HARPERS WAR

The fall of Panjwaii casts a long shadow over Canada's Afghan war veterans

Murray Brewster  CBC

© Murray Brewster/The Canadian Press A Canadian CH-147 Chinook helicopter takes off outside a combat outpost in Panjwaii, Afghanistan in June 2011.

The declaration that Panjwaii — a wild, angry district of Kandahar province in Afghanistan — had fallen to the Taliban was greeted this week with a mixture of shock, numbness and resignation by many of the Canadian soldiers who fought in that part of the country for the better part of five years.

A lot of Canadian blood was spilled on that lonely, scorched patch of land. Some of it belonged to former corporal Bruce Moncur.

There was also a lot of sweat and heartbreak folded into the gnarled, sun-bleached grape and marijuana fields in this region west of Kandahar City.

Just ask retired leading seaman Bruno Guevremont.

In many ways, both men left a little bit of themselves behind in Panjwaii — a sprawling, once-prosperous checkerboard of sand, farmland and ancient, dead volcanic hills that rise steeply out of the desert floor.

When soldiers referred to the killing fields of Kandahar, more often than not they were talking about Panjwaii — where Canadian troops did most of their fighting and dying amid endless fields, mud-walled compounds and empty villages.

Against an often-unseen enemy, they fought for the place over and over again throughout the five-year combat mission, which formally ended a decade ago this week.

The Taliban — the enemy that Canadian soldiers managed to keep at bay but never quite defeat — swept through Panjwaii last weekend, handing Afghan Army troops a significant defeat and delivering a major psychological blow in the wake of the American withdrawal.

'It's never going to end'

Following up on their victory in Panjwaii, Taliban insurgents reportedly penetrated Kandahar City late in the week. The Taliban desperately wanted control of Kandahar City, the second largest in Afghanistan, and spilled a lot of their own blood trying to get there — mostly with the Canadians standing in the way.

The city and its surrounding region was their spiritual home, birthplace and first seat of power, a place from which they projected their own brutal version of Islam in the 1990s.

Guevremont said he was shaken by the thought that the villagers he'd protected, and sometimes shared tea and flatbread with, were about to return to that kind of misery.

"What's the feeling I got when I heard that Panjwaii, (the Afghan National Army) had withdrawn and the Taliban was moving back in? It was anxiety. It was exhaustion," said Guevremont, who dismantled insurgent bombs and disarmed a live suicide bomber single-handed in the spring of 2009.

"It's like, this is never-ending. It's never going to end. I'm thinking about the local population. I mean, I made friends over there."

He said the news brought back vivid memories of the three times his team was called in to defuse bombs at schools.

"Once, we got there too late where an IED had actually detonated on a school, so a lot of children had died," said Guevremont. "There were two where IEDs were prepared to go off when the kids came out of school and we got there in time and dismantled those IEDs."

While he worries about the ordinary Afghans caught in the path of the advancing Taliban, he said he also remembers the insecure feeling of being an outsider among Afghans — of not knowing who could be trusted.

Guevremont recalled being asked by locals to respond to a report of a rocket strapped to the underside of a bridge — only to discover that he'd been led into a minefield. He had to dig and tiptoe his way out.

Ten years later, he is left with a sense of dismay — and futility.

"So, you're thinking, 'What did we do for 20 years? What did we do there for the whole time that we were there?'" he said.

He's not the only one asking those questions.

'It was an inevitability'

The hardened resolve and patient, wait-and-see attitude shared by the 40,000 Canadians troops who served in Afghanistan showed cracks here and there on social media this week.

What was it all for? It's a question that, over the past decade, has been answered with the claim that Canada's intervention empowered Afghans to choose their own destiny.

But for some former soldiers, fatalism has taken over.

"It was an inevitability," said Moncur, who suffered a major head wound in 2006 at the onset of Operation Medusa, the biggest battle fought by Canadians during the war.

"I honestly thought it was going to happen. I never thought the Taliban stranglehold on Kandahar was going to be broken for that long."

© CBC News Bruce Moncur (right) in southern Afghanistan in 2006.

Moncur and many soldiers like him take a pragmatic view of their service in Afghanistan: they had a job to do — keeping the Taliban at bay — and they did it.

"It's been 20 years now, a generation, and we lost a lot of blood and guts. But they lost too," he said, referring to the full sweep of western involvement in Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

There is a phrase the Taliban liked to use in their propaganda against western forces: "You have the watches, but we have the time."

Moncur said he has grown to appreciate the truth of that claim.

"The inevitability was, unless we were willing to retain that presence for a millennia, they were ultimately going to come out on top," he said.

'We didn't finish the job'

Moncur said he believes the war was not worth the sacrifice in lives and treasure. As a veterans' advocate who is married to NDP MP Niki Ashton, there is an important political dimension to his feelings about Panjwaii.

If Canada, he said, was serious about everything it claimed (and sometimes continues to claim) about its presence in Afghanistan, it would have not walked away from combat operations in 2011 and would not have left the country entirely in 2014.

"I have a hard time grappling with some of the politics that come after this, the decisions to leave," he said. "I mean, we didn't finish the job."

For soldiers like Moncur, mixed in with that remorse and dismay over the fall of Panjwaii is a sense that Canada's war in Afghanistan is ancient history now.

"I've moved on," he said. "I think a lot of the vets have moved on from this.

"I think if you had to ask them what they're more concerned about, the Taliban taking over Kandahar province or perhaps the state of the military within our country, I'm pretty sure most guys would be talking about what is going on with the Canadian military now."

But Canada left some loose ends behind in Afghanistan — flesh-and-blood ones.

Growing calls for Ottawa to rescue the local Afghan translators who worked for the Canadians and were left behind after 2014 have put the Liberal government on the spot in recent days.

Those calls started with ordinary soldiers but are now coming from some of the country's top former commanders — who say they're not prepared to see people who risked their lives for Canada sacrificed to the Taliban.

The trucking industry is doubling down on booting marijuana smokers, and it's getting a little ridiculous

rpremack@businessinsider.com (Rachel Premack) 

© Hollis Johnson/Business Insider This is marijuana. Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

A new federal law is making it impossible for truck drivers to responsibly enjoy marijuana.

It's a misguided attempt on the industry's part to promote safety.

Promoting better training would be wiser.

The trucking industry has been yelling about a driver shortage for decades. Since 2011, executives have listed the supposed shortage of truck drivers as a top 10 concern in an annual industry survey.


When it comes to recruiting, kids these days are perhaps the most vexing for trucking big wigs. Millennials and Gen Z just don't seem to want to become truck drivers. The most recent report from the American Trucking Associations on the driver shortage pointed to the "relatively high average age" of a truck driver (a whopping 46 years old) as one of the foremost reasons for the industry's labor woes. (The ATA is the industry group that represents America's larger trucking companies.)

There seems to be some cognitive dissonance among these 18-wheeler executives, though.

In 2020, the industry celebrated the implementation of a law that would scare off the 22% of Americans under 30 who smoke marijuana. That's the drug and alcohol clearinghouse, in which all truck drivers who have failed any sort of drug test must be listed in a federal database so that other trucking companies don't rehire them. (They're able to clear their names if they go through a process that includes meeting with a substance abuse counselor.)

The hope is to get drivers who abuse harmful substances away from 80,000-pound vehicles barreling down the highway. What's actually happened is that the majority of those positive drug tests have involved marijuana. Some 73,000 drivers total have been booted from the road due to positive drug tests of any ilk, according to the most recent federal data.

It's an antiquated position. Some 68% of Americans believe marijuana should be fully legal, and 70% believe consuming it is morally acceptable. Today, 18 states and Washington, D.C. have legalized cannabis for recreational use - and the majority of states have legalized it medically. Of course, it's still federally classified as a Schedule I drug, so onto the drug test it goes.

There's quite a bit to cover here, so here's what you're in for:

Marijuana is far, far less harmful than the other drugs in the clearinghouse

Employment experts say marijuana users are not likely to show up to work high

Things like faulty brakes or speeding cause far more accidents than drug use

Ultimately, the industry's interest in safety regulations aren't always as rosy as they appear on the surface

Marijuana is less harmful than cocaine or meth, but trucking is lumping them in together

© Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Department of Transportation Positive drug tests among truck drivers from Jan. 6, 2020 to June 1, 2021. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Department of Transportation

Of the 80,098 positive drug tests conducted by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which presides over our nation's fair commercial drivers, 42,534 identified marijuana. Cocaine (11,297) and methamphetamine (7,371) distantly followed. This data, which you can explore in more depth here, runs from January 6, 2020 to June 1, 2021. Some drivers tested positive for more than one substance - though the feds didn't tell us the overlap in that release of data.

Marijuana is not perfectly safe - ranked by damage to user and society, an oft-cited UK study from 2010 deemed the drug just below amphetamines like Adderall, which can be highly addictive. And there are many unknowns associated with long-term, heavy marijuana use.

Frustratingly, there's no way to test someone on whether or not they're impaired by cannabis, and some experts say a THC "Breathalyzer" test may never be feasible. That forces companies to measure marijuana intake by urine tests. But the drug can stay in your body for up to 30 days. That means folks who drive trucks have to abstain from marijuana entirely - as they can expect random tests every year or so, per the new federal clearinghouse rules.

Drug experts agree that marijuana is less harmful than meth, heroin, or cocaine, as Vox's German Lopez wrote. But the folks behind the clearinghouse still insist on treating marijuana the same as these highly-addictive, illegal substances.

It's not clear how randomly booting drivers who smoke weed is going to make the highways considerably safer. More likely, this new clearinghouse will winnow further who wants to become or stay a truck driver, a problem for an industry with a turnover rate as high as 94%.

'It's not like people are showing up high to work'

There's the Attorney Mark Goldstein, who is a partner at New York City-based Reed Smith, said a worker who randomly tests positive for a drug that stays in your system for a while (like cannabis) is not likely going to be stoned at work.

"If you're drug testing an employee at the start of employment or randomly, the likelihood that they come into work impaired is probably low," Goldstein told me over the phone. (I should mention Goldstein represents employers when they call up saying they've got a worker with a positive drug test.)

© Provided by Business Insider Okay in 18 states, but for none of America’s two-million truck drivers. Hollis Johnson/INSIDER

As Michele Siekerka, president and CEO of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, said to NJ.com about all workers who consume cannabis: "It's not like people are showing up high to work."

Obviously, much like a trucker abusing alcohol while driving, anyone caught driving high - whether by police or their employer - should face severe consequences. But a urine test surfacing marijuana does not mean that the trucker in question is driving impaired - it just means they've ingested cannabis as long as 30 days ago.

Alcohol multiples the risk for a fatal car crash by 13.6, while marijuana has a 1.8 multiplier effect, according to one Columbia University study. And research suggests using a cell phone while driving can be as dangerous as drunk driving. We're not banning truck drivers from drinking alcohol or using their cell phones while they're off duty. Why is weed different?

Poorly designed safety regulations

There's a certain romantic quality to being a truck driver. The open road, seeing America in its jaw-slacking wonder, no boss mouth-breathing next to you, podcasts for days, and, most crucially, access to thrilling truck driver Facebook group drama.

And that's all true - but a wave of new regulations are frustrating a lot of drivers I've spoken to. There's a strong perception that the folks making these laws don't understand what it's like to be a driver. As one driver with 6.5 million accident-free miles commented to me recently: "We had a lot of fun in the early days. But today, gosh, I don't know, they want to put you out of business."

The driver of this mysterious 18-wheeler could smoke in their free time, and I frankly wouldn't care! Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Regulations are making many current drivers want to quit. The ones around marijuana could even deter many people from becoming a truck driver.

Let's say I am a 20-something who occasionally indulges in marijuana. I know that marijuana impairs my driving for at least three hours, so I make sure not to do it when I know I may need to work in that timeframe, but it also lasts in my system for up to a month. Would I pick a job in which I could get booted at any moment because I smoke? Or would I work at, say, Amazon, which just nixed cannabis testing?

The insistence on knowing whether an employee uses marijuana follows a disturbing trend in which working people are being monitored more and more. Some trucking companies are putting driver-facing cameras in their cabins to watch their employees.

Bureaucrats and business executives say watching a trucker's every move is to promote better safety. (It's notable, of course, that one study from the University of Michigan suggests passenger cars, not 18-wheelers, are responsible for up to 70% of all fatal crashes between semi-trucks and cars.)

But if we're really interested in safer truck drivers, we wouldn't be targeting illegal drugs. Bad driving and bad roads are a bigger issue.

Illegal drugs were coded as causes for 2% of all truck-car accidents, according to a Department of Transportation study. Far more quotidian factors proved more dangerous: brake problems (a factor assigned in 29% of crashes); speeding (23%); unfamiliarity with roadways (22%); and roadway issues (20%). These could be addressed with better infrastructure and training, but neither factors are cheap fixes.

Unfortunately, the trucking executives who proclaim to love safety are also promoting a bill that would introduce those under 21 to interstate trucking. The idea is that this will make trucking appealing to kiddos again - never mind that experts disagree, and that those aged 18 or 19 have a crash rate that's twice as high as those in their 30s, 40s, and 50s.

Why is trucking going in on drug testing now?

Amid what Goldstein described to me as a trend away from drug testing among non-trucking employers, I wanted to learn more about why freight was suddenly embracing a federal database. So, I chatted with Craig Fuller, CEO and founder of media company FreightWaves, to learn more about what happened here.

The clearinghouse was a long time coming. It went into a larger transportation bill signed into law in 2012. It wasn't until 2017 that the law was codified, and then in 2020 it was finally enforced.

 Trump is the only 21st-century US president to have a big rig photo opportunity, at least from what I can find on our photo service. Take from that what you wish. JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

The endless number of stakeholders gummed up the works, Fuller said. When writing such rules, everyone in the $800 billion trucking industry chimes in - there are independent drivers, major employers, insurance companies, equipment manufacturers, and so on.

Fuller also argued the database is actually quite an obvious idea. Before, there was no way of knowing whether a driver you just hired was already fired for cocaine by a previous employer.

He sketched it out as such:

"Let's say, Rachel, that you were driving a truck and failed a drug test. Let's just say it's pot. The fleet is going to fire you. So guess what you do, you get fired. You're gonna go down the street and go work at Jim Buck Trucking and get a job there. And you drive along a year later, you get tested again and boom, you get the boot. You leave that carrier. You go to the next one.

"The idea of the clearinghouse was that all of these fleets know who the drivers that have had incidents and issues. The problem is, it wasn't very (easy) to get access to that information until the clearinghouse came along."

 Jim Buck Trucking's No. 1 enemy. Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

Again, it's not just about safety

Fuller pointed to another, perhaps more sinister reason for the clearinghouse.

Big trucking companies, along with a genuine interest in safety, may be particularly interested in pushing drug testing because it could root out the industry's hundreds of thousands of small carriers.

A few "mega-carriers" dominate trucking, and their safety standards may be so stringent that they test hair follicles for illegal substances. But the theoretical Big Rachel's Trucking, which employs only myself and a few buddies, is probably is not using top-of-the-line drug testing standards.

Big Rachel's is not a concern in itself to these publicly-traded giants. The problem is that there's 183,916 trucking companies with fewer than six trucks just like Big Rachel's - and we dominate 89% of the industry. Collectively, we're Big Trucking's biggest competitor, and we often don't run on the same rules. Now, thanks to the new federal database, we're all on the same page.

Let's think about the real deterrents to safety instead

Fuller said that being less lenient on marijuana makes sense, but should be coupled with more accurate testing to detect non-cannabis drugs. Namely, he said we ought to focus more resources to hair follicle testing, which would be the most precise in rooting out addled drivers.

"I don't have a problem at all with drivers smoking a joint," Fuller said. "I have a big issue with someone on heroin or on prescription opioids or meth driving down the highway next to me or my kids."

And one more thing. People who make a living wage, lead a healthy lifestyle, and have strong social networks are going to be happier - and better at their jobs. It's common sense. Unfortunately, that's not reachable for many of our nation's two million truck drivers.

What do you think about testing truck drivers (or any employees) for marijuana? Would you like to apply for a role at Big Rachel's Trucking*? Send me an email at rpremack@insider.com.

*Big Rachel's Trucking is 100%, completely, utterly not real.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Atco to use organic waste to produce 'renewable natural gas'

CALGARY — Atco Energy Solutions has announced the construction of a new facility that will use the byproducts from organic waste to produce "renewable" natural gas.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The facility, a first for the Calgary-based company, will be built north of Vegreville, Alta. and should be up and running by late 2022. It will process agricultural manure and other organic waste products from nearby municipalities, harvesting the methane emissions that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.

The facility will also produce fertilizer as a byproduct, to be used by local farmers. Vegreville-based biofuels company Future Fuel Ltd. will partner with Atco to develop the project.

Mike Shaw, senior vice-president for Atco Energy Solutions, said the facility will be one of the largest renewable natural gas facilities in Canada once completed. He said it will produce enough natural gas to heat 2,500 homes per year and reduce carbon emissions by 20,000 tonnes annually.

"One tonne of methane emissions is equivalent to about 28 tonnes of C02 emissions on a greenhouse gas equivalency perspective," Shaw said. "Fugitive methane emissions from things like wastewater treatment, or from organic decomposition — those are significant contributors to greenhouse gases."

While the Vegreville facility will be Atco's first renewable fuels project, Shaw said it is in the process of developing others in order to help meet its climate change and sustainability targets. Renewable natural gas can be produced from a variety of feedstocks, including residential and commercial organics, waste from water treatment plants, and landfill waste. It can be injected into the existing natural gas grid just like conventional natural gas.

Video: Energy waste in condos (Global News)

With its history of gas handling and upgrading, Atco is uniquely suited to move into the renewable natural gas space, Shaw said.He said Canada produces six petajoules (PJ) per year of renewable natural gas currently — less than one per cent of the country's overall natural gas usage — but has the potential to generate up to 150 PJ per year, according to industry estimates.

"There's only a couple dozen of these facilities across Canada today, but we do expect to see significant growth in this space," Shaw said.

In addition to renewable natural gas, Atco is investing in hydrogen as part of its overall climate change strategy. The company is partnering with Suncor Energy Inc. on a potential hydrogen project to be built near Fort Saskatchewan, Alta.

That project could produce more than 300,000 tonnes per year of hydrogen and reduce Alberta's carbon emissions by more than two million tonnes per year, Atco said. The project is still in the early design stage.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 9, 2021.

Companies in this story: (TSX:ACO.X, TSX:SU)

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

Pandemic garbage boom ignites debate over waste as energy

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — America remains awash in refuse as new cases of the coronavirus decline — and that has reignited a debate about the sustainability of burning more trash to create energy.

Waste-to-energy plants, which produce most of their power by incinerating trash, make up only about half a percent of the electricity generation in the U.S. But the plants have long aroused considerable opposition from environmentalists and local residents who decry the facilities as polluters, eyesores and generators of foul odor.

The industry has been in retreat mode in the U.S., with dozens of plants closing since 2000 amid local opposition and emissions concerns. But members of the industry said they see the increase in garbage production in the U.S. in recent months as a chance to play a bigger role in creating energy and fighting climate change by keeping waste out of methane-creating landfills.

One estimate from the Solid Waste Association of North America placed the amount of residential waste up as much as 8% this spring compared to the previous spring. And more trash is on the way. A 2020 study in the journal Science stated that the global plastic packaging market size was projected to grow from more than $900 billion in 2019 to more than $1 trillion by 2021, growth largely due to the pandemic response.

That trash has to go somewhere, and using it as a resource makes more sense than sending it to landfills, said James Regan, senior director of corporate communications for Covanta, the largest player in the industry. The company currently processes about 20 million tons (18,144 metric tons) of waste a year to power about a million homes, and it could do more, he said.

“If we're going to reach climate goals by 2050, the waste sector really can and should be part of that story,” Regan said. “This is low-hanging fruit. So what are we waiting for?”

Waste-to-energy plants are expanding in other parts of the world, as more than 120 plants have been built in the last five years. They're concentrated most heavily in Europe and Asia. But the most recent new plant in the U.S. opened in 2015 in Palm Beach County, Florida.

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, has put a premium on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and creation of more renewable energy, and while that push has focused heavily on wind and solar power, the administration has also acknowledged a place for waste-to-energy conversion. The White House said in an April statement that the U.S. “can address carbon pollution from industrial processes” by including waste-to-power in the mix.

Any attempt to build more plants in the U.S. will be met with resistance, said Mike Ewall, director of the Philadelphia-based Energy Justice Network. The plants represent a threat to human and environmental health because they emit chemicals such as mercury and dioxin, he said. Communities have also opposed waste-to-energy plants because of concerns about airborne particulate matter that can have negative health consequences.

“The notion that this industry is going to be building new plants is just ludicrous,” Ewall said.

But the fact remains that creation of garbage has increased, and municipalities have to deal with it somehow. One study, published in the scientific journal Environment, Development and Sustainability, attributed the increase to factors such as panic buying and more reliance on single-use items. Medical waste has also increased due to the heavy use of personal protective equipment, the study found.

As the pandemic has abated in many part of the country and the economy has reopened, commercial waste has increased, but residential waste creation has not slowed. In Portland, Maine, residential waste was up 12% and commercial was up 2% in June, said Matt Grondin, spokesman for ecomaine, which operates a waste-to-energy power plant.

Converting all that new garbage to energy is the best available option, Grondin said.

“It's a lot of garbage. You can probably imagine with a lot of people at home, cleaning out, doing projects, that accounts for a lot of the increase," he said. “It has to go somewhere.”

Other communities have looked at garbage-to-gas production as a way to get energy from swelling amounts of trash. These plants use strategies such as compacting garbage and sealing it to capture methane that can be used as fuel.

The garbage-to-gas program at the landfill in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, started as a way to get carbon credits by burning off methane, said Richard LeBouef, executive director of the parish Solid Waste Disposal District.

Now natural gas from the landfill powers contractor Waste Connection’s 12 garbage trucks, the landfill’s five pickup trucks and six trucks for litter abatement teams. The district has put $2.7 million, plus maintenance, into the system.

“What we’re saving monetarily is not super-substantial but in accordance with the green issue I think it’s a great thing,” LeBouef said.

Waste-to-energy plants typically create power by burning the trash at about 2,000 degrees (1,093 degrees Celsius) and using it to boil water that is turned into steam, superheated and sent to a turbine to make electricity.

Attempts to convert more pandemic garbage into energy are likely to be controversial, said Frank Roethel, director of the Waste Reduction and Management Institute at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. But using the trash to make power beats letting it pile up, he said.

“Here you have the Biden administration talking about climate change, and talking about strategies that could help reduce emissions," Roethel said. "And waste to energy doesn’t necessarily get the recognition, but it could certainly reduce emissions.”

___

Associated Press writer Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans contributed to this report.

___

Follow Patrick Whittle on Twitter: @pxwhittle

Patrick Whittle, The Associated Press

This is the fight Europe has needed for years

Analysis by Luke McGee, CNN 10/7/2021

The European Union is bracing for a difficult autumn.

© Bernadett Szabo/Reuters/FILE Hungary, led by the right-wing populist Viktor Orban, brought into effect a new law that bans information which "promotes" homosexuality and gender change being used in schools.

Beyond the nasty fallout from Brexit -- arguably the greatest crisis to befall the bloc since its creation -- and recovering from a global pandemic, the 27 member states are gearing up for a huge row over LGBT rights, the rule of law and the role both should play in the Union's future.

Tensions have been bubbling for a while, but in recent days, two events have made it clear that the issue cannot be ignored any longer.

Hungary, led by the right-wing populist Viktor Orban, brought into effect a new law that bans information which "promotes" homosexuality and gender change being used in schools. The government claims it is doing to so protect children, though critics believe that prohibiting access to such information stigmatizes LGBTQ people, putting them at risk of discrimination and violence.

 An Equality Parade marched through Warsaw on June 19 -- after being canceled in 2020 due to Covid restrictions.

On Wednesday of this week, Members of the European Parliament presented a legal case for the EU Commission, the bloc's executive branch, to strip Hungary of its EU funding as it is not meeting its obligations as an EU member state.

While the case makes no mention of Hungary's anti-LGBTQ laws, focusing instead on the country's assaults on judicial independence, among other things, the MEPs presenting the case made clear to CNN that the two are linked.

Katalin Csech, a Hungarian opposition MEP, explained that the report "establishes the legal case" for stripping funding from Orban's government via what is called the rule of law mechanism, "based on his rampant corruption." She adds that corruption is "intimately linked to human rights abuses like the recent attack against the LGBTI community" because "an independent judiciary should be protecting LGBTI people's rights too."

Her German colleague, Daniel Freund, explains that the focus on the rule of law is part of a wider effort to create a cumulative pressure on Budapest.

"If we can cut their funding, which is the only language Orban really understands, for his assaults on the judiciary, then hopefully we can use it to build cumulative pressure for violations of the EU treaties in other areas."

The new law is part of a years-long erosion of rights for LGBTQ people. Luca Dudits from the Háttér Society, a Hungarian LGBTQ advocacy group, points to a long list of repressive actions, from banning same-sex marriage in 2011 to barring non-married couples from adopting last year.

The reality of having an openly homophobic and transphobic government and little remaining independent media has, Dudits explains, created a dangerous "echo chamber" placing vulnerable people at serious risk of discrimination and violence.

"The invisibility means that there's no way that LGBTI people really feel that there is a safe environment to come out, and obviously this also impacts social acceptance. It also affects mental health, if you are constantly hearing that you are an immoral person who is a danger to children."


'Hateful rhetoric' in the bloc

Hungary is not the only EU nation currently under fire for its treatment of LGBT people.

Poland's infamous LGBT-free zones, areas where opposition to LGBT "ideology" is symbolically written into law at state and local levels, have been criticized widely as being in violation of the EU's commitments to human rights and, in some cases, have seen applications for EU funding pulled.

Karolina Gierdal, a lawyer for the Polish advocacy group Campaign Against Homophobia, told CNN that as long as "politicians can get away with their hateful rhetoric and actions, they signal to citizens that "harassing the LGBTQI community is not discrimination and that their homophobia or transphobia is justified and may be acted upon."

Critics in Poland would like to see more action from Brussels. Sylwia Spurek, Poland's former deputy to the ombudsman on equal treatment who is now an opposition MEP, believes that the current debate around the rule of law is too narrow "because everybody is talking about, about independence of judiciary, about freedom of media, about a shrinking civic space."

She is trying to convince the Commission to see human rights as part of the rule of law. Her argument is that Article 2 of the EU treaty concerns respect "for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities."

Spurek believes that violating this part of the treaty is clearly an infringement of the rule of law, which is in itself grounds for pulling EU funds from the Polish government.

The problems Poland and Hungary's opponents face are that not everyone agrees on the legal point, that the action that the Commission or EU Council (represented by the elected governments of the 27 member states) could actually take is politically limited, and that the wider consequences of unilateral action could create an even bigger mess.

"It's all very tense. Several of the more liberal member states are uncomfortable with asking their taxpayers to fund countries whose behavior they abhor," said one EU diplomat. Those member states want the Commission to act, "because the divisions between the member states in the Council make any serious actions very hard, especially in areas where unanimous votes are required," the diplomat added.

Normally, divisions in the Council are characterized by narrow national, often economic, self-interest. On the matter of LGBT rights, the fury from more liberal member states is palpable.

At the last Council summit on June 24, Mark Rutte, the Dutch PM, openly said that Hungary "has no place in the EU anymore," before the leaders had even met.

In the closed-door session, Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Xavier Bettel, starkly warned Orban: "My grandfather was Jewish, I'm gay and can live freely. And then I read this law. I know what happens when you turn people into a minority," according to a Luxembourg government official. And 17 member states pointedly signed a letter to the presidents of the EU institutions, reiterating their support for human rights as outlined in Article 2.

For its part, the Commission is concerned that any unilateral action could backfire politically. "If the Commission starts saying it wants to keep money from these countries, they are able to say 'look, Brussels wants to hurt us and I am the best person to protect you,' strengthening their domestic political grip," a second EU official explained.

From the perspective of Hungary and Poland and their allies around Europe, they are simply showing "respect for Europe's Judeo-Christian heritage."

According to a statement that was co-signed by the governments of Hungary and Poland and supportive parties elsewhere, the EU is becoming "a tool of radical forces" that want to erase national identity and replace it with "a European Superstate." Their statement claimed they wanted to ensure that their traditional values are present as the debate over Europe's future enters a new phase.

This is where things get very messy and somewhat existential for the bloc.

The fight for the heart of Europe

The words "future of Europe" get thrown around a lot by people in Brussels, but usually by people who are largely supportive of the EU becoming institutionally stronger and more centralized.

The fact the likes of Poland, Hungary and their supporters, including France's far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and Italy's populist firebrand Matteo Salvini, put out a statement on their vision for the future of the EU is chilling for Europhiles.

Those who love Europe generally accept it needs to evolve to survive.

"Right now, the union is not fit for the challenges of the future. We can either go into the direction of a stronger Europe with more powers, or a weaker Europe, which is fragmented. I firmly believe that [latter version of] Europe has no future," says Csech.

Spurek agrees that "if the Commission, the Council, has no determination to protect these values, there is no future of the European Union."

So many of the problems facing Europe had been masked by the unity Brexit afforded the 27 as they confronted a single foe, despite the challenges that posed. With the UK gone, the fight for the heart of the European project is well underway.

There is no easy answer. "The EU needs to simultaneously be a shared set of values but also flexible enough to accommodate every perspective on that dividing line," says Ronan McCrea, professor of European law at University College London.

That dividing line is often characterized seen as East versus West, old members versus new. Many of those member states who joined as former Soviet satellites had to jump through hoops to prove they were up to becoming part of the liberal, rule-based West. But as McCrea puts it, "the EU is a bit like a nightclub with ferocious bouncers on the door but weak internal security. Once you've passed the accession process and are in, you can break the rules with much less serious consequences."

The EU has been historically good at fudging issues to avoid catastrophe. However, most of its crises have been economic and overtly political. This degree of conflict over rival values and culture is fairly new territory. And what's panicking so many in Brussels is that, unlike an economic or political crisis, they sincerely have no idea how this ultimately plays out.

Record Brazilian drought causes coffee prices to spike to highest level in years
Pete Evans 

CBC

© Patricia Monteiro/Bloomberg

 A worker walks beside drying coffee beans on a farm in Minas Gerais, Brazil. The coffee-producing region has been walloped by a lack of water this year.

A once-in-a-century drought in Brazil has walloped the world's largest coffee crop, pushing up wholesale prices to their highest level in years.

The going rate for prized arabica beans was almost $1.70 US a pound at one point this week. That's almost 60 per cent higher than it was last summer.

Abnormally dry conditions late in the growing season in Brazil are the main culprit, as Brazil typically produces about one-third of the world's supply of coffee beans.

Rainfall in the agricultural region of Minas Gerais was the lowest on record in the summer months, which stretch from January to April in Brazil. That's normally when coffee plants soak up moisture ahead of the drier winter months, when they are harvested. But this year, the rains never came.

"It seems to have happened at a crucial time, when the crop needs to be absorbing moisture in order to flourish and blossom. And it just didn't happen in time, so the yields were severely impaired," said Kona Haque, head of research with London-based agricultural commodities trader EDF & Man.

It's hard to get a handle on just how small the crop will be, but experts in the field agree it's significant and enough to put world supply below demand for the first time in years.

Price of coffee has surged this year

Part of the problem is that 2021 was always more likely to be a weaker than normal year for coffee. That's because like many tree crops, coffee operates on a two-year cycle, where years of plenty tend to be followed by years where the plants produce less.

"They follow this pattern of what's known in the industry as biennial bearing," said Stuart McCook, an economics professor at the University of Guelph who follows the coffee industry closely.

© Scott Galley/CBC COVID-19 caused sales at coffee chains to decline by almost one-quarter. The average prices paid for various types of coffee drinks are shown.

2020 was a bumper crop for coffee, and because that bearing was so heavy, McCook said, this past season, "a lot of farmers pruned back the branches of their coffee trees so that the tree ... could develop new healthy tissue to bear future crops."

The bumper crop last year looked even bigger than it would normally be because of the pandemic, which uprooted the traditional supply-and-demand patterns for coffee.

"The world is slowly coming out of a lockdown and the pandemic, and that means consumption of coffee outside of the home is beginning to recover," said Haque. "Demand for outdoor coffee consumption was … expected to recover. And just as this demand starts to recover, you're seeing this shortage of supply."

Add it all up and it's a recipe for record prices, from farm to cup.

Losel Tethong, the founder and president of Propeller Coffee, an artisanal coffee roaster in Toronto, sources as much of his coffee as he can from independent farmers because he's a big believer in sustainability, so he's glad to see higher prices for them. But it's also a challenge for him to sell the finished product without passing those costs on.

"It's great to see that price go up; it's just trying to absorb that in less than a year, it's tough," he said.

Like many retail-focused businesses, when the pandemic hit, Tethong said he lost about 80 per cent of his customer base. He has managed to slowly and steadily grow his e-commerce business, selling bags direct to consumers, but COVID-19 has increased the cost of just about everything, including supplies like filters and machines, and transportation costs.

"We haven't raised prices as a company in five years," he said. "We're continuing to do everything we can to keep our prices down, but this year, we implemented a small five-per-cent price rise on our retail price of coffee."

That five-per-cent hike for the good stuff is nothing compared to what's happening with the cheaper, mass-produced blends, said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor of food policy at Dalhousie University in Halifax. The price of coffee at the grocery store is up by 17 per cent since January.

"There's something going on," he said. "Whatever food product is out there, manufacturers [are] charging more to grocers and that will catch up with us eventually."
Impact of climate change

It's not just tropical crops like coffee that are impacted.

Canadian staples such as wheat, canola and barley are also seeing record prices right now because extreme heat in Western Canada has drastically impacted this year's crop yields.

Just as is the case with those crops, experts who spoke to CBC News say climate change is playing a role with coffee, too — which means drinkers should get used to jittery java prices.

On top of the drought that hurt this year's harvest, Brazilian farmers were also hit by previously unheard of frost, which is bad news for next year's crop.

"This drought is not a normal occurrence, but at the same time, the frost that just happened last week is the second time in three years that it's happened," Haque noted.

"It's possible that we're going to have to live with more extreme weather conditions. And if that's the case then ... supply will vary, and when supply varies, inevitably prices are going to go up and down."

That means for coffee lovers, uncertainty will be the name of the game from now on.

As Tethong puts it, "we're kind of up against the clock with climate change and other pressures."

VIDEO

How climate change is affecting coffee

Duration: 00:53 

Stuart McCook, a professor at the University of Guelph with an interest in export commodities, says coffee plants are reacting to the changing climate by growing in places where they didn't before, and dying out in other places.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/how-climate-change-is-affecting-coffee/vi-AALYb39?ocid=msedgntp

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
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