ROFLMAO

Why the NFL owners are exclusive socialists

Andy Serwer with Max Zahn

29 January 2022·

Did the football gods know that with the stock market giving us migraines, the NFL playoff games needed to be extra awesome? We’ll see if the trend continues this weekend when the league's final four teams take the field.

One thing’s for sure, the NFL is back, baby (as the late Al Davis might have said.) Back from COVID-19. Back from the kneeling controversy. The instant-classic-in-the-snow 49ers-Packers game was the most-watched TV show on a Saturday night in 28 years. And no one’s happier about all this than the 32 owners of the NFL’s teams.

The NFL owners are a fascinating bunch really. Family businesses essentially, they’re mostly all-white, male, of course rich and GOP-friendly — but beyond the homogeneity, each has its own uniquely American story. As we enter the NFL’s high season I wanted to take a look at this group, specifically the four still in the hunt; the Rams, the 49ers, the Chiefs and the Bengals, who turn out to be emblematic.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, right, and Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, left, take a break while filming a Papa John's commercial at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Tx., Wednesday, September 1, 2010. (Brandon Wade/AP for Papa John's)

Forbes, which does a nice job of tracking these franchises, reports the average team is now worth $3.5 billion. Yahoo Finance's Max Zahn calculates that the overall total net worth of the owners is $154.3 billion, meaning that almost three-fourths of their net worth was from their teams.

That’s quite a chunk of change. We’re used to seeing lists of rich folks whose wealth is primarily in shares of publicly traded companies, i.e Elon, Bezos and Zuck. The NFL owners are a parallel universe of private wealth, and as such are one of greatest under-recognized power centers in our country. They don’t call this America’s most exclusive club for nothing.

“Pete Rozelle convinced the owners that if they shared revenue and created the ability for teams in smaller markets to be successful, they would supplant baseball as America’s pastime,” says Mark Rosentraub, a sports management professor at the University of Michigan. “He was right and they did it.”

Los Angeles Rams tight end Brycen Hopkins (88) warms up before an NFL wild-card playoff football game against the Arizona Cardinals in Inglewood, Calif., Monday, Jan. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Here then are the final four:

Cincinnati Bengals

Mike Brown owns the Bengals, the surprise team of the playoffs, which had been known primarily for its futility. The Bengals are a family affair and tied to football royalty. Brown, 86, is the son of legendary Cleveland Browns Coach Paul Brown who founded the Bengals in 1968. Mike played quarterback at Dartmouth and graduated from Harvard law school. He acted as GM for many years until handing off to a group led by daughter Katie Blackburn (who played ice hockey at Big Green) and is married to team VP Troy Blackburn. The team's recent success has everything to do with wunderkind quarterback Joe Burrow. Interestingly, Brown has long proselytized about how key the quarterback position is.

Kansas City Chiefs

Clark Hunt, son of legendary Texas businessman Lamar Hunt, owns the Chiefs. Lamar, (son of oil tycoon H.L. Hunt), formed the team as the Dallas Texans in 1960 as part of the American Football League and then moved it to Kansas City three years later. Lamar, who coined the term "Super Bowl," tried to corner the silver market in the 1970s and 1980s with his brother Nelson Bunker Hunt, which ended badly. Clark, 56, went to SMU where he captained the soccer team and later worked at Goldman Sachs. (Both his wife and daughter won Miss Kansas USA — 28 years apart.) The Chiefs have actually been pretty good since 2013, but beginning in 2018 when Patrick Mahomes stepped in as quarterback, they’ve become an NFL powerhouse, winning the Super Bowl in 2019.

Los Angeles Rams

The Rams are owned by Stan Kroenke, who’s married to Ann Walton Kroenke, daughter of the late Bud Walton, Walmart co-founder — along with his higher-profile and wealthier brother — the late Sam Walton. Kroenke, 74, made much of his money building real estate projects near Walmarts. Today he runs Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, which also owns the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche and the iconic English soccer team, Arsenal. The Rams played in LA from 1946 until 1994, whereupon they moved to St. Louis. Kroenke took control of the team in 2009 and maneuvered it back to LA in 2016. That upset the city fathers of St. Louis, who sued the NFL and Kroenke. The parties settled last November with the League agreeing to pay St. Louis $790 million, which includes money coming from Kroenke, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Ouch.

San Francisco 49ers

Real estate developer Edward J. DeBartolo Sr. bought the Niners in 1977 for some $13 million and his family — with son Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., 75, running point for many years — has owned the team ever since. The 49ers are now said to be worth some $4 billion. NB: $13 million from 1977 is worth $60 million in today’s dollars, so that’s worked out well. The team won five Super Bowls in 14 years with Joe Montana et al, but less happy was that DeBartolo Jr. got wrapped up in the 1998 corruption case of Edwin Edwards, former governor of Louisiana. DeBartolo pleaded guilty and was fined. (In February 2020, then-President Trump granted him a pardon.) In 2000, DeBartolo turned over the team to his sister Denise DeBartolo York and her husband John. Denise and John's son, Jed, is the current president.

San Francisco 49ers running back Frank Gore (21) hugs former owner and current co-chair of the 49ers Denise DeBartolo York during the fourth quarter of an NFL football game against the Arizona Cardinals in San Francisco, Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012. The 49ers won 27-13. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

There’s an irony here these zealots of free enterprise might not appreciate. “Capitalism generally weeds out the weak but things like the NFL operate with a form of socialism, meaning that you can’t get thrown out of the league and if you have a really bad year. We give you a high draft pick so you get back into the picture,” notes Rick Burton, a professor of Sport Management at Syracuse University. “We don’t have 32 major computer companies, but we can have 32 owners. There’s not going to be consolidation in the marketplace — there aren't going to be market forces that force you out of business.”

Socialism? Hmm. Something to argue about — or not — during halftime.

Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter: @serwer

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M

Crypto's 'Tornado Cash' fans money laundering fears, may be 'tip of the iceberg'

David Hollerith

·Senior Reporter

Sun, 30 January 2022,

On January 17th, with cryptocurrency prices being widely routed by risk aversion, Crypto.com flagged a "security incident" that caused the operation to freeze withdrawals.

Days later, the Singapore-based exchange announced that hackers had stolen at least $15 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) tokens — and potentially as much as $33 million, according to independent estimates — but pledged to reimburse those affected. Crypto.com faulted some accounts for a lack of 2-factor authentication for the breach, but didn't provide many other details.

However, information security specialists and amateur blockchain sleuths on Twitter were already tracing the hacked funds, with almost half pointing to a non-custodial Decentralized Finance (DeFi) mixing service called Tornado Cash. That's where the trail goes cold.

Tornado Cash (TORN), itself a smart contract token, is one of a few legal cryptocurrency mixing (or "tumbling") protocols that can be used to obfuscate transaction history.

It can also wash crypto proceeds in ways that are raising alarm among investors and law enforcement — already grappling with a rise in the sector's illicit activity amid a sharpening debate over how to provide regulatory oversight to the booming digital coin movement.

Experts say blockchain mixing services aren't necessarily illicit, even though hackers use them. While part of the growing crypto ecosystem, mixers offer a handy way for criminals to launder funds without being explicitly classified as money laundering.

Still, in December, hackers used Tornado Cash to wash $196 million of crypto stolen from Bitmart, a crypto exchange. According to Victor Fang, CEO and Founder of blockchain analytics firm Anchain.AI, Tornado Cash uses zero knowledge proof.

"This is advanced cryptography, Turing-awarded work from MIT, the highest award in computer science" explained Fang, who chuckled in awe of the technology underpinning the protocol.

Over the past year, Tornado Cash serviced over $10 billion worth of crypto transaction according to Anchain, with a rising number of criminal cases being managed by Fang's firm involving the protocol.

“Privacy is not criminal but criminals are seeking these privacy solutions. This is the tip of the iceberg, the beginning of the future we’re going to see play out,” he added.

Billions in loot being laundered

Money laundering, especially the digital coin variety, is notoriously difficult to track. The United Nations estimates that around 2-5% of global growth (roughly $2 trillion) gets laundered in fiat currencies each year, but the figure is not regularly updated.

Currently, crypto's market capitalization tops $1.7 trillion, and experts insist crime is a shrinking margin of those flows. However, there's still $8.6 billion in blockchain-based loot getting laundered, according to a report released Wednesday by blockchain analytics company Chainalysis.

The firm previously found that crypto-based crime hit an historical high at $14 billion, but at 0.15% of all sector transactions is relatively low. Chainalysis tracked crypto money laundering over the past year, but did not count funds coming from mixing services as illicit, according to Chainalysis' director of research Kim Grauer.

Yet billions in laundered funds were up 30% in 2021 compare to the prior year, and represent the amount of money sent from a crypto wallet that the firm marked as illicit. Those funds then went to another platform for trading, gambling, DeFi, mixing, or other purposes.

And according to Grauer, tracking illicit flows come only from “multi-decade-long and hard-won investigations” into specific financial firms. The rise of the use of digital ledgers, however, could make it easier, some say.

“We can’t say cryptocurrency is better for fighting crime but there’s no equivalent data set for measuring criminal activity in fiat currencies," Grauer told Yahoo Finance.

Mixing services still represent a slim margin for the destination of illicit crypto funds according to Chainalysis data. Yet based on conversations with compliance officers, Grauer said that customer funds sent from a mixing service can be a “red flag,” with firms receiving a significant amount of funds from mixers.

The "blank check"

A representations of cryptocurrency Ethereum is seen in front of a stock graph and U.S. dollar in this illustration taken, January 24, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

While algorithmic tools offer precise data, curbing crypto laundering relies on coordination between law enforcement and private companies, which in the eyes of regulators need improvement.

The DeFi boom has also fed money laundering, with illicit wallet use up from 2% in 2020 to 17% over the past year, reflecting the sector's high rate of theft. Still, crypto exchanges remain the primary method for thieves to wash hot money, with those receiving 47% of total illicit funds tracked over the last year, largely because of scams.

One way to halt illicit crypto flows hinges around blocking, or at least monitoring exit points, out of the cryptocurrency economy that give criminals on- and off-ramps chance to convert their loot into less traceable cash. Increasingly, regulators want to shore up their surveillance and reach at these critical junctures.

Congress is debating a measure that grants the U.S. Treasury broad authority to prohibit or freeze certain digital asset, particularly if they relate to foreign banking institutions, transactions or if "1 or more types of accounts is of primary money laundering concern."

Amid a broad debate about crypto regulation, some market players see the provision as a "blank check" for regulators to muzzle crypto's privacy and commerce benefits. Two of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX and Binance, both qualify as foreign banking institutions though they both have U.S. subsidiaries. In theory. they could run afoul of Treasury's interpretation of that statute, some argue.

If cryptocurrency is ever going to get "traction, there has got to be more regulatory constructs around it," according to David Cass, a former crypto and stablecoin researcher at the Federal Reserve who's now a partner with Law and Forensics, a legal and investigations firm.

The marketing of Tornado Cash and other crypto mixers may affect how regulators "facilitate cooperation with those services, Daniel Garrie, Law and Forensics' co-founder, told Yahoo Finance.

“They can say if you are found to interact or engage with this, you're not allowed to participate in the U.S. banking system, something like that but there are a lot of caveats,” Garrie said.

David Hollerith covers cryptocurrency for Yahoo Finance. Follow him @dshollers.

World Bank's Malpass: 

Poorer countries face 'double whammy' 

on debt as pandemic rages

Brian Cheung

·Reporter

Tue, 1 February 2022

The World Bank warns that the poorest countries, saddled with debt and still vulnerable to the virus, are at risk of being left behind in the COVID-19 recovery.

World Bank Group President David Malpass told Yahoo Finance Tuesday that the more impoverished nations lack the luxury of easily financing large fiscal packages to counteract the economic impacts of the virus.

Even if a country wanted to issue sovereign debt to pay for COVID relief measures, Malpass said advanced nations — like the U.S. — are already taking a lot of space in the market for government bonds.

“You’ve got this double whammy,” Malpass said. “[Poorer countries] are paying a very rich interest rate to the advanced economies at a time when the advanced economies themselves are borrowing heavily in global markets.”

The World Bank has bucketed 74 countries into its International Development Association (IDA). Those countries are able to access IDA resources to not only finance poverty-reducing projects — but coordinate debt relief.

'Needs are really big'

The World Bank estimates that just this year, about $35 billion in bilateral and private debt-service payments will become due on both public and private guaranteed debt of those IDA countries. Malpass said the World Bank’s support is “just not enough to make up for all the money that’s coming out of them" as they pay their creditors.

One strategy: locking in lower rates as central banks look to raise interest rates. Higher borrowing costs could burden those lower income countries with higher debt payments, which is why Malpass says the World Bank is trying to help countries lengthen the terms of their borrowings to “lock” in lower rates.

“They don’t have access to government bond markets that are robust, so this is going to cause lasting challenges for the poor,” Malpass said.

World Bank President David Malpass attends the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 3, 2021. REUTERS/Yves Herman

In lower income countries, an estimated 4% of people are vaccinated. An inability to improve vaccine distribution and take up in those countries may further strand those countries through the recovery.

In the World Bank’s updated Global Economic Prospects report released this month, worldwide GDP is forecast to decelerate, from 5.5% in 2021 to 4.1% in 2022 and 3.2% in 2023.

Advanced economies are expected to fully recover to pre-pandemic trends of growth by 2023, emerging market and developing economies are forecast to remain 4% below pre-pandemic trend.

“The needs are really big,” Malpass said.

Is the ‘Great Resignation’ happening in the Philippines, too?

Juju Z. Baluyot
·Contributor
Thu, 3 February 2022

The Great Resignation is a phenomenon that started in the US wherein a large number of people are voluntarily willingly their jobs during and probably even after the pandemic. While COVID-19-related factors are usually what's being pointed out as the biggest causes of the Great Resignation, many other factors also play as well. (Photo: Getty Images)

Western media have been reporting that 2021 was the year of the "Great Resignation" or the “Big Quit,” where a deluge of workers voluntarily quit their jobs due to several economic and even psychological factors. Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics recorded an all-time-high 3.0% quit rate (or equivalent to 4.4 million resignations) in the U.S. in September 2021 alone – the highest rate since these data were first published in December 2000.

What is driving all these quits? And is this happening in the Philippines, too, given that many businesses have closed and laid off employees, among other unfortunate activities?

Yahoo Philippines sat down with Darwin Rivers, the founder of the Philippines HR Group – a non-profit and Securities and Exchange Commission-registered organization that currently has over 263,000 members, mostly professionals from the human resources sector – to talk about the Great Resignation, its factors, and how it affects Filipino employers and employees today.

Why are people quitting?

The Great Resignation is a phenomenon that started in the US wherein a large number of people are willingly resigning from their jobs during and probably even after the pandemic. While COVID-19-related factors (such as the lack of safety measures in American offices and people having permanent disabilities due to coronavirus infection) are usually what's being pointed out as the biggest causes of the Great Resignation, many other factors also play as well.

"COVID-19 was just the main driver, but also supporting the Big Quit is the fact that there have been wage stagnations and rising living costs in the US recently," Rivers told Yahoo Philippines in a mix of English and Filipino. "So if your expenses for your rent, food, and transportation are increasing, and yet your wage is not, then you have a problem."

The US government gives social security checks, also called a “welfare trap” by HR professionals, to most if not all unemployed citizens. Darwin Rivers said, "Imagine, the amount of their social security check is probably even higher than their wage." (Photo: Getty Images)

Rivers also pointed out the unemployment insurance that is common in many first-world countries like the US as another reason why Americans are resigning. "The US [has unemployment insurance that is provided to] to qualified unemployed citizens. So given the wage stagnations and rising living costs, people's mindset has turned into 'I will not work anymore since I will receive [an unemployment insurance], anyway.'" However, this insurance is valid for only 18 months.

Rivers added, "Imagine, the amount of their [unemployment insurance] is probably even higher than their monthly wage, which is usually not enough to pay for their monthly dues like their rent, electric and water bills, food, and transportation, among others."

A study from Adobe last year also pointed out that members of Generation Z (adults between the ages of 18 and 24) and millennials (adults between the ages of 25 and 39) are posting higher resignation rates.

"When Adobe asked the survey respondents why they resigned, they answered 'self-realization.' Workers have been realizing, 'What is important to me? My career and the working condition that comes with it are important. My long-term goals are important. But my life outside of my job is also important,'" explained Rivers. "Being exposed to the news of deaths and infections every day made people realize, 'Hey, wait a minute. What is more important these days: my life or my job?'"

Rivers also said that aside from this "self-realization," Gen Z adults and millennials are also the same people who value their work-life balance more than any other people from other generations.

Generation Z adults and millennials value their work-life balance more than any other people from other generations. This contributes to why they are the same people who are driving the Great Resignation. (Photo: Getty Images)

"They would always demand work-life balance and if their employer cannot give them that, they would rather quit and find another job," said Rivers. "This has become even more evident in the pandemic. They would say, 'Hang on. I need my work-life balance now because my life is also just as important as my career. I want to make sure that I have a balanced life. I do not want to overwork myself during the pandemic."

The Great Resignation is happening not only in the US Eventually, other first-world countries started reporting about experiencing the Big Quit, such as France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. China is also experiencing the phenomenon, although they call it "Tang Ping" which roughly translates to "planking" or "lying flat" in English.

"Tang Ping is actually a lifestyle choice, a mentality by the young Chinese population. Did you know that people in China work for 12 hours a day, six days a week? So the younger Chinese workers choose to avoid that," said Rivers. Uncharacteristically of them, “They would rather go against what society is dictating them because they feel that if they continue overworking, it would be dangerous to their health."
Is there a ‘Big Quit’ now in the Philippines?

“Not yet,” answered Rivers when asked if the Philippines and its neighboring countries are also experiencing the Great Resignation.

He explained that while wage stagnations have become common in many developed countries like the US, the same cannot be said in many countries in Asia. In the Southeast Asian region alone, countries like Singapore and Malaysia have consistently increased their wages.

There is a different picture in the Philippines.

A lot of Filipinos cannot easily resign from their jobs because we do not have impressive social security checks the way other countries do... We do not have the luxury to resign and become unemployed because, unlike Americans, we do not always have a fallback. Darwin Rivers, Philippines HR Group

Rivers explained, "Real talk: a lot of Filipinos cannot easily resign from their jobs because we do not have impressive social security checks the way other countries do. The ayuda or financial aid that the government gives is just how much, P8,000 ($157)? The minimum wage in the Philippines, meanwhile, plays around P12,000 ($235) to P15,000 ($294). So it is still practical to have a job here."

He stressed, "We do not have the luxury to resign and become unemployed because, unlike Americans, we do not always have a fallback. The government here may give ayuda but only to people who lost their jobs because their companies had to close, for example; they will not give an ayuda to those who just voluntarily quit."

Darwin Rivers argues that the Philippines is not having in the Great Resignation because the Filipinos do not hold the same "luxury" that people from first-world countries do. Here, when a poor Filipino becomes unemployed, they do not always have a fallback. (Photo: Getty Images)

Another reason the Philippines is not yet going through the Big Quit, according to Rivers, is that many companies here were quick to pivot to a longer or more permanent work-from-home set-up; whereas, in the US, employees had to quit because they were being required to go back to the office right away even though they were not yet comfortable to do so.

Many Philippine companies are also incentivizing loyalty to avoid their long-time and tenured employees from leaving.

Despite the Philippines not yet having a Great Resignation, Rivers noted that there remain many Filipinos who resign from their jobs – but not to become permanently unemployed but to look for better opportunities somewhere else.

Such as in the case of Karen Alvarez, who resigned from her previous job as a graphic artist in an advertising company and moved to another creative agency that, according to her, provides better working conditions.

While the Philippine government may give "ayuda" or financial aid to displaced workers who lost their jobs because their companies closed or laid off employees, the same cannot be said to those who just voluntarily quit. (Photo: Getty Images)

She said, “In my new company, I am assured that I only work within my shift. In the few times that I need to work overtime, I am guaranteed a payment. They also provide some other allowances like internet subsidy, rice allowance, and transportation allowance, and also provided me with a work laptop and other equipment – things that I never had in my previous company.”

Alvarez added that she realized how important it is to have a life beyond work. She shared, "I used to take pride in doing more work. But now, I am happy that I can dedicate my weekends to my hobbies like skateboarding and reading. I can now sleep longer, and I also watch Netflix more than I ever did before. These are things that I no longer want to let go of."

Alvarez's case is nothing new. Rivers said, "Many companies now are already having the opportunity to cherry-pick applicants because there are now more applicants than job openings," said Rivers. "That increases the level of competition among job applicants."

There is now a growing number of Filipino companies that have been implementing a more permanent work-from-home set-up for their employees. Many of them are also becoming more flexible to meet the demands of their people.

"If a company cannot be flexible with their employees' work hours or working conditions, their people will leave, especially now that people are aware already about other companies' better work culture," said Rivers.
How to avoid high resignation rates?

In October last year, Yahoo Philippines published a report about how Filipino employers have started adopting initiatives that champion and safeguard their employees' mental health. This is because of the "mental health crisis" that was brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Work is not the only thing on our minds today; mental health and well-being have [also] been a top priority for the past two years.Rajnish Sinha, TaskUs

"The good news is that many business leaders insist [that] this unprecedented mental health crisis requires companies to make mental health and wellness a priority,” said Bryan Robinson, Ph.D., who built his professional career on the themes of resilience and work-life balance, in an opinion article for Forbes. “Making discussions of mental health a standard practice and destigmatizing mental health issues are at the top of the list, along with prioritizing self-care and workplace wellness.”

Global Wellness Institute defined "workplace wellness" as “any workplace health promotion activity or organizational policy designed to support healthy behavior among employees and to improve health outcomes.” Workplace wellness has been expanded over the past decade to encompass the creation of a “culture of health” within the worksite, which is what Robinson suggested in his Forbes opinion.

These initiatives by many employers are among the factors that prevent the Great Resignation from happening in many proactive companies; they implement wellness programs and provide additional perks and benefits to attract those like Alvarez who resigned from their jobs and looked for employers with better working conditions.

While the Great Resignation may happen to many countries with wage stagnations and rising living costs, as in the case of the US, companies can manage their employees to prevent them from leaving.

For one, it is important for companies to focus on their employees' mental health. Rajnish Sinha, Chief People Officer of digital-outsourcing firm TaskUs, told Authority Magazine recently, "Work is not the only thing on our minds today; mental health and well-being have [also] been a top priority for the past two years.”

For Rajnish Sinha of TaskUs, employees today are now looking for a solid work experience and a sense of fulfillment of belonging in an inclusive work environment. Employers need to step up their game to be able to provide these to their people. (Photo: Getty Images)

He added that employers will need to adapt and be flexible, especially when it comes to their employees’ work schedules. This can be as simple as advocating more time to spend with family, additional mental health days, and additional benefits.

Employees would also want to feel engaged with their employers. "They want to know how their work is affecting the environment [and] how their company is working to become more diverse and inclusive," said Sinha. "There needs to be more communication from the top down and not just through email. Employers can get creative with how they engage their employees."

Sinha also said that being in a pandemic made people look for experiences and a feeling of fulfillment. He said, “Is the educated workforce getting the mental satisfaction and experiences they are looking for? Does the organization have policies and processes to encourage movement?" Employers, according to Sinha, need to be more mindful that employees are constantly looking for new and exciting opportunities to fulfill their needs.

(Update: The first version of this story said that unemployed Americans receive a social security check from the government. This story has been updated to clarify that they receive unemployment insurance and not a social security check. The insurance is also valid for 18 months only.)

Juju Z. Baluyot is a Manila-based writer who writes in-depth special reports, news features, and opinion-editorial pieces for a wide range of publications. He covers cultures, media, and gender.

Starbucks baristas behind union drive describe 'super stressful' workplace

Max Zahn 

·Reporter

Wed, 2 February 2022, 

A union drive at Starbucks (SBUX) stores nationwide that began weeks ago at a store in Buffalo, New York has spread to 54 locations in 19 states, organizers said this week. Fifteen of those stores filed for union elections on Monday, demonstrating the growing momentum behind the movement.

The explosion of labor activity at one of the country’s largest food and beverage chains defies the decades-long decline of unionization in the U.S., where just 6.1% of private sector employees and 3.1% of food service workers belong to a union, Department of Labor data shows. It raises the question of why long-dormant employees at a company known for liberal management have begun to revolt.

Employees have drawn strength from pandemic-related labor shortages that have bolstered worker leverage across the economy but especially in the restaurant industry. Plus, workers have responded to the advocacy taken up by their colleagues, as a victory among one group of employees emboldens others.

But less attention has been paid to another crucial factor: the job itself. Yahoo Finance spoke with four current Starbucks employees involved in union campaigns who criticized a stressful workplace where they say COVID-related staffing shortages and exposure risks have resulted in heavier workloads, delayed breaks, and frustrations over a lack of personal protective equipment.

'A constrained labor environment'

The workers also stressed their disappointment in seeing the Seattle-based coffee giant — which opposes the union campaign — fall short of its reputation as a worker-friendly corporate bastion of liberal values.

“Before I started the job, I had a grand view of Starbucks — it was one of my dream jobs,” says Nikki Taylor, a shift supervisor at a Starbucks in Memphis, Tennessee who has worked at the company for two years. “Once you get inside and see what you’re dealing with and what it’s giving you, it’s not.”

James Skretta at Starbucks Workers United office in Buffalo, New York, U.S., December 7, 2021. REUTERS/Lindsay DeDario

During the two busiest periods of the day, in the morning and late afternoon, the store usually staffs eight or nine people to handle the rush of orders, Taylor said. During the pandemic, the store has often operated during those peaks with just four or five employees, she said. (The company allows workers to suspend mobile or in-store orders when a location is understaffed, Starbucks Spokesperson Reggie Borges told Yahoo Finance.)

Plus, she has worked with constant fear of contracting COVID and bringing it home to her 8-year-old daughter, she said, saying those anxieties became reality three weeks ago when Taylor tested positive for the virus. She recounted one instance in which a customer entered the store and told her he was infected with the virus.

“It’s super stressful,” Taylor says.

On an earnings call on Tuesday, Starbucks acknowledged the workplace disruption imposed by the labor shortage. Chief Operations Officer John Culver described elevated turnover and difficulty staffing stores over the course of the pandemic. “It’s no secret we’re in a constrained labor environment,” Culver said.

In October, the company raised its starting wage at U.S. stores to $15 per hour from a prior rate of $12 per hour. The move brought the average wage for U.S. hourly employees to almost $17 per hour.

Starbucks has also made recent changes to COVID-19 policies. Last week, the company reversed a plan that would have required employees to get vaccinated or subject themselves to weekly testing.

A week before that, the company advised all employees to wear company-provided paper masks instead of cloth masks. But workers told Yahoo Finance they’re frustrated that the company has not provided the more protective N95 or KN95 masks. The company told Bloomberg it had chosen not to do so due to supply constraints. Employees can avail themselves of two five-day paid leave periods if they believe they've been exposed to COVID-19, Borges said.

In response to a request for comment, Starbucks sent a letter posted online by Executive Vice President, President North America Rossann Williams in December after the initial union victory at a store in Buffalo.

A portion of the letter says: "From the beginning, we’ve been clear in our belief that we do not want a union between us as partners, and that conviction has not changed. However, we have also said that we respect the legal process. This means we will bargain in good faith with the union that represents partners in the one Buffalo store that voted in favor of union representation. Our hope is that union representatives also come to the table with mutual good faith, respect and positive intent."

Full-time and part-time employees at Starbucks receive health care benefits, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, paid vacation days, parental leave, and the opportunity to receive full tuition payment for a bachelor's degree through Arizona State University’s online degree programs — though eligibility for such benefits depends on a minimum number of hours worked.

'We have to do everything'

In addition to its rapid pace and COVID risks, a job at Starbucks requires an under-appreciated array of skills and tasks, said Len Harris, a shift supervisor at a store near Boulder, Colorado. She contrasted the job of a Starbucks employee with that of a traditional restaurant worker responsible for a single task, like serving or dishwashing.

“We have to do everything,” Harris said. “We have to learn how to make drinks, clean dishes, have to learn how to take orders, and work an oven. We have to wear all the hats.”

“Not only do we have to get out orders quickly but with a smile,” she adds.

A man wearing a protective face mask is seen outside a Starbucks Coffee shop in Manchester, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Manchester, Britain, May 14, 2020. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Catherine Creighton, Director of the Cornell University Industrial Labor Relations Buffalo Co-Lab who spoke with workers behind the initial Starbucks union drive in that city, said the confluence of a labor shortage, infuriating profits taken in by the company amid the pandemic, and an increasingly stressful work environment amounted to a “perfect storm” for labor strife.

“COVID has been a huge disruption — people are hitting the pause button and saying, ‘What’s going on? I have to think about things. This isn’t right.’”

To be sure, all of the workers who spoke with Yahoo Finance said they enjoyed parts of the job at Starbucks, especially the relationships they’ve formed with coworkers and regular customers. “I love working at Starbucks,” says Kylah Clay, a barista at a store in Boston, Massachusetts. “In the early morning, getting to chat with customers and help them start their day in a positive way — to me, it’s very rewarding.”

The union drive remains confined to a small fraction of the company’s nearly 9,000 stores nationwide run by Starbucks.

But workers said a union would grant them a say in improving the day-to-day work environment, and allow them to advocate for better pay and benefits. They told Yahoo Finance that they consider the company's treatment of employees a hypocritical departure from its commitment to liberal values.

The company's record on that score includes former CEO Howard Schultz's defense of same-sex marriage in 2013, a racial justice effort involving messages on customer cups a couple years later, and a vow to hire 10,000 refugees.

In June 2020, in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd, the company allowed workers to wear Black Lives Matter shirts and pins, a reversal of a policy that had banned them from worker attire.

“Starbucks parades around as pro-LGBTQ rights and outspoken about the Black Lives Matter movement,” says Joseph Nappi, a barista at a store in Cleveland, Ohio. “It can't be pro-LGBTQ and pro-BLM but be anti-union and anti-labor. I don’t think you can reconcile those.”

Creighton, the director of the Cornell University IRL Buffalo Co-Lab, said the small, well-educated workforce at Starbucks stores makes the workplace vulnerable to a union drive. But she wondered whether the trend could extend to other industries.

“Now the next question is: Is it going to tsunami across the economy or just at Starbucks?” Creighton asks.

Max Zahn is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Find him on twitter @MaxZahn_.

Starbucks CEO gives a nod to barista labor push: ‘We always listen to our partners'

Brooke DiPalma
·Reporter, Booking Producer
Wed, 2 February 2022, 12:40 pm·3 min read

Starbucks' (SBUX) CEO Kevin Johnson is keeping a close eye on unionization efforts made by a growing number of the coffee giant's store workers.

The small segment of cafe employees, which Starbucks calls "partners," have been making big waves recently after two Buffalo, N.Y.-based stores led an organized labor push. With stores in other cities poised to have votes of their own, Johnson emphasized there are only "two company-operated stores that are certified unions" so far.

In a phone interview with Yahoo Finance after Starbucks' fiscal first-quarter earnings results, he weighed in on the movement, which has now spread to 54 stores across 19 states. This comes only weeks after the after one Buffalo store voted to create the coffee giant's first ever union back in December, and three more Buffalo stores are holding votes on February 23rd.

"There's roughly 50...that have filed petitions to the NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] to go through the process to see if partners in those stores want to vote for a union," Johnson said. "Those have not occurred yet and I think that's an important thing just to point out," he added.

The company has publicly resisted the efforts, but vowed to work to address worker concerns. The dozens of stores pushing for a union vote, however, are a small fraction of the 9,900 locations run by Starbucks in North America alone.

For those locations where employees do vote to unionize, Johnson says they are following the protocols to have this change rollover smoothly, "We're following the NLRB process and we respect that process and we'll continue to do that," he told Yahoo Finance.

Starbucks Barista Gianna Reeve, part of the organizing committee in Buffalo, New York, speaks in support of workers at Seattle Starbucks locations that announced plans to unionize, during a rally at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle, Washington on January 25, 2022. - They are joining a third Seattle Starbucks location that announced plans to unionize last month.

 (Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP) 

In the phone call, Kevin Johnson did acknowledge the unions are not completely new to the coffee chain, but the company has experience with its channel-licensed partners.

"We have a few thousand stores in our channel-licensed partners, like many of the big grocery channels...that have a Starbucks within their grocery store that are unionized, so we've got experience with our licensed partners on how they run unionized stores," he added.

U.S. partners include stores like Kroger (KR), Target (TGT), Safeway and Albertsons (ACI). Johnson emphasized that the labor push is not making on a difference on how his business operates.

Starbucks has poured $1 billion of investment into boosting wages for workers. This announcement meant that the average pay for all Starbucks' U.S. hourly partners is nearly $17 per an hour, with average hourly rates ranging between $15 to $23.

All of which raises a fear that higher pay may start to take a toll on the bottom line, a risk Wall Street analysts have cited in an environment of increasing wage inflation.

"We had some of the investments started in October...we had another wage increase in January, we got some more coming this summer, so at the end of the day, we always listen to our partners, we always will, whether they're a union store or not," Johnson insisted.

PRIVATIZATION PUTSCH

Philippine Congress allows full foreign ownership in telco, rail

BEFORE THE ELECTION

Wed, 2 February 2022,

A passenger plane flies past a Globe Telecoms tower in Pateros, Metro Manila, Philippines, August 2, 2018. Picture taken August 2, 2018.

 REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Andreo Calonzo and Cecilia Yap

The Philippine Congress approved a bill allowing full foreign ownership of telecommunications and railways services, opening up one of the world’s most restrictive economies.

The House of Representatives and the Senate ratified Wednesday night a reconciled bill amending the 85-year-old law that caps foreign ownership of public utilities to 40%. The measure will now be up for President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval into law.

Senator Grace Poe, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement Wednesday that all industries will be liberalized except electricity distribution, petroleum pipeline transmission, water distribution, seaports and public utility vehicles. Lawmakers already earlier agreed in their versions of the bill that telecommunications, shipping and railways should be further opened to foreign investors.

The Philippines is among the world’s most restrictive economies to foreign direct investment, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “The Philippines must act quickly in terms of carrying out economic reforms that further trade and investment activities,” European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines President Lars Wittig said before the bill’s passage.

Foreign state-owned enterprises, however, are barred from owning capital in any public utility or critical infrastructure in the Philippines, Poe said.

© 2022 Bloomberg L.P.

THIRD WORLD USA

'We have critical nursing shortages across the country,' doctor warns

Adriana Belmonte

·Senior Editor

Thu, 3 February 2022

The U.S. nursing industry, already strained by the ongoing pandemic, is struggling with staffing as the country continues to deal with a wave of hospitalizations and deaths caused by the Omicron version of the coronavirus.

“I still think we have critical nursing shortages across the country,” Dr. Elizabeth Clayborne, an emergency physician at the University of Maryland Capital Region Medical Center, said on Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “And that is something that needs to be addressed not just in Maryland, but in several states. And I see that being a problem for several months to come.”

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan implemented drive-through COVID testing, which helped lessen the number of patients going to emergency departments to get tested. But actions like these can only do so much for an industry that still doesn't have enough nurses to go around.

“The main issue that we’re battling in my facility and several hospitals across the country is just a staffing shortage,” Clayborne said. “My family and I actually just recently recovered from COVID. So it’s not an uncommon story that a lot of our facilities that are trying to take care of COVID patients are struggling because they do not have the staff to deal with the numbers that are still coming in.”

And while hospitalizations related to COVID-19 are ebbing nationally, states — especially those with lower-than-average vaccination rates — saw major surges in hospitalizations during the winter. ICUs are currently at 30% or less capacity in all but five states.

For hospitals lacking the staff and ICU capacity to treat the influx of patients, the labor crunch can have dire consequences for all kinds of patients.

"For every additional patient a nurse cares for, a patient's risk of dying increases by as much as 7%," a New Jersey-based nurse, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, told Yahoo Finance. "The average person may not think this is important, but when you have an unexpected emergency and end up in the ER, how many other patients do you want your nurse to have? 2 or 6?"

In September 2021, the American Nurses Association penned a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra calling on the administration to "declare a national nurse staffing crisis and take immediate steps to develop and implement both short- and long-term solutions."

A study by the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences noted that "1.2 million new registered nurses (RNs) will be needed by 2030 to address the current shortage." The shortage, which was brewing prior to the pandemic, involved factors including rising demand driven by aging Baby Boomers, retirement among nurses, lack of staff in certain areas of the country, hospital conditions, burnout, and more.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve had a nursing shortage in the U.S.,” Donna Havens, Connelly Endowed dean and professor at the M. Louise Fitzpatrick College of Nursing at Villanova University, told Yahoo Finance. “It seems to be cyclical, maybe every 8-10 years. So yet again, we’re facing a major nursing shortage but a real issue I believe might be COVID because the nurses are getting sick. They’re retiring anyhow, but they’re sick. They don’t want to do this anymore. They’re feeling they’re too old to do this.”

The number of registered nurses available by state as of May 2021. (Map: University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences)

'Shortage of nurses willing to work in unsafe conditions'

Zenei Cortez, a nurse based out of California and president of National Nurses United, described the situation as a staffing crisis and placed the responsibility on hospitals.

“There is not a shortage crisis but there is a staffing crisis,” Cortez told Yahoo Finance. “There was no real serious nursing staffing crisis before COVID-19, but as a hospital industry, it unfortunately created a staffing crisis, which isn’t new and it has existed for many decades. I would say what they call a shortage of nurses is a shortage of nurses willing to work in unsafe working conditions.”

Recent guidance from the CDC has only worsened the problem. According to new guidelines, health care workers who are fully vaccinated and test positive can return to the workplace if they’re asymptomatic or have had mild/moderate symptoms for 5 days with or without a negative test. Though the likely intention was to help with staffing issues, it was met with poor reception from health care workers worried about working in potentially dangerous environments.

The NJ-based nurse lambasted the CDC policy as "very unwise."

CDC guidelines for health care workers returning to work. (Chart: CDC)

"Infection control policies will not even let nurses drink water at their desk during their 12-hour shift, but it's okay for a co-worker to be COVID-positive and eat next to me in the break room?" the nurse said. "There is no separate break room for those who are COVID-positive. Should these nurses be not allowed to eat or drink on their 12-hour shift? I find it extremely dangerous and, frankly, offensive that the Center for Disease Control cares so little about controlling the spread of COVID in health care workers."

Cortez described the current circumstances with the Omicron variant as similar to when the pandemic first hit the U.S. in early 2020 when hospitals were short on PPE and staff found that there weren't enough of them to go around to help their patients.

“We were fighting for staffing," she said. "We were fighting for a lot just to stay alive in the workplace and keep our patients safe. So it’s somewhat like the same thing is happening again."

During the first wave of the virus, health care workers across the country found themselves in less than desired work settings. PPE was in short supply, meaning that some hospital workers had to come up with their own solutions, like using trash bags as makeshift protective wear.

“I hate to use the word ‘danger,’ but it’s like reliving what it was like at the beginning of the pandemic,” Cortez said. “Unfortunately, the hospital industry did not prepare. They were just using I would say bandaid solutions, not really planning ahead. So it’s really distressing that they would do this and not really prepare for what’s coming up ahead.”

Theresa Ogunjimi, a registered nurse, rests for a moment inside a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) unit at United Memorial Medical Center, as the United States nears 300,000 COVID-19 deaths, in Houston, Texas, U.S., December 12, 2020. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare

Staffing ratios aren't federally mandated, but National Nurses United has lobbied for that to change. The union has proposed legislation that would keep the ratio at one nurse for every two patients in an ICU and one nurse for every three patients in an emergency room.

"Hospitals are unwilling to give raises to nurses to retain them and instead hire travel nurses to fill short-term contracts," the NJ-based nurse said. "However, a travel nurse will never be able to provide the same level of care that a staff nurse that knows the hospital and providers can. As a staff nurse, it is extremely disheartening to work next to someone who is doing the exact same job as you but making 3 to 4 times as much as you. And you as the staff nurse have to train the travel nurse and orient them to the facility, as well as help them on a day-to-day basis because they do not know the facility as well as you do. Hospital administrators are putting profits before patient safety, and patients will suffer as a result."

The nurse added that "the only thing keeping most staff nurses at their jobs is that they are close to retirement or they do not yet have enough experience to become a travel nurse. This means that the hospital spends thousands of dollars training new graduate nurses just to lose them to travel contracts as soon as that nurse has enough experience to leave. It makes no fiscal sense, and it is a huge burden on the staff nurses to constantly be training new nurses just to have them leave, whether they be new grads or travelers."

Amy Downer, an operating room nurse at Maine Medical Center joins fellow nurses to demand increased protections in their work environments. (Photo by Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images)

'You've got an aging nursing workforce'

Demographics of the workforce are also an important factor.

As many nurses age out of the industry, some become the patients themselves, meaning they are even more people that need to be taken care of.

“Nurses are getting older,” Havens, the nursing professor at Villanova, told Yahoo Finance. “I think the stats tell us that the average nurse taking care of patients in a hospital is about 50 years of age. And you think about the work that they do — the lifting, the pulling the weekends, the nights, the triple shifts. You’ve got an aging nursing workforce, many of whom had planned on retiring now when COVID hit.”

According to the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, "between 2000 and 2018, the average age of employed registered nurses increased from 42.7 to 47.9 years old. And nearly half (47.5%) of all RNs are now over the age of 50."

There are reasons for optimism in addressing the shortage: Havens said that in her program that she oversees, there’s “overwhelming interest” in entering nursing.

“We are seeing more applicants than we ever have in the history of the College of Nursing at Villanova,” she said. “We had 1,800 applicants last year for 100 spots. We’re seeing people really want to be nurses — not just those right out of high school but those who already hold a degree in another field are coming back to become nurses.”

Sauk Valley Community College nursing students work on a mannequin patient as SVCC Dean of Health Christy Vincent talks about the school's nursing program with First Lady Jill Biden during a tour of the school in Dixon, Illinois, on April 19, 2021. (Photo by Susan Walsh / POOL / AFP)

Unfortunately, though, there is also a shortage of nursing faculty to teach this growing field of prospective nurses as many are aging out as well.

“Last year, I believe the number was 80,000 qualified applicants who wanted to be nurses were turned away because universities across the country didn’t have enough faculty to admit them and teach them,” Havens said. “The faculty are getting older.”

She stressed that the government needs to step in to help programs incentivize more people entering the educational field of nursing, like paying faculty more, helping to cover the cost of education, enhance laboratories, and even pay professors to teach in the clinical setting.

“What research has told us all over the years is the way you organize nurses in an organization to deliver care is really important,” Havens said.

Adriana Belmonte is a reporter and editor covering politics and health care policy for Yahoo Finance. You can follow her on Twitter @adrianambells and reach her at adriana@yahoofinance.com.