Amazon managers have been told to keep performance-improvement plans secret from employees, according to a report

kshalvey@insider.com (Kevin Shalvey) 
Amazon's New York office. Mark Lennihan/AP Photo

Amazon managers were reportedly told to keep secret their staffers' performance-improvement plans.

"Do not discuss Focus with employees," read an internal Amazon page, The Seattle Times reported.

An employee told the Seattle Times he was in a "weird, nebulous performance hell for a few years."

See more stories on Insider's business page.

Amazon managers have been directed not to tell employees when they are put on performance-improvement plans, The Seattle Times reported.

The guidance was posted on an internal webpage with Q&As for managers, the report said. Amazon uses a complex system for rating employee performance, with the staffers rated "least effective" being placed on performance-improvement plans under a system known as Focus.

More than a dozen current and former Amazon employees told Insider in May that the company's performance programs were unfair, too ambiguous, and gave managers too much power over their careers - and makes it that much easier for them to get let go from the company.

According to the Seattle Times report, a message on the internal Amazon site reads: "Do not discuss Focus with employees. Instead, tell the employee that their performance is not meeting expectations, the specific areas where they need to improve, and offer feedback and support to help them improve."

Internal documentation reviewed by the Times asked managers to not tell their direct reports about their Focus-system status unless they explicitly asked about it.

Performance-improvement plans are common in Silicon Valley, where employee productivity is often tracked by the hour, if not the minute.

Many companies are open about the process, giving low-performing employees goals to push them to become more productive before their next review cycle. At some companies, performance-improvement plans are the first step toward firing an employee.

Insider has reached out to Amazon for comment.

"Like most employers, we provide managers with tools to help employees improve their performance and grow in their careers at Amazon," an Amazon spokesperson told the Times. "This includes resources for employees who are not meeting expectations and may require additional coaching."

One unnamed engineer told the Seattle Times that he'd been on a performance-improvement plan for a year and a half, but only found out when he was brought under a new manager.

"I ended up in this weird, nebulous performance hell for a few years," he said.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Retail workers in unions reap higher wages even as U.S. organizers suffer setbacks
By Richa Naidu 1 day ago

© Reuters/Adam Ryan 

Target worker Adam Ryan stands in the stockroom of his store in Christiansburg, Virginia

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wally Waugh, 57, a front-end manager at a Stop & Shop supermarket in Oyster Bay, New York, makes over $1,150 a week. He is a union member.

Adam Ryan, 33, a sales clerk at a Christiansburg, Virginia, Target, makes $380 to $460 a week. He is not.

While the gap in how much they earn arises in part from the very different regions where both live and work, it is also in line with a Reuters analysis of U.S. retail wages, whose findings are previously unreported. After reviewing two decades of retail wages, Reuters found that union workers get paid more on average - and that the gap is widening.

Reuters examined a three-year rolling average of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and found that the weekly pay differential between union and nonunion workers in the U.S. retail sector widened significantly between 2013 and 2019 - from nearly $20 to more than $50.

Graphic: Wage advantage for retail union workers increases - https://graphics.reuters.com/RETAIL-UNIONS/rlgvddjzevo/chart.png

By the end of 2019, a unionized retail worker was taking home an average of about $730 a week, compared with over $670 weekly for a nonunionized worker, the Reuters analysis shows.(Reuters did not count 2020, a year largely viewed by economists as a pandemic-hit outlier.)

Unionization, worker treatment and wages in the retail industry have been in the spotlight this year because of a highly publicized attempt by Amazon.com Inc workers to organize at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.

Amazon argued to its workers in Alabama that their benefits might decline if a union bargained on their behalf. But the Reuters analysis challenges Amazon's claim.

A sustained four-year labor squeeze in the retail industry - combined with independent movements to push minimum wages in U.S. states to $15 an hour - is providing unions more power to bargain longer, and to give workers more regular hours and better pay, said Kenneth Dau-Schmidt, professor of labor and employment law at Indiana University Bloomington.

Workers often fear that retailers will move to close stores and warehouses or fire people who try to organize. Amazon's agents allegedly warned that the company could shut the Bessemer, Alabama, facility if a union took root, according to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Amazon denied threatening a warehouse closure or layoffs.

Earlier this year, workers at the facility voted against unionizing by a margin of more than 2-to-1.

'TRIGGER WORD'

Seventy-two percent of the 5,804 public and private union elections in the past five years were in favor of workers trying to organize, according to data from the U.S. National Labor Relations Board. Nine out of every 10 petitions to form bargaining units were won by unions last year, the highest rate of success in at least a decade.

Graphic: More union wins amid worries about Covid-19 working conditions - https://graphics.reuters.com/RETAIL-UNIONS/bdwpkwjdlpm/chart.png

But the percentage of unionized retail workers has been declining over the past four decades. Last year, only 4.6% of U.S. retail trade workers were unionized, down from about 9% in the early 1980s and from about 5% a decade ago, according to Unionstats.com.

"'Union' is a trigger word for a lot of managers. They’ll start finding things to let you go for and they’ll get you out,” said David, 39, a Walmart store worker in Stillwater, Oklahoma, who declined to provide his last name for fear of losing his job. Walmart Inc, which declined to comment, is the biggest private employer in the United States and has no unionized stores.

About two-thirds of Kroger Co workers are unionized - unlike Amazon, Target Corp and Walmart, which have no organized workers. During quarterly conference calls with analysts, Kroger has repeatedly called out union-negotiated benefits that put it under financial "pressure" that its competitors do not face.

The grocer - whose percentage of unionized workers has decreased since 2013 - said last month it has to work out several major union contracts this year, including for workers in Atlanta, Houston and Memphis.

Both Kroger and Target flag collective bargaining in their annual regulatory filings as a potential risk to operations that could increase the cost of labor.

A Kroger spokeswoman said the company has contingency plans to keep facilities running in the event of labor disputes.

To dissuade workers from organizing, retailers warn workers of the burden of paying union dues. One Amazon worker, Darryl Richardson, said that ahead of the Alabama vote on whether to unionize, Amazon put signs reading "Where will your union dues go?" on bathroom-stall doors. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.

Dues vary from union to union, but are typically around 1.5%-2% of a worker’s paycheck, labor experts say.

"When you aren’t making that much money, any amount is a lot," said Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

But the Amazon campaign in Alabama has renewed interest in organizing across the retail industry and emboldened people like Ryan, who has been skeptical of unions in the past. Publicity around the Amazon vote made him contemplate more seriously "what a union is, how they can maybe help us with the issues we're dealing with," he said.

Target told Reuters in a statement it has "significantly invested in hours," raised wages and offered multiple bonuses to frontline workers throughout the pandemic.

Citing "low wages" and "wage theft" at Amazon as some key drivers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters last month entered the fray by voting to lay the ground work to organize workers at the company's warehouses. Amazon says it already pays workers fairly. The company in 2018 raised its minimum pay for U.S. workers to $15 an hour.

POWER SHIFT

Reuters found that one factor behind the widening wage gap is that unionized retail workers tend to work more hours per week, and more predictable hours, than nonunionized workers, as illustrated by Ryan and Waugh.

Waugh's full-time schedule is largely stable at 40 hours per week, set by his contract with Stop & Shop, which is owned by Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize. He earns more when he works overtime, on Sundays or on holidays, according to the RWDSU, which represents him.

Target's Ryan, meanwhile, works a variable schedule from 25 to 30 hours a week, depending on the store's anticipated traffic. Ryan said that even if Target raises his hourly base pay, he will not necessarily earn more per week.

"Fifteen dollars an hour doesn't mean anything if that raise in wages is offset by a reduction in hours," he said. Twenty-seven percent of U.S. retail and wholesale workers worked 34 hours a week or fewer in 2019, according to the BLS.

As shoppers bought more goods online, retail workers who were paid on commission saw their incomes drop. But companies from Kohl's Corp to Macy's Inc also cut hundreds of thousands of jobs on sales floors and in stock rooms, leaving payrolls lean. Today two employees perform work that years earlier was performed by ten, unions say. That gives unions some leverage.

Plagued by high turnover, major companies like Walmart and Target have since 2016 sharply raised wages to try to retain more workers. Those wage hikes fostered a spillover effect of better and more frequent increases at the bargaining table at other retailers such as Kroger and Stop & Shop.

Kroger said it provides comprehensive compensation packages, including competitive wages, healthcare and retirement.

In 2019, over 30,000 United Food and Commercial Workers Union-represented Stop & Shop workers in the U.S. Northeast went on strike for 11 days until the chain agreed to raise pay higher than what it offered prior to the strike.

"Sometimes we get two raises a year and that compounds over the years," Waugh said. "For those of us who are fortunate enough to stick around, it puts us in a very, very good position."

(Reporting by Richa Naidu in Chicago; Additional reporting by Dan Burns in New York; Editing by Vanessa O'Connell, Ryan McNeill, Benjamin Lesser and Matthew Lewis)

Biden's executive order aims to stop businesses suppressing workers' wages

gdean@insider.com (Grace Dean,Anna Cooban) 20 hrs ago

President Joe Biden. Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images

Biden will issue an executive order Friday designed to stop firms collaborating to suppress wages.

He will push the FTC and DOJ for tougher guidance to stop companies sharing wage and benefit data.

Biden will call on the FTC to ban or limit non-compete agreements, per notes from the White House.

President Joe Biden is set to crack down on employers who collaborate to suppress workers' wages in an executive order scheduled for Friday.

The White House published details of the upcoming order Friday morning. Biden will push the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to "prevent employers from collaborating to suppress wages or reduce benefits" by sharing wage and benefit information with each other.

The executive order will say that workers may be "harmed" by existing DOJ and FTC guidance that allows third parties to make wage data available to employers in certain circumstances without triggering antitrust scrutiny, per the White House's notes.

Workers' wages tend to decrease when there are fewer employers competing with each other for their labor, according to research from the University of Pennsylvania.

The order, which focuses on promoting economic competition, will aim to help more businesses break into markets dominated by large employers, which it says should give workers more chance to negotiate higher pay.

The president has urged Congress to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would include protections for workers who want to unionize and collectively bargain for better pay.

In Friday's order, Biden will also call for the FTC to ban or limit non-compete agreements and "unnecessary, cumbersome" occupational licensing restrictions. These would make it easier for workers to change jobs and help raise wages, per the White House's briefing notes.

Tens of millions of Americans, including people working in construction and retail, have to sign non-compete agreements as a condition of getting a job, which makes it harder for them to switch to better-paying options and "stifles" competition, the order will say, per the White House.

It will also say that nearly 30% of jobs in the US require an occupational license, and that there is huge disparity in license requirements between states, which makes it difficult for people to move between states.

Biden has appointed Lina Khan, a vocal critic of big tech, as FTC chair in a decision widely thought to signal his administration's desire to bring in strict antitrust rules to prevent tech companies from monopolizing markets.

Read the original article on Business Insider

ANOTHER GOP BIG LIE

There's 'little sign' that ending unemployment benefits early pushed people back to work, JPMorgan says

insider@insider.com (Juliana Kaplan) 

Carlos Ponce joins a protest in in Miami Springs, Florida, asking senators to continue 

unemployment benefits past July 31, 2020. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Over half of the states in the US have ended federal benefits ahead of their September expiration.

Many governors cited the enhanced benefits as keeping workers out of the labor force.

But a JPMorgan note says there's little sign that cutting off benefits brought workers back.

Over half of the states in the US have opted out of federal unemployment benefits early, citing the programs as potentially fueling the current labor shortage.

But that doesn't seem to quite be the case. A Friday note from JPMorgan researchers Peter B McCrory and Jesse Edgerton looks at the impact on unemployment claims and spending following states officially opting out of their benefits.

They find that there's "little sign of any differential improvement in unemployment claims or in several spending and activity measures in these states." There's perhaps a little jolt in spending on restaurants - which could be chalked up to workers returning to staff up eateries - but even that estimation might still be closer to no effect.

A previous note from JPMorgan said the decision to cut off unemployment benefits ahead of their scheduled expiration in September was "tied to politics, not economics."

The role that unemployment benefits ending has played in getting more people to work is murky. For instance, The Wall Street Journal reported in late June that the number of UI recipients was falling in states that opted out early, but Insider's Ayelet Sheffey reported that May saw strong job growth while enhanced benefits were still in place. June also saw major payroll additions, but the unemployment rate actually went up that month. All in all, the broader impact on the labor situation is still a bit of a question mark.

On the other side of the equation are the 4 million Americans who will see some or all of their benefits cut off early. Two federal programs extended who's eligible for unemployment benefits - notably bringing gig workers into the fold - and extended how many weeks workers were eligible to receive benefits. In many states, those programs are winding down completely this summer, leaving workers without any UI income. Workers have previously told Insider that the loss of those benefits will result in them losing their homes, or exposing themselves to risky work environments.

But some jobless Americans have struck back against benefits from being ended by filing lawsuits in several states. They're already seeing some early wins, with judges deciding that benefits should be temporarily reinstated in Indiana and Maryland while the lawsuits proceed.

"I think it certainly has the potential to start more cases," Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow and jobless-policy expert at the left-leaning Century Foundation, previously told Insider. "The legal argument made in Indiana was based on a set of components that were not unique to Indiana law."
Read the original article on Business Insider
TOPICS FOR YOU

#CANCELTOKYOOLYMPICS

Factbox-Olympics-Money, money, money: the cost of Tokyo’s pandemic-delayed Games

By Elaine Lies  July 8, 2021

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games is seen through signboards, in Toky

TOKYO (Reuters) – Despite public opposition in Japan over fears of new coronavirus surges, the Tokyo Olympic Games that were postponed last year will get under way on July 23, with spectators now barred from all events.

The delay and crowd restrictions on the Games, which will end on Aug. 8, have been expensive in various ways. Here are some areas where costs have grown, and where income that had been expected will not materialise.

OLYMPIC COSTS

Organisers said last December that the entire cost of holding the Games would be about $15.4 billion, including $2.8 billion for the unprecedented postponement from 2020. Since then, the projected bill for postponement has risen to $3 billion.

Organisers initially sold some 4.48 million tickets and the government had expected a tourism windfall, before first overseas visitors and then domestic spectators were ruled out.

Ticket revenues had initially been expected at about 90 billion yen ($815 million) but will now drop to virtually nothing.

SPONSORS

More than 60 Japanese companies together paid a record of more than $3 billion to sponsor the Games. Sponsors paid another $200 million to extend contracts after the Olympics were postponed.

That does not include partnerships with Japanese companies Toyota, Bridgestone, and Panasonic, and others such as South Korea’s Samsung, which through a separate programme for top-tier sponsors have separate deals with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

INSURANCE

Although the cancellation scenario is looking less likely by the day, global insurers would face a hefty bill should that happen, with estimates running to a loss of up to $3 billion.

The IOC takes out about $800 million of protection for each Summer Games, which covers most of the roughly $1 billion investment it makes in each host city.

Organisers in Tokyo will have taken out a further policy, estimated at about $650 million.

Analysts with financial services firm Jefferies estimate the insured cost of the 2020 Olympics at $2 billion, including TV rights and sponsorship, plus $600 million for hospitality.

MEDIA

Broadcaster NBCUniversal had reaped a record $1.25 billion in U.S. national advertising spending for the Games before they were postponed in 2020 and has spent the past year trying to get sponsors to support them again this year, entertainment business magazine Variety reported.

NBCUniversal’s parent company Comcast agreed to pay $4.38 billion for U.S. media rights to four Olympics from 2014 to 2020, it added.

Discovery Communications, the parent of television channel Eurosport, has agreed to pay 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) to screen the Olympics from 2018 to 2024 across Europe.

HIT TO THE ECONOMY

The Olympics were originally expected to be a huge tourist draw, but banning foreign spectators put paid to hopes of an early recovery in inbound tourism, frozen since last year.

In 2019, Japan hosted 31.9 million foreign visitors, who spent nearly 4.81 trillion yen ($44 billion). Numbers plunged 87% in 2020 to just 4.1 million, a 22-year low.

Though highly unlikely now, a full cancellation would mean lost stimulus of 1.8 trillion yen, or 0.33% of gross domestic product (GDP), the Nomura Research Institute said in a recent report.

But Nomura Research Institute executive economist Takahide Kiuchi said that loss would pale in comparison with the economic hit from emergency curbs if the Games turned into a coronavirus super-spreader event.

“If the (Olympic Games) trigger the spread of infections and necessitate another emergency declaration, then the economic loss would be much greater,” Kiuchi said.

($1 = 110.4000 yen)

(Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

 

  

Oman: Will the Protests and Covid-19 Lead to Structural Economic Reform?

The recent protests and the effects of the pandemic have emphasized the need to expedite structural economic reforms.



FATMA AL-ARIMI
July 07, 2021
عربي

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic coincided with the beginning of Sultan Haitham Bin Tariq’s reign in January 2020. In his second speech, Sultan Haitham stressed the need for streamlining procedures, fighting corruption, and improving governance, integrity, and accountability as well as restructuring the state’s administrative apparatus and modernizing its legislation. The transfer of power was seen as an opportunity to revive Oman’s economy, most importantly by restoring the balance among the government, private sector, and civil society. More recently, protests across Oman have reignited the push for a better economic situation with one clear demand: employment.

Although the country adopted Oman Vision 2040, a long-term strategic plan with economic and social goals, the government needed an emergency mid-term financial plan to alleviate current fiscal issues and to pave the way for the vision's implementation.1 In September 2019, the government began working on a fiscal plan to address Oman’s economic challenges, especially those that arose during the country’s ninth five-year plan. The key problem was the expansion of the administrative apparatus during the last few years of the late Sultan Qaboos’ reign, when he passed many tasks off to people whom he trusted to run the affairs of the state. The first draft of the Medium-Term Fiscal Plan (MTFP), referred to as Tawazon (“Balance”), was presented to Sultan Haitham in February 2020.2 However, the effects of the pandemic were not felt until the end of the first quarter of 2020, so the plan did not include any measures to address related economic challenges. As a result, a new objective was added to the plan, which aimed to balance the state budget in light of historic challenges and included steps to account for the financial impact of the pandemic while still achieving the outlined goals within the envisioned timeline.3

Despite having a plan, the government was not able to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on the economy. The impacts infiltrated the economy and drained liquidity from the private sector, lowered the morale of the public sector, and eliminated jobs for locals. The government suspended privileges of senior state officials, retired 70 percent of its tenured employees, abolished or merged several councils and ministries, and revised government contracts. Such measures, which put government spending on a strict diet, negatively affected the flow of capital to a government-driven economy and played out in the private sector. The effects were seen most at the small and medium enterprise level because of several shutdowns as well as the suspension or cancellation of government projects.

Thus, the government’s attempts to mitigate the effects of the pandemic actually exacerbated the economic situation, making clear that the government needed to find a way to balance competing priorities and needs. On one hand, the government must continue to reduce government spending and boost revenues if it wants to meet the goals set forth in the fiscal plan as well as Oman Vision 2040. On the other hand, it needs to strengthen and broaden the social security system to mitigate a higher unemployment rate as well as the effects on the population of the gradual lifting of subsidies for electricity and water and the introduction of a value-added tax (VAT) that came into effect this year.

In an attempt to address continued economic decline, a new economic stimulus plan was announced in March 2021. The plan enabled the government to grant tax exemptions, banking facilities, and preferential measures to large investors in the sectors targeted for economic diversification in the current five-year plan.

Despite the attempt to stimulate economic growth, challenges related to employment still remain. Government promises of employment, vocational training, and work opportunities have clearly done little to help, as official data show continued high unemployment, an indicator of an economic slowdown.4 As the government aims to streamline the administrative structure, the number of Omanis in the public sector is declining. The civil unrest in May 2021 resulted in royal orders to increase job opportunities in the public and private sectors. However, it seems that the government only intends to replace essential public sector employees while relying on the private sector to create most jobs.

Not only will these changes take time to produce positive results, but the transformation of Oman’s economy will not be complete until the relationship among the government, the private sector, and civil society is rebalanced. The current relationship is not conducive to propelling Oman’s economy to the envisioned success. Facing a dire need for more private sector investment and employment, the government is under pressure to better its relationship with the private sector and provide incentives for collaboration. The private sector is expecting the government to put a leash on the growing number of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) that were established over the past decade. Additionally, the private sector is demanding that its input be reflected in the government’s decisions and not merely used for show in a superficial demonstration of partnership. This happened in 2016 when the government launched an economic diversification scheme (Tanfeedh) with hundreds of private sector representatives. Participants’ optimism faded quickly, however, as most of what was agreed on has yet to be implemented.

On the civil society level, citizens have yet to feel that they are a part of the decision-making process. As the government moves to enact more legislation that directly affects citizens, the public’s demands to be more engaged in the policy process have increased. Representation of citizens’ demands is crucial to achieving Oman’s economic goals because of the significant role citizens play in revenue generation for the economy. Additionally, not only will citizens’ participation help strengthen the middle class, but it will also increase its trust of the government.

The new Sultan has acknowledged the need to rebalance the relationship among the government, private sector, and civil society by presenting new expectations for a symbiotic working relationship that is based on each side playing its part. If Oman is to improve its economic situation and meet the goals of Oman Vision 2040, distrust among the three parties cannot continue as it has over the last few decades and each party must meet its outlined expectations. Only time will tell if these newly remodeled partnerships will last and bring about the change needed.


Fatma al-Arimi is an Omani journalist and the managing director at The Media Centre (TMC).

NOTES

1 The work on Vision 2040 draft was supervised by Haitham Bin Tariq since 2013, years before becoming the Sultan. In December 2020, Haitham, as a Sultan, approved the vision.

2 Arabic source: Nasser al-Jashmi, the sec-gen of Oman's Ministry of Finance, in an interview to the state TV

3 These challenges were accumulated in the past. The financial challenges were there in 2011, became clearer in 2015, and the government started addressing them by initiating Tanfeedh in 2016 and Tawazon in 2019.

4 According to the monthly statistical bulletins issued by the National Center for Statistics and Information (NCSI), the rate of job-seekers increased from 2.1% in May 2020 to 4.9% in May 2021. The number of job security grant recipients doubled between November 2020 and March 2021.


Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

Biden fires Trump-appointed U.S. Social Security chief after he refuses to resign

By Darlene Superville

 The Associated Press

Posted July 9, 2021 
 

In this Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2018, file photo, the Senate Finance Committee holds a hearing on the nomination of Andrew Saul to be commissioner of the Social Security Administration, on Capitol Hill in Washington. On Friday, July 9, 2021, President Joe Biden fired Social Security Administration Commissioner Saul after Saul refused to resign, and accepted the deputy commissioner's resignation, the White House said. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File).

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday fired the commissioner of Social Security after the official refused to resign, and Biden accepted the deputy commissioner’s resignation, the White House said.


Biden asked commissioner Andrew Saul to resign, and his employment was terminated after he refused the Democratic president’s request, a White House official said.

Deputy Commissioner David Black agreed to resign, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Both officials had been put in place under President Donald Trump, a Republican.

Biden named Kilolo Kijakazi as acting commissioner while the administration conducts a search for a permanent commissioner and deputy commissioner.

Kijakazi currently is the deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy at the Social Security Administration.

Saul’s removal followed a Justice Department legal opinion that found he could be removed, despite a statute that says he could only be fired for neglecting his duties or malfeasance.

The opinion — researched at the request of the White House — concluded that a reevaluation because of a recent Supreme Court ruling meant that Saul could be fired by the president at will.

Biden’s move got immediate support from the Democratic senator who would be in charge of confirming a successor to Saul. Republican lawmakers accused Biden of politicizing the agency and pointed to Saul’s confirmation by a bipartisan Senate vote in 2019.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement that “every president should chose the personnel that will best carry out their vision for the country.

“To fulfill President Biden’s bold vision for improving and expanding Social Security, he needs his people in charge,” Wyden added, pledging to work to confirm a new commissioner “as swiftly as possible.”

Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., who several months ago began demanding the ouster of Saul and Black, celebrated their Friday firings.

“Social Security is in deep trouble,” Pascrell said.



Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, the top Republican on the finance committee, and Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, issued a joint statement calling Biden’s decision “disappointing.” The pair claimed “Social Security beneficiaries stand the most to lose from President Biden’s partisan decision to remove Commissioner Andrew Saul.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., called the personnel move an “unprecedented and dangerous politicization of the Social Security Administration.”

The agency, headquartered in Baltimore, pays benefits, funded by a tax on wages paid by employers and employees, to about 64 million people, including retirees, children, widows and widowers, according to its website. The agency has a staff of about 60,000 employees.

Saul was confirmed by a Senate vote of 77-16 in 2019 to a six-year term that would have expired in January 2025, tweeted Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

The labor union that represents Social Security employees also welcomed the firings.

Ralph de Juliis, spokesperson for the American Federation of Government Employees SSA General Committee and Council 220 President, said employee morale and agency operations had suffered under Saul and Black’s leadership.

“President Biden made the right call to send these Trump appointees packing,” de Juliis said.

Associated Press writer Mike Balsamo contributed to this report.

More competition: Biden signs order targeting big business

“Let me be clear: Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. 

It’s exploitation," he said.

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday targeting what he labeled anticompetitive practices in tech, health care and other parts of the economy, declaring it would fortify an American ideal “that true capitalism depends on fair and open competition."

The sweeping order includes 72 actions and recommendations that Biden said would lower prices for families, increase wages for workers and promote innovation and faster economic growth. However, new regulations that agencies may write to translate his policy into rules could trigger major legal battles.

The order includes calls for banning or limiting noncompete agreements to help boost wages, allowing rule changes that would pave the way for hearing aids to be sold over the counter at drugstores and banning excessive early termination fees by internet companies. It also calls on the Transportation Department to consider issuing rules requiring airlines to refund fees when baggage is delayed or in-flight services are not provided as advertised.

At a White House signing ceremony, Biden said of some in big business: “Rather than competing for consumers they are consuming their competitors; rather than competing for workers they are finding ways to gain the upper hand on labor."

“Let me be clear: Capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. 

It’s exploitation," he said.

The White House said Biden’s order follows in the tradition of past presidents who took action to slow corporate power. Theodore Roosevelt’s administration broke up powerful trusts that had a grip on huge swaths of the economy, including Standard Oil and J.P. Morgan’s railroads. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration stepped up antitrust enforcement in the 1930s.

But experts noted that Biden's sprawling presidential initiative is hardly a mandate on competition.

“This is really more of a blueprint or agenda than a traditional executive order,” said Daniel Crane, a law professor at the University of Michigan who focuses on antitrust. “This is a very broad and ambitious policy agenda for the Biden administration that offers lots of insights on the administration’s direction and priorities, but there could be many a slip between the cup and the lip.”

Biden's order includes a flurry of consumer-pointed initiatives that could potentially lead to new federal regulations, but it also includes plenty of aspirational language that simply encourages agencies to take action meant to bolster worker and consumer protections.

Business and trade groups quickly expressed opposition, arguing that the order would stifle economic growth just as the U.S. economy is recovering from the coronavirus pandemic.

“Some of the actions announced today are solutions in search of a problem,” said Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers. “They threaten to undo our progress by undermining free markets and are premised on the false notion that our workers are not positioned for success.”

The order seeks to address noncompete clauses — an issue affecting some 36 million to 60 million Americans, according to the White House — by encouraging the Federal Trade Commission to ban or limit such agreements, ban unnecessary occupational licensing restrictions and strengthen antitrust guidance to prevent employers from collaborating to suppress wages or reduce benefits by sharing wage and benefit information with one another.

Noncompete agreements often stop workers in a variety of industries from going to other employers for higher pay. Biden noted that in some states even fast food franchises include such clauses for low-wage workers.

“Come on, are there trade secrets about what’s inside the patty?” Biden said.

The order also takes aim at tech giants Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon by calling for greater scrutiny of mergers, “especially by dominant internet platforms, with particular attention to the acquisition of nascent competitors, serial mergers, the accumulation of data, competition by ‘free’ products, and the effect on user privacy.”

In his executive order, Biden also calls on the Federal Maritime Commission to take action against shippers that it says are “charging American exporters exorbitant charges” and the Surface Transportation Board to require railroad track owners to “strengthen their obligations to treat other freight companies fairly.”

The White House argues that rapid consolidation and sharp hikes in pricing in the shipping industry have made it increasingly expensive for U.S. companies to get goods to market. In 2000, the largest 10 shipping companies controlled 12% of the market. They now control about 82%, according to the Journal of Commerce.

The World Shipping Council, an industry trade group, pushed back in a statement that “normalized demand, not regulation," is the way to answer rising costs.

“There is no market concentration ‘problem’ to ‘fix,’ and punitive measures levied against carriers based on incorrect economic assumptions will not fix the congestion problems," said John Butler, president and CEO of the council.

The order also notes that over the past two decades the U.S. has lost 70% of the banks it once had, with around 10,000 bank closures. Communities of color and rural areas have been disproportionately affected.

To begin addressing the trend, the order encourages the Justice Department as well as the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to update guidelines to provide greater scrutiny of mergers. It also encourages the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to issue rules allowing customers to download their banking data and take it with them when they switch.

The order includes several provisions that could affect the agricultural industry. It calls on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to consider issuing new rules defining when meat can use “Product of USA” labels. It also encourages the FTC to limit farm equipment manufacturers' ability to restrict the use of independent repair shops or do-it-yourself repairs — such as when tractor companies block farmers from repairing their own tractors.

Democratic lawmakers and union leaders cheered the order.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, said that Biden's executive order needs to be buttressed by congressional action.

“Competition policy needs new energy and approaches so that we can address America’s monopoly problem," Klobuchar said. “That means legislation to update our antitrust laws, but it also means reimagining what the federal government can do to promote competition under our current laws.”

Biden targets airlines, internet, hearing aids, phone repairs and more in new order

Here are some of the products and services the Biden administration is targeting


By Audrey Conklin FOXBusiness

video

Biden delivers remarks, signs executive order on promoting competition in American economy

Pres Biden delivers remarks and signs an executive order on promoting competition in the American economy.

President Joe Biden on Friday issued a new executive order aimed at boosting competition in various industries, targeting products and services like airline refunds, internet bills, hearing aids and more.

The executive order contains 72 actions and recommendations meant to promote innovation across various sectors of the economy from tech to health care to agriculture, and thereby improve workforce conditions and drive costs down, according to a White House fact sheet.

BIDEN SIGNS SWEEPING EXECUTIVE ORDER TAKING AIM AT BIG TECH, ANTI-COMPETITIVE PRACTICES

"The heart of American capitalism is a simple idea: Open and fair competition," Biden said in remarks at the White House, shortly before signing the order. "That means if your companies want to win your business, they have to go out and they have got to up their game. Better prices and services, better ideas and products. The competition keeps the economy moving and it keeps it growing. A competitive economy must mean that companies do everything they can to compete for workers."

Here are some of the products and services the Biden administration is targeting in an effort to boost competition and consumer choices:

Airlines

The White House noted in its fact sheet that reduced competition among airlines has resulted in higher baggage and cancelation fees despite millions of instances of delayed baggage each year.

The administration is directing the DOT to consider issuing rules requiring airlines to refund fees when baggage is delayed or when a service like in-flight WiFi does not work. It is also recommending the DOT implement rules requiring baggage, flight change and cancellation fees to be "clearly disclosed to the customer."

Internet/broadband

The Biden administration believes that cracking down on broadband services will boost competition, especially for Americans living in rural areas, giving consumers more options and driving down internet costs.

BIG TECH FACES NEW ONSLAUGHT ON CAPITOL HILL

It is calling on the FCC to ensure internet service providers are offering fair prices by requiring them to report prices and subscription rates to the commission, and to limit high early cancellation fees.

President Joe Biden signs an executive order aimed at promoting competition in the economy, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Friday, July 9, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The administration also plans to reimplement Obama-era "Net Neutrality" rules, which essentially treated internet service providers and cable companies like public utilities, and subjected them to various rules preventing the prioritization of certain types of content.

Hearing aids

Biden wants hearing aids to be sold over-the-counter to reduce costs for Americans who are hard of hearing.


The administration is asking the Department of Health and Human Services to consider issuing a proposal within 120 days to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter. It is also calling on HHS to come up with a plan in 45 days to "combat high prescription drug prices and price gouging."

Phone and computer repairs

The president is also taking on Big Tech by establishing "an administration policy" to survey mergers between small tech companies and tech giants that can stamp out competition and consumer options. He is also encouraging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to monitor the collection of user data and surveillance of consumers by large tech companies.

Finally, the administration is also calling on the FTC to implement "rules against anti-competitive restrictions on using independent repair shops or doing DIY repairs" of technology devices and equipment, such as smartphones. Independent phone and computer repair shops have called on tech giants like Apple to change their repair provider rules.

Agriculture equipment repairs

Biden is urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to consider implementing new rules under the Packer and Stockyard Act; clarify rules as to which products can be labeled as "Product of USA"; and limit agriculture equipment manufacturers from restricting farmers' ability to conduct their own repairs, among other initiatives aimed at boosting agricultural competition and small farms' success.

President Joe Biden speaks before signing an executive order aimed at promoting competition in the economy, in the State Dining Room of the White House, Friday, July 9, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The White House mentioned "tractor companies" that "block farmers from repairing their own tractors," which may be a reference to John Deere, which does not allow "unauthorized" independent repairs and which uses unique software locks that make tractors unusable if they are fixed by anyone other than John Deere technicians, according to Vice.

"Let me be very clear: Capitalism without competition isn't capitalism. It's exploitation," Biden said Friday. "Without healthy competition, big players can change and charge whatever they want and treat you however they want. And for too many Americans that means accepting a bad deal for things you can't go without. So, we know we've got a problem, a major problem. But we also have an incredible opportunity."

Progressive lawmakers celebrated the jam-packed executive order, while business groups and Republicans slammed it as harmful to the free market.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a fierce consumer advocate, lauded the executive order as a "critical" step to protect working-class Americans and urged Congress to pass legislation codifying the measure into law.

But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a blistering statement that the directive "smacks of a 'government knows best' approach to managing the economy" and vowed to "vigorously oppose calls for government-set prices, onerous and legally questionable rulemakings, efforts to treat innovative industries as public utilities, and the politicization of antitrust enforcement."

Fox Business' Megan Henney, Charlie Gasparino and Lydia Moynihan contributed to this report.

Hackers disrupt Iran’s rail service with fake delay messages

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s railroad system came under cyberattack on Friday, a semi-official news agency reported, with hackers posting fake messages about train delays or cancellations on display boards at stations across the country.

The hackers posted messages such as “long delayed because of cyberattack” or “canceled” on the boards. They also urged passengers to call for information, listing the phone number of the office of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The semiofficial Fars news agency reported that the hack led to “unprecedented chaos” at rail stations.

No group took responsibility. Earlier in the day, Fars said trains across Iran had lost their electronic tracking system. It wasn’t immediately clear if that was also part of the cyberattack.

Fars later removed its report and instead quoted the spokesman of the state railway company, Sadegh Sekri, as saying “the disruption” did not cause any problem for train services

In 2019, an error in the railway company’s computer servers caused multiple delays in train services.

In December that year, Iran’s telecommunications ministry said the country had defused a massive cyberattack on unspecified “electronic infrastructure” but provided no specifics on the purported attack.

It was not clear if the reported attack caused any damage or disruptions in Iran’s computer and internet systems, and whether it was the latest chapter in the U.S. and Iran’s cyber operations targeting the other.

Iran disconnected much of its infrastructure from the internet after the Stuxnet computer virus — widely believed to be a joint U.S.-Israeli creation — disrupted thousands of Iranian centrifuges in the country’s nuclear sites in the late 2000s.