person said: "You have been warned in the past for breaking the external communication policy and you continue to break policies including the no solicitation policy, and by doing so you have decided to end your employment with Amazon, effective immediately," Costa told Business Insider, remembering the conversation.

She was instructed to box up any company property, send it back to Amazon and the call was ended.

"I worked at Amazon for 15 years and was fired in one phone call and I didn't even get to say a word," Costa says.

Amazon tech employee Emily Cunningham says she was also fired from Amazon, on the same day and time, for the same reasons.

Maren Costa YouTube/Amazon Employees for Climate Justice"I got a meeting invite at 2:45 for a 3 o'clock call with my director," Cunningham said. She couldn't make the meeting and replied asking for a later date — only to discover that she had been cut off from Amazon's network at 3 p.m. At around 4, she got a call from an HR person that lasted about 60 seconds, she says, where she was informed that she was fired for violating corporate policies.

The external communication policy forbids Amazon employees from speaking publicly without getting authorization from the company beforehand. It was updated in January, 2019, after an employee activist group was formed to push Amazon towards adopting a more aggressive climate change policy.

Both Cunningham and Costa were leaders of that group, known as Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ).

The group was supported by hundreds of other Amazon tech workers, some of whom publicly signed open letters in support. They staged events, got media coverage, and successfully influenced Amazon to embrace a set of new climate-related policies — although the company didn't bend to all their demands. After AECJ began its campaign, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos also announced a plan to spend $10 billion of his own money funding climate science work.

AECJ's activism expanded into supporting the company's army of warehouse workers when story after story reported on a grueling work environment. Then COVID-19 struck, and AECJ pushed Amazon to do more to protect warehouse workers as some of those workers complained the company was not doing enough to protect them. US warehouses workers now account for at least 600 cases and three deaths, as Business Insider previously reported.

So what prompted Amazon to fire Costa and Cunningham when it did? The pair tell Business Insider that they believe it was sparked by something that happened earlier that same day: Another Amazon engineer, a member of AECJ who had given the company his two-week notice, sent out a calendar invitation to thousands of his coworkers — inviting them to an event to listen to warehouse workers speak about their experiences amid the pandemic.

Amazon deleted the event from employees' calendars. Not long after, Costa and Cunningham got their mysterious meeting invitations. The company also fired two warehouse workers who had protested conditions, over what it said were unrelated violations of corporate policies.

The firings has led to an uproar this week, even as the company draws more attention from governmental authorities. On Wednesday, a group of lawmakers sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos asking him to explain the firings of Costa, Cunningham and the warehouse workers.

Costa and Cunningham tell Business Insider that they believe the whole situation is really caused by one thing: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has become too insulated from his own company.

Amazon declined to comment for this story.
Shocked to the core

Cunningham was saddened, but not surprised, at being fired. She had formed AECJ to "make Amazon a better company," she said — and had been prepared to lose her job over it. If her children ever asked her what she had done to help stop the climate crisis, she wanted to have an answer.

But Costa, who had been with Amazon for a decade and a half, says that she was shocked to the core. When she joined AECJ, she thought that Amazon would listen and work with the group. She remembers telling colleagues: "We can totally do this. Amazon has always been receptive. If you have good ideas and you have the data, people will listen, resources will come," she recalled.

Costa says that in her 15 years there, she's successfully used Amazon's internal mechanisms to advocate for change "many times in the past."

Emily Cunningham YouTube/Amazon Employees for Climate Justice

The group wanted Amazon to commit to reducing its carbon footprint, and fast enough to keep pace with the recommendations of climate scientists.

AECJ also wanted Amazon's cloud arm, Amazon Web Services, to stop helping the major oil companies in the extraction process. The group hoped Amazon would drop Big Oil, in the same way that Google employees pressured Google Cloud into forgoing weapons-related work for the Pentagon.

Members of the group scheduled meetings with Amazon higher-ups like the director of sustainability, "but every internal avenue we tried was met with silence and dead ends," Costa said.

So AECJ fired up a Twitter account, wrote public letters, scheduled public protests, and shared their opinions on the matter with the press.

And they won some significant victories. Amazon promised to become net zero carbon across its businesses by 2040, — which, the company points out, is a decade ahead of the Paris Agreement. But 2040 was a decade later than the deadline that AECJ was pushing for.

By comparison, in January, Amazon's Seattle-based rival Microsoft promised to be carbon negative by 2030, more in line with AECJ's hope for Amazon.
A VP quits in solidarity

Once fired, Costa and Cunningham turned their attention into throwing a full-blown, all-day protest event on Friday, April 24, a couple of weeks after news had circulated that they had been terminated. They lined up 30 speakers including climate scientists and several Amazon warehouse workers.

One particularly moving story came from a New York-based warehouse worker who described how Amazon management was slow to tell some employees about new coronavirus cases in their facility — but got much better about it in the wake of a walkout protest in March.

Hundreds of people joined the live protest event, and thousands more watched it online. The audience included one Amazon's most famous engineers, Tim Bray, a vice president with the rare title of distinguished engineer. Bray is revered in the coding world as the inventor of XML, a special language for web pages that became wildly popular with companies sharing documents over the web.

On Monday he made international headlines when he publicly quit, citing the firings of Costa, Cunningham and the warehouse workers after watching the protest event as his reason for leaving.

"Management could have objected to the event, or demanded that outsiders be excluded, or that leadership be represented, or any number of other things; there was plenty of time. Instead, they just fired the activists," he said, explaining that he, too, tried discussions through regular channels before he quit.

"Firing whistleblowers...is evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture," he wrote, saying he was sad to be walking away from a job that he loved. He said that quitting cost him about $1 million.

And the reverberations continued. Brad Porter, a VP and engineer at Amazon, responded to Bray's criticisms, calling them "deeply offensive to the core." Porter argued that Amazon "has responded more nimbly to this crisis than any other company in the world." Amazon says that it's spending billions to protect its workers with everything from buying millions of masks, doing temperature scans, reducing workloads to maintain social distancing, to developing its own COVID tests.

But there's simmering unrest among Amazon's engineering ranks. Anton Okmyanskiy, a principal engineer at Amazon Web Services, wrote on LinkedIn that he was inspired by the resignation of the well-respected Bray, and suggested that "Amazon stay ahead of anger-driven regulatory enforcement by becoming a leader on social justice issues. It is time!"

And programmers this week were openly calling on Amazon engineers to quit on a thread on Hacker News, a popular online hangout for tech workers. This came after someone posted that some Amazon engineers were so upset they want to help the warehouse workers organize, but were afraid of being fired if they did.
Where's Jeff?

In Costa and Cunningham's view, this is all a sign that CEO Jeff Bezos, now the wealthiest man in the world who owns multiple mansions and is building his own space program via his company Blue Origin, has become out of touch with ordinary people, especially his own employees.

Costa believes that Amazon as a company has drastically changed from her early days. CEO Jeff Bezos is famously fascinated with the concept of "Day 1," the notion that even a company as big as Amazon needs to stay as small and scrappy as a brand-new startup on its first day of business. "Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death," Bezos is widely quoted as saying.

In Costa's view, this whole episode is a sign that "Amazon has become a Day 2 company," and that "they've lost that innovative, excited, brave and bold, let's make history attitude."

Costa remembers the early days when the company would send tech workers "to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with warehouse workers to get packages out to customers on time." She says that it was an exciting time, when the whole company would pull together for a common goal.

Indeed, Amazon used to require every Level 7 tech employee and above (which is to say, its more senior staff) to spend two days working in the warehouses as part of their training, according to one long-time Amazon engineer.

But as Amazon has grown into a massive conglomerate — a major retailer, private-label manufacturer, cloud computing provider, and Hollywood producer — Bezos has seen his fortune and fame grow, and is now the richest man in the world.

"Jeff has become so removed from normal human beings," Costa says. His "blind spots" are the lives of his employees and customers, she believes. She points to his recent visit to an Amazon warehouse, where the arrival of the mask-wearing CEO was treated as a special PR event, rather than a normal part of his daily duties as chief executive.

Meanwhile, AECJ's activism continues to have ripple effects pushing Amazon towards even more scrutiny.

For instance, New York Attorney General, Letitia James said last month that the firing of an activist warehouse worker at a Staten Island facility could have violated labor laws, and she has called on watchdogs to open an investigation.

Amid the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, attorneys general from 14 states are questioning Amazon's sick leave policies for warehouse workers. And in France, Amazon shut down its distribution centers after courts ruled it was not allowed to continue to have warehouse workers working to sell non-essential goods.

Are you an Amazon insider with insight to share? Contact Julie Bort via email at jbort@businessinsider.com or on encrypted chat app Signal at (970) 430-6112 (no PR inquiries, please). Open DMs on Twitter @Julie188. 

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Over 600 Amazon warehouse workers at 148 facilities could have gotten COVID-19, but total numbers are hard to determine because Amazon hasn't been telling its warehouse workers about all cases, multiple employees say

For the first time, customers can't — or won't — pay their cloud software bills, which could forever change the once-reliable subscription model

Arizona, which is about to reopen, told its virus experts to stop making projections after they suggested the outbreak there has not yet peaked

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey. Ross D. Franklin/AP

Arizona ended the work of a team of scientists who predicted that the peak of its outbreak had not yet arrived.

The experts, from Arizona universities, were making models for the state, and had predicted that the peak could come on May 22 or later.

But the state's health department stopped their work hours after Republican Gov. Doug Ducey announced some businesses can reopen this week, ABC 15 Arizona and the Arizona Republic reported.

The state now says it will rely on other sources of information and on federal modelling.

Arizona ended its work with a team of experts who predicted the virus has not yet peaked in the state, even as the governor moves to lift restrictions.

ABC 15 Arizona and the Arizona Republic reported that that the state's health department asked its modeling team to stop their work on Monday night, the day before President Donald Trump visited the state.

The order came hours after Doug Ducey, the state's Republican governor, announced that he was lifting some restrictions on businesses, including salons and restaurants, in the coming days.

He said he had "confidence that we are going in the right direction."

But the modeling team, made up of at least 23 volunteer experts from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, had predicted in late April that peak of the outbreak in the state hasn't arrived yet — and could come on May 22 or later.

The University of Arizona. Nagel Photography/Shutterstock

In an email seen by ABC 15, Steven Bailey, Arizona Department of Health Services' bureau chief for public health statistics, said in an email to the modeling team: "We've been asked by Department leadership to 'pause' all current work on projections and modeling."

He said the team may be reassembled in late summer or early fall, but did not give a reason for why the team's work was being stopped, ABC 15 reported.

Officials in Arizona said they would use other information, including information from federal agencies, both The Washington Post and the Arizona Republic reported. The federal projections are not available to the public.
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An inside look at the world of American concierge medicine, which has remained immune to the nationwide COVID-19 testing shortage.

The CDC wrote a report with advice on safely reopening public places amid a pandemic. But the Trump administration said it 'would never see the light of day.'

US weekly jobless claims hit 3.2 million, bringing the 7-week total to more than 33 million.

Arizona ended the work of a team of scientists who predicted that the peak of its outbreak had not yet arrived.


Dr. Cara Christ, director of the state Department of Health Services, told the Arizona Republic: "We just asked them to take a pause for a little bit."

"We are continuing to get updated FEMA models and we think that that is really representative of where we are."

The move comes as Trump pushes for states to reopen, even while acknowledging that this could lead to a higher death toll.

Ducey, the state's governor, had previously extended a stay-at-home order to May 15. He changed course on Monday May 4, announcing that he would let businesses open before then.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey talks to officials during the coronavirus outbreak in Phoenix in March 2020. David Wallace/The Arizona Republic via AP

Experts are concerned at the ending of the modelling team. Josiah D. Rich, an epidemiologist at Brown University, told the Post that "the approach seems to be 'Shoot the messenger — and quick.'"

Bailey, the Arizona health official, had previously said that the researchers would have "full, unfettered access to confidential . . . data from the Department," the Post reported.

"This is a situation that is unprecedented in living memory, and it is going to become rapidly more dire in the coming days," he wrote in previously unreported correspondence.

"I cannot, therefore, overemphasize the importance of what we are requesting here."

Bailey declined to comment to the Post.

Some essential workers are making less money than people getting unemployment benefits — and they're demanding hazard pay

Barbara Corbellini Duarte and Lauren Shamo

Some essential workers are frustrated they have to work for low pay during the coronavirus health crisis

In some cases, people receiving unemployment benefits earn more money than trade workers who are still on the job.

Lawmakers have proposed awarding essential workers hazard pay — additional payment for working under dangerous conditions.

Getting sick, missing paychecks while recovering, and returning to work through the pandemic is still a reality for many Americans like Bailey Delaplaine.

But she feels forgotten.

Delaplaine's work as a welder at a steel factory in upstate New York has been deemed essential during the coronavirus pandemic. But many people collecting unemployment in her state are bringing in more money than she does.

"I am still mad that people are sitting at home not doing anything, making more money than me. It's not right. I'm sorry," Delaplaine told Business Insider Today. "It's just not right that we have workers that are going out in this mess to do work essentially for the economy. Give us something for going out in this stuff."

Delaplaine makes $513 per week welding parts for construction and roads.

Meanwhile, many people who've been laid off or furloughed in New York state are earning about double that, thanks to the extra $600 per week from the federal stimulus package.

Now, Delaplaine is among a growing number of essential workers who are burning out and feeling left behind.

"I don't feel like I'm recognized at all. I'm getting nothing," she said. "I'm not even getting a 'thank you' for going to work in this.
Her frustration motivated Delaplaine to create a Facebook group last month called "Give Essential Workers Essential Pay."

goLatest newss decline.The group now has over 700 members, many of them essential workers who want the government to give them hazard pay — additional income for those still working during the health crisis.

Welder Bailey Delaplaine is among a growing number of essential workers who are frustrated by low pay during the coronavirus health crisis. Tim Freccia for Business Insider Today

So far, the federal government has approved trillions in relief funds for several parts of the economy, but none of it has gone to essential workers risking their health during the pandemic.

Senate Democrats proposed a "Heroes Fund" in early April that would give an additional premium of about $13 an hour for some essential workers through the end of 2020. But it's unclear if workers like Delaplaine would qualify — the proposal doesn't specifically cover trade workers like Bailey and her boyfriend, who works in construction.


More recently, Sen. Mitt Romney introduced the "Patriot Pay" proposal, which would give some essential workers an additional $12 an hour through the end of July. It's also unclear whether workers like Bailey would qualify under Romney's proposal, as the proposed list of essential industries only includes hospitals, food distributors and processors, and health manufacturers.

Still, the odds of all essential workers receiving hazard pay are slim.

States across the country are emptying their funds to pay the millions of newly unemployed people. New York, where Bailey lives, is at risk of running out of unemployment money in a matter of weeks. And funds in 21 states were already below the minimum threshold to pay benefits.

Meanwhile, Delaplaine is falling behind on her bills. She was sent home for two weeks at the end of March because she was coughing and had lost her sense of taste — two symptoms common of COVID-19.


She never got tested, because without shortness of breath and a fever, her case wasn't considered severe. But those two weeks without pay have taken a toll.

"I'm behind on my gas and electric right now. Thank goodness they're not shutting people off because of this," she said. "I believe our Spectrum bill is overdue. My student loans that are $90 a month, I've just kind of put those on hold because I like eating more than paying my student loans."

Her Facebook group has become the one place she feels heard.

"We're just looked over right now and it's not right. We all deserve recognition," Delaplaine said. "And whenever I see a welder or a landscaper or any anybody in a blue collar trades position on the page, I make sure I react to their comment, react to their posts. And I'm like, yes. As a fabricator, I am here for you. I am fighting for you. I'm on your side."

OOPS
The head of Sweden's no-lockdown coronavirus plan said the country's heavy death toll 'came as a surprise'

Sinéad Baker May 6, 2020

The epidemiologist Anders Tegnell of the Public Health Agency of Sweden at a coronavirus press conference in Solna, Sweden, in March. 

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images

The head of Sweden's coronavirus response said in a new interview that the country's high death toll had "come as a surprise" and was "really something we worry a lot about."
The state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told "The Daily Show" that the Swedish strategy had still been successful in many ways.

But he said the no-lockdown strategy was not a conscious decision in favor of more deaths — instead he said the outsize toll was not part of the plan.
About half of Sweden's deaths have been in nursing homes, which prohibit visitors. Tegnell said health officials had thought it would be easier to keep the disease away from them.

The man leading Sweden's coronavirus response says the country's elevated death toll "really came as a surprise to us."

Dr. Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist, appeared on "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" on Tuesday, when he described the country's controversial approach.

"We never really calculated with a high death toll initially, I must say," he said.

"We calculated on more people being sick, but the death toll really came as a surprise to us."

As of Tuesday, Sweden reported more than 2,700 COVID-19 deaths and more than 23,000 infections. That death toll is far higher than its Nordic neighbors' and many other countries that locked down.

Tegnell with Trevor Noah on "The Daily Show." 

YouTube/The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Tegnell said there were good points to Sweden's unusual strategy, which largely relies on people to socially distance without fixed rules

The architect of Sweden's decision not to have a coronavirus lockdown says he still isn't sure it was the right call

Sinéad Baker May 4, 2020

People enjoying the spring weather in Stockholm on April 22

 despite the coronavirus pandemic.

 ANDERS WIKLUND/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP via Getty Images


The architect of Sweden's unusual coronavirus plan says he still isn't sure it was the right call not to introduce a lockdown.

The state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet he was "not convinced at all" and his team was constantly examining how it was going and what else should be done.

He also said it was important to "be humble all the time because you may have to change," according to The Independent.

Sweden has introduced only a handful of rules and has left places like parks and restaurants open, but its death toll is much higher than neighboring countries'.

The scientist behind Sweden's controversial coronavirus plan says he is still not sure whether the country made the right decision by not implementing a lockdown.

"I'm not convinced at all," Anders Tegnell, Sweden's state epidemiologist, told the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet on Friday, adding that the country's Public Health Agency — where he works — was constantly monitoring the situation.

"We are constantly thinking about this … What can we do better and what else can we add on?" he said, according to The Independent.

"I think the most important thing all the time is to try to do it as well as you can, with the knowledge we have and the tools you have in place. And to be humble all the time because you may have to change."

The state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell at a press conference 

in Solna, Sweden, on March 12. 

JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images
Sweden has attracted international attention and scrutiny for choosing to rely on citizens' sense of public duty and trust that they'll practice social distancing even without a host of rules meant to keep people apart.

People in Sweden are urged to stay apart, but shops, restaurants, bars, parks, and elementary schools are still open, with the limited rules including a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, a ban on visits to care homes, and restaurants kept from serving customers who aren't seated.

If Sweden's plan proves successful, it could serve as evidence that other countries might have dealt with the virus without devastating their economy and keeping people inside.

But whether it has been successful is up for debate: The country's death toll is far higher than that of many other countries that introduced harsher restrictions.

People in Stockholm on April 21. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

UN chief says pandemic is unleashing a `tsunami of hate'

EDITH M. LEDERER,Associated Press•May 7, 2020

FILE - In this Dec. 17, 2019 file photo, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attends the UNHCR - Global Refugee Forum at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. When financial markets collapsed and the world faced its last great crisis in 2008, major powers worked together to restore the global economy, but the COVID-19 pandemic has been striking for the opposite response. The financial crisis gave birth to the leaders’ summit of the Group of 20, the world’s richest countries responsible for 80% of the global economy. But when Guterres proposed ahead of their summit in late March that G-20 leaders adopt a “wartime” plan and cooperate on the global response to suppress the virus, there was no response (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday the coronavirus pandemic keeps unleashing “a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering.”

The U.N. chief said “anti-foreigner sentiment has surged online and in the streets, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread, and COVID-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred.”

Guterres said migrants and refugees “have been vilified as a source of the virus -- and then denied access to medical treatment.”

“With older persons among the most vulnerable, contemptible memes have emerged suggesting they are also the most expendable,” he said. “And journalists, whistleblowers, health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are being targeted simply for doing their jobs.”

Guterres appealed “for an all-out effort to end hate speech globally.”

The secretary-general called on political leaders to show solidarity with all people, on educational institutions to focus on “digital literacy” at a time when “extremists are seeking to prey on captive and potentially despairing audiences.”

He called on the media, especially social media, to “remove racist, misogynist and other harmful content,” on civil society to strengthen their outreach to vulnerable people, and on religious figures to serve as “models of mutual respect.”

“And I ask everyone, everywhere, to stand up against hate, treat each other with dignity and take every opportunity to spread kindness,” Guterres said.

The secretary-general stressed that COVID-19 “does not care who we are, where we live, what we believe or about any other distinction.”

His global appeal to address and counter COVID-19-related hate speech follows his April 23 message calling the coronarivus pandemic “a human crisis that is fast becoming a human rights crisis.”

Guterres said then that the pandemic has seen “disproportionate effects on certain communities, the rise of hate speech, the targeting of vulnerable groups, and the risks of heavy-handed security responses undermining the health response.”

With “rising ethno-nationalism, populism, authoritarianism and a push back against human rights in some countries, the crisis can provide a pretext to adopt repressive measures for purposes unrelated to the pandemic,” he warned.

In February, Guterres issued a call to action to countries, businesses and people to help renew and revive human rights across the globe, laying out a seven-point plan amid concerns about climate change, conflict and repression.