UTA team aims to establish health, safety measures for construction field workers

The impact of COVID, infectious diseases at construction sites

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON

 

IMAGE: SHARAREH “SHERRI” KERMANSHACHI, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CIVIL ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON view more 

CREDIT: UT ARLINGTON

Sharareh “Sherri” Kermanshachi, associate professor of civil engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington, has received a $200,000 federal grant to lead an investigation into the impact of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases on field workers at construction sites.

Kermanshachi who is also the Director of the Resilient Infrastructures and Sustainable Environment (RISE) lab, and Technology Transfer Director of the Center for Transportation, Equity, Decisions and Dollars will lead the project in collaboration with co-principal investigators Kyrah Brown and Xiangli Gu, both assistant professors of kinesiology, and Yi Leaf Zhang, associate professor of educational leadership and policy studies. The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is funding the project, in which the investigators will also look to establish health and safety measures for both employers and employees and to advance and implement workforce development strategies.  

Construction workers are often at risk of exposure to many infectious diseases, such as coccidioidomycosis, histoplasmosis, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, disseminated histoplasmosis, dengue, asbestos-related illnesses, silicosis, legionellosis, tuberculosis, bloodborne pathogens, and COVID-19.

“Due to severe working conditions and possible accidents, construction fields are high-risk zones by nature,” Kermanshachi said. “It is very important to recognize and control the preventable health and safety hazards within these environments.”

Ali Abolmaali, chair of the UT Arlington Department of Civil Engineering, said this grant has significant impact on the health and safety of the construction workforce.

“The need for identification and prevention of these diseases is urgent,” Abolmaali said. “We can be nimble and quick in illustrating to those who are exposed to theses hazards how to spot them and, hopefully, eradicate them.”

Kermanshachi was selected as a recipient of the 2022 Leaders in Diversity Award, 2021 Rosa Parks Diversity Leadership Award, 2020 Mark Hasso Educator of the Year and 2020 Women in Technology Award from the Dallas Business Journal. She has also received the 2021 Best Paper Award from Education Sciences and 2021 Associated Schools of Construction Teaching Award. She was named to Civil + Structural Engineer magazine’s Rising Stars list; won the 2018 Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) Distinguished Leadership Award in the faculty category; and was also the only academic recipient of the 2017 Texas and Louisiana Engineering News Record Top 20 Under 40 Award.

CAPTION

From left: Kyrah Brown, Xiangli Gu and Yi Leaf Zhang

CREDIT

UT Arlington

Kermanshachi also has received several other prestigious national and regional awards, including the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Professional Service Award; ASCE Excellence in Civil Engineering Education Fellowship; Utility Engineering & Surveying Institute Fellowship; ASCE Outstanding Reviewer; Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award; Open Educational Resources Research Fellowship; DBIA Owner Scholarship and the Graduate Climate Award.

In addition to supervising multiple postdoctoral fellows, doctoral candidates, and master’s students, Kermanshachi is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Transportation Research Record and ASCE Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction. She is also the founder and currently serves as the faculty adviser for UTA’s DBIA chapter and student chapters for the Associated General Contractors of America and Construction Management Association of America

She has conducted several national- and state-level research projects that were awarded by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Department of Labor; Texas Department of Transportation; U.S. Department of Transportation; Transportation Cooperative Research Program; National Cooperative Highway Research Program; Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development; Construction Industry Institute; city of Arlington; Engineering Information Foundation and city of Fort Worth. She has published more than 200 books, journal articles, conference papers and research reports and served as a panel member on multiple research projects funded by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Disasters could disrupt care for opioid use disorder in most vulnerable communities

Medical services often don't go where they are most needed

Peer-Reviewed Publication

YALE UNIVERSITY

The COVID-19 pandemic has spiked the overdose death rate from opioid use. For people who rely on medications (buprenorphine, methadone, and extended-release naltrexone) to treat opioid use disorders, the pandemic and such natural disasters as tornados, hurricanes, and wildfires can disrupt access to medications. And new Yale-led research published April 19 in JAMA Network Open finds that the location of medication treatment services makes treatment interruption likely where those disruptions exist.

The research team, led by Paul Joudrey, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine (general medicine); and Yale Drug Use, Addiction, and HIV Research (DAHRS) scholar, correlated Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data on community vulnerability to natural disasters and pandemics with the locations of medications and opioid use disorder services across the continental United States. Reasons people within a community could be more vulnerable to disasters and pandemics include their age, minority race, poverty, housing, and access to transportation.

They found the availability of medication services was not matched with community vulnerability. “In plain terms, we are not placing enough services in communities that are more vulnerable to disasters and pandemics. If a disaster disrupts medication services, people living within these communities are less likely to receive treatment.” This mismatch between community vulnerability during disaster and the availability of services was the worst for vulnerable suburban communities. This was a particularly unique finding. “We also found that in rural communities, because the availability of services was just bad all around, there was no association between vulnerability and access to medications,” added Joudrey.

These findings confirm what has been reported in recent natural disasters. “Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, and Hurricane Maria showed that part of the deaths that occur following disasters such as those are because people's health services were disrupted. Our results show that preparedness has too long been only a practice for the middle and upper class. We need to think more deliberately about how preparedness for hurricanes and for COVID-19 includes those placed at highest risk,” said Emily Wang, MD, professor of medicine (general medicine) and of public health (social and behavioral sciences); and director, SEICHE Center for Health and Justice at Yale.

The research is a collaboration among Yale’s Program in Addiction Medicine and SEICHE Center for Health and Justice, and the Healthy Regions & Policies Lab, Center for Spatial Data Science at the University of Chicago.

We are not placing enough services in communities that are more vulnerable to disasters and pandemics. If a disaster disrupts medication services, people living within these communities are less likely to receive treatment.

Paul Joudrey, MD, MPH

Joudrey praised the partnership with the Healthy Regions & Policies Lab. “One of my primary mentors, Dr. Emily Wang, connected me with the lab through her National Institutes of Drug Abuse’s JCOIN (Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network) work. Dr. Marynia Kolak, one of the key authors on this paper, is a wonderful health geographer and has similar interests to my own. When Emily connected us, it was really that collaboration and connection that allowed this project to come together. Her health geography lab at University of Chicago has just been a wonderful group to work with.”

Along with Joudrey and Wang from Yale School of Medicine, additional contributors include Kolak; Qinyun Lin; Susan Paykin; and Vidal Anguiano Jr. from the University of Chicago.

Read “Assessment of Community-level Vulnerability and access to medications for opioid use disorder,” in JAMA Network Open.

The Yale Program in Addiction Medicine seeks to expand access to and improve the effectiveness of prevention and treatment services for substance use. For more on their work, visit Yale Program in Addiction Medicine.

The SEICHE Center for Health and Justice’s work focuses on the health-harming impacts of mass incarceration. The Center identifies and applies strategies to improve the health of individuals, families, and communities impacted by mass incarceration both locally in Connecticut and globally. To learn more, visit SEICHE Center for Health and Justice.

Featured in this article

•  

  Paul Joudrey, MD, MPH

  Assistant Professor

•  

  Emily Wang, MD

  Professor of Medicine (General Medicine) and of Public Health (Social and Behavioral Sciences); Co-Director, Center for Research Engagement, Internal Medicine

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.7028 

ARTICLE TITLE

Assessment of Community-Level Vulnerability and Access to Medications for Opioid Use Disorder

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Apr-2022

Deforestation of Indigenous lands could prevent Brazil from achieving climate change mitigation targets

The warning comes from a letter by Brazilian researchers published in the journal Science, highlighting the “dramatic increase” in deforestation in areas of the Amazon that should act as shields against such destruction.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

 

IMAGE: TO PROTECT THE AREAS OF THE AMAZON THAT ARE STILL INTACT, EFFECTIVE ACTION MUST BE TAKEN TO ENFORCE THE NATION’S ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS view more 

CREDIT: GUILHERME MATAVELI/INPE

 Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon are under constant pressure, and deforestation of these areas has accelerated in recent years. Some of them, such as Apyterewa Indigenous Territory in Pará state, are particularly affected, endangering Brazil’s ability to meet the targets to which it is committed internationally in terms of combating deforestation and mitigating the impact of climate change. To protect the areas of the Amazon that are still intact, effective action must be taken to enforce the nation’s environmental laws.

This warning is in a letter entitled “Protect the Amazon’s Indigenous lands” and published in the journal Science. The letter is signed by Guilherme Augusto Verola Mataveli, a researcher in the Earth Observation and Geoinformatics Division of Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) with a postdoctoral scholarship from FAPESP, and Gabriel de Oliveira, a professor at the University of South Alabama in the United States.

The same issue of the journal, published on January 21, features similar warnings in another letter, entitled “Mining and Brazil’s Indigenous peoples”, by two scientists affiliated with the National Institute of Amazon Research (INPA), Lucas Ferrante and Philip Fearnside.

“Brazil has good environmental laws that on paper should reduce and inhibit deforestation. However, enforcement of these laws is the big issue. It’s the first step, which should be associated with long-term measures, such as promoting environmental education, valorizing the standing forest as a source of income for the communities that live in the Amazon, and resuming and strengthening the actions called for by the PPCDAm. They proved effective in the past,” Mataveli told Agência FAPESP. 

The Action Plan to Prevent and Control Deforestation in Legal Amazonia (PPCDAm) was launched in 2003 to bring about a continuous reduction in deforestation and create conditions for a transition to a sustainable development model in the area. However, the fourth phase of the plan, which was supposed to have lasted until 2020, was starved of resources and interrupted. During last year’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, the federal government pledged to reduce illegal deforestation to zero by 2028.

Legal Amazonia is an area of more than 5 million square kilometers comprising the Brazilian states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima, and Tocantins. It was created by Brazilian federal law dating back to 1953 in order to promote special protection and development policies for the area.

In their letter, Mataveli and Oliveira refer to the “dramatic increase” in deforestation rates in Legal Amazonia since 2019. The official rate for the 12 months between August 2020 and July 2021 was the highest for 15 years, reaching 13,235 sq. km., or slightly less than the area of Northern Ireland (14,130 sq. km).

This rate was also 69% higher than the average annual since 2012, according to data from INPE’s Amazon Forest Satellite Monitoring Service (PRODES). Internationally recognized as the most accurate tool for estimating annual deforestation rates in the Amazon, PRODES focuses on cut-and-burn rates and has used the same methodology since 1988.

As the letter notes, accelerating destruction of the forest affects conservation areas, including Indigenous lands, which are supposed to act as shields against deforestation. The authors stress that deforestation in Indigenous lands had an annual average of 419 sq. km. in the last three years, corresponding to a rate 80.9% higher than the annual average for the period 2012-21.

Located in the municipality of São Félix do Xingu (Pará), Apyterewa accounted for 20.7% of total deforestation in Indigenous lands in 2021. It had already lost 200 sq. km. of forest between 2016 and 2019, with deforestation rising from 4.7% of the area (362 sq. km.) to 7.4% (570 sq. km.) in the period.

This resulted in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon from burning, as noted by an article published in 2020 in the journal Forests, with Mataveli and Oliveira among its authors.

“When we studied the satellite data, we found that forest conversion is mainly to pasture and cropland, but we located mining sites inside Apyterewa,” Mataveli said. “The increase in greenhouse gas emissions didn’t continue at the same rate, since deforestation doesn’t always involve burning.” 

Mataveli is part of a Thematic Project linked to the FAPESP Research Program on Global Climate Change (RPGCC). The principal investigator is Luiz Eduardo Oliveira e Cruz de Aragão, also a researcher at INPE.

Legislation

In the letter to Science, the researchers state that “no effective law enforcement actions were taken to stop land grabbers” in Apyterewa, home to the Parakanã, after the alarm was raised in the 2020 article in Forests. The reservation was officially recognized by a federal government decree in 2007, but since then the decree has been challenged in the courts on the grounds that non-indigenous people were not given a chance to oppose it according to due process of law.

On March 9, 2022, the 2nd Panel of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) unanimously rejected a motion by the mayor of São Félix do Xingu to revoke the decree. In a press release issued in July 2021, the mayor had justified opposition to the decree by noting that between 4,000 and 5,000 non-Indigenous people lived in the area more than a decade before it was demarcated as an Indigenous territory, arguing that they should be allowed to remain.

A study by a different group, in which Mataveli took part alongside Gilberto Câmara, also a researcher at INPE, highlighted the threat posed to Indigenous reservations by land speculation, adverse land-use change involving conversion of primary forest to pasture and cropland, and rising emissions of fine particulate matter from burning. An article on the study, which focused on Ituna/Itatá Indigenous Territory in Altamira, Pará, is published in the journal Land Use Policy. 

“The conservation of Indigenous lands is paramount for honoring Brazil’s legal commitments, maintaining Amazonian environmental stability, fighting climate change, and guaranteeing traditional peoples’ wellbeing. The existence of laws for preserving the Amazon’s remaining forests and the rights of traditional peoples is not sufficient. Effective law enforcement actions are required to protect the last intact frontiers of the Amazon,” the authors of the letter to Science conclude.

We asked FUNAI, Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency, to comment on the letter, but had received no reply when the original news story in Portuguese was posted on the Agência FAPESP website (April 6, 2022). Early this year, in a report available from its website, FUNAI announced that it had invested some BRL 34 million in surveillance and inspection of Indigenous lands in 2021, and had hired temporary personnel to operate reservation sanitary checkpoints and border controls. 

A report published on March 31 by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and Climate Focus says that “Indigenous peoples and other local communities are the most effective stewards and protectors of forest lands”, arguing that Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru will not be able to achieve their commitments to ending forest loss and land degradation as climate change mitigation goals by 2030 unless they protect Indigenous territories. This is because these lands in the four countries are net carbon sinks, with each hectare sequestering an average of 30 metric tons of carbon per hectare every year, or more than twice as much as non-Indigenous lands.

###

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abn4936 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Imaging analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

Protect the Amazon’s Indigenous lands

Girls excel in language arts early, which may explain the STEM gender gap in adults

New research from UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management links parental investments in early life with long-term education impacts

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO

 

IMAGE: THE FINDINGS ARE BASED ON A LONGITUDINAL STUDY IN WHICH THE RESEARCHERS EXAMINED TIME PARENTS SPEND WITH THEIR CHILDREN FROM AGES THREE TO FIVE ALONGSIDE THE CHILDREN’S TEST SCORES WHEN THEY WERE AGES EIGHT TO 14. THE RESEARCHERS ALSO FIND MORE TIME PARENTS SPENT TEACHING TO CHILDREN FROM AGES THREE TO FIVE (UP TO THREE HOURS OR MORE A WEEK) CORRELATED WITH BETTER TEST SCORES WHEN THE CHILDREN ARE AGES EIGHT TO 14. FOR INSTANCE, TEACHING THREE OR MORE HOURS PREDICTED 6 PERCENT HIGHER SCORES IN ENGLISH FOR CHILDREN IN FOURTH GRADE, RELATIVE TO TEACHING ONE HOUR OR LESS. view more 

CREDIT: UC SAN DIEGO'S RADY SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

For most of us, when we make major career choices, we tend to lean into what we’re good at. According to new findings from the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of Management, such skills may develop early in childhood and there can be significant differences depending on gender.

Researchers have long observed that fewer women than men study and work in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Now, it appears that women may self-select out of these fields partly as a result of receiving more early-childhood reinforcement in language arts, according to a new paper to be published in the journal American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings.

“We find girls are better in English than boys in grades three through seven,” said Anya Samek, an associate professor of economics at the Rady School and one of the study’s co-authors. “Because girls are more likely to do well in language fields early in life, they may find themselves more inclined to choose them for majors and careers. Thus, women may be underrepresented in STEM in part because of their cultivated talents achieved earlier in life.”

The findings are based on a longitudinal study in which the researchers examined time parents spend with their children from ages three to five alongside the children’s test scores when they were ages eight to 14. 

The researchers also find more time parents spent teaching to children from ages three to five (up to three hours or more a week) correlated with better test scores when the children are ages eight to 14. For instance, teaching three or more hours predicted 6 percent higher scores in English for children in fourth grade, relative to teaching one hour or less.

However, there’s a gender gap in parental investment in the children from ages three to five. On average, parents spent more time with girls and several factors could contribute to this disparity.  For example, compared to boys, the researchers found girls had a stronger ability to sit still and focus and parents of girls were also 18 percent more likely to report that their child liked it when they taught.

The study participants are mostly from Chicago and include 2,185 children and 953 parents who responded to surveys, 702 of whom also provided test-score data.  

Girls did substantially better in language-related studies than boys, while scores for girls and boys in mathematics were more similar. They found a stronger correlation between parental investment with language scores than they did with math.

“I think it’s surprising to see that parental investments are correlated with the test scores in English but not in math,” said Samek. “It could be because we’re told to read to our kids at least 10 minutes a day. We’re told to introduce them to books and I think we probably spend less time thinking about how to engage children in math.”

Samek added, “We show that early-life investments by parents are strongly associated with later-life language skills but only weakly associated with later life math skills. It could be that parents just do not spend as much time teaching children math as they do reading. If that is the case, the next step may be to encourage parents to teach their young children math alongside reading.”

The paper, Parental Investments in Early Childhood and the Gender Gap in Math and Literacy, was co-authored by Amanda Chuan, John A. List and Shreemayi Samujjwala.

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JOURNAL

AEA Papers and Proceedings

DOI

10.1257/pandp.20221036 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

arental Investments in Early Childhood and the Gender Gap in Math and Literacy

Paris court finds Deliveroo guilty of abusing freelance status of its riders (DRIVERS)

FRANCE 24 

Two former bosses of Deliveroo were given suspended one-year prison sentences and fined 30,000 euros ($32,380) by a French court on Tuesday for abusing the freelance status of riders working for the British takeaway delivery platform.

© Ben Stansall, AFP

The company itself was also fined the maximum penalty of 375,000 euros ($404,625), the court ruled.

The ruling against Deliveroo may reverberate outside France at a time when the gig economy, built largely upon digital apps and self-employed workers, faces a number of court challenges that may redefine working conditions.

Deliveroo said in a statement that it "categorically contests" the French court's ruling and was considering whether to appeal. It will maintain operations on the French market, it added.

Its statement said the court decision referred to an early version of its operating model and had no consequences for the way it operates today.

"Our model has since evolved in order to be more in line with the expectations of our delivery partners, who want to remain independent ... Deliveroo will continue to operate with a model that offers these independent providers a flexible and well-paid business," the company said.

Former riders have sued Deliveroo for alleged abuse of their freelance status and claim the company should have hired them as employees.

Under French law, employee status grants rights, including unemployment benefits, social security and pension contributions.

France, after Britain, is the second-largest market for Deliveroo, operating in more than 200 cities with restaurant partners.

Since its London launch in 2013, Deliveroo has expanded into towns and cities across Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East.

But at times it has drawn criticism for its reliance on freelance couriers, with many saying the so-called "gig economy" workers should be considered employees.

Usually the couriers are freelance workers who have often battled for a guaranteed number of hours' work and other benefits.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS and AFP)

TORONTO

GO service could be impacted if rail workers at Union Station go on strike after midnight

Chris Fox, CP24 Web Content Writer
Published Tuesday, April 19, 2022 

Nearly 100 workers who are primarily responsible for train control and signal maintenance along the Union Station rail corridor could walk off the job just after midnight tonight.

The employees, who are all members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, submitted a 72-hour strike notice over the weekend and will be in a legal strike position as of 12:01 a.m. tomorrow.


Travellers make their way through Union Station in Toronto as the departure display for Via Rail show all trains have been cancelled on Thursday, February 13, 2020. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin

A spokesperson for Toronto Terminals Railway, which is responsible for the corridor, tells CP24 that officials are meeting with union leadership today to try to “avoid a labour disruption.”

However, the spokesperson said that even if the employees do initiate a strike the impact on commuter services should be minimal.

“We can confirm that the union has issued their 72-hour notice to remove their services, however, we are prepared with a contingency plan that will ensure commuter service runs efficiently and minimize any impact on customers,” Shannon Friedrich said. “We will continue to work with the union to resolve this dispute and find a satisfactory resolution to avoid any work disruption.”

Friedrich said that the union has been without a new collective bargaining agreement since 2019. She said that Toronto Terminal Railways and union leadership did reach a tentative agreement in the summer of 2021 but it was not ultimately ratified by members.

“The current dispute is due to increased wage demands from the union for the two years of the pandemic, even though the company has kept all employees gainfully employed while commuter train service has been significantly reduced,” she said.

In an interview with CP24 on Tuesday morning, Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said that GO Transit does have contingency plans in place to ensure its trains continue to run in the event of a strike by the workers.

But she said that delays are possible.

“I would like to guarantee there won’t be and we hope to avoid them but there could be,” she said. “We will be communicating broadly if there is possible delays or cancellations and we will let customers know using all of our different channels.”

Starbucks Is Blocking Union Activists and Workers on Twitter

Leaders of Starbucks Workers United said that the company has ramped up its efforts to silence pro-union workers since Howard Schultz stepped up as CEO in April.

By Lauren Kaori Gurley
18.4.22


PHOTO BY JAKUB PORZYCKI/NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES
On the Clock is Motherboard's reporting on the organized labor movement, gig work, automation, and the future of work.

Starbucks is blocking the Twitter accounts of workers and labor leaders who post in support of a nationwide unionization effort at the coffee giant that has spread to 30 states and hundreds of stores.

On March 1, Starbucks tweeted, “Sorry not sorry,” in response to a customer’s comment about desperately wanting to try the coffee chain’s newst drink, an iced toasted vanilla oat milk shaken espresso.

James Skretta, a former barista who helped organize a union at his Starbucks in Buffalo, retweeted the tweet from Starbucks’ corporate account, which has 11 million followers, and wrote: “@Starbucks official stance on union-busting.” Hours later, Skretta found that Starbucks had blocked his Twitter account.

Blocked Twitter accounts can’t see or reply to tweets from the account that blocked them, meaning Starbucks is limiting pro-union messages from appearing in its replies, including from employees.

“They’d rather propagate false narratives of what the company is than truly engage with what workers who are fighting for a better company are trying to say,” Skretta told Motherboard.

Leaders of Starbucks Workers United told Motherboard that these tactics are part of a more authoritarian stance Starbucks has taken toward unionization efforts since Howard Schultz reclaimed his former post as CEO of Starbucks in April. In Schultz’s first week back as CEO, the company fired at least four union organizers. Starbucks’ strategy of using social media to crack down on union activity has also included posting anti-union flyers in its stores that include fabricated tweets attributed to Starbucks Workers United’s account on Twitter.



Several days ago, Angel Krempa, a former Starbucks employee who organized a union at her store in Depew, New York, discovered Starbucks had also blocked her Twitter account, and removed her ability to comment on tweets posted by the Starbucks News Twitter account. She regularly posted in support of the union, but does not know when or in response to what post Starbucks blocked her account.

“I don’t understand what the end game is with blocking people,” said Krempa. “You can’t shut people up. If you block people, it’s only going to make people talk more. They might have thought they’re helping their cause but it’s not.”

Multiple other Starbucks workers have seen their accounts blocked in recent days.

A leader of the union drives near Buffalo, Krempa says Starbucks targeted her throughout the campaign at her store. She has filed multiple unfair labor practice charges against the company with the National Labor Relations Board, including for retaliatory termination. She was terminated this month for not communicating to her supervisors about missing a shift when Krempa says she did in fact tell them she couldn’t make it in.

Other Twitter users, including the president of the NewsGuild, have also reported being blocked by Starbucks’ corporate Twitter account in recent days. On April 15, Jon Schleuss, president of the NewsGuild, which represents 26,000 media workers, retweeted a Starbucks tweet about “trying something new,” writing “Today is a Good Day to start a union.” Less than two hours later, he discovered he’d been blocked by Starbucks.

After asking Starbucks why they blocked his account, and not receiving a response, Schleuss says Starbucks eventually unblocked his account.

“My first job after high school was at @Starbucks (Store #10657) in Arkansas,” Schleuss wrote in response to having his account blocked. “Now I’m a union president and support Starbucks workers and @SBWorkersUnited. So the company PR machine has also blocked me. Unionize your workplace to have a voice! Management is clearly terrified.”

“What we’re seeing is a more concerted and concentrated effort from Starbucks PR to take control of a narrative that they have never had control of,” Skretta, the barista and union organizer who quit last month, told Motherboard. “They’re seeking to silence pro union partners in a way that they haven’t been able to effectively do yet.”

Since December, 16 Starbucks stores have voted to unionize with Starbucks Workers United. More than 200 stores have filed for union elections.

Starbucks did not respond to a request for comment.

Starbucks faces second NLRB complaint alleging mistreatment of pro-union Arizona workers

Photo by: Anthony Bolante | PSBJ/Anthony Bolante | PSBJ
The American flag flies over Starbuck's corporate headquarters in the SODO district of Seattle on May 11, 2018.

By: Joey Thompson - Phoenix Business Journal
Posted at Apr 18, 2022

MESA, AZ — The National Labor Relations Board has filed a second complaint against Starbucks Corp. (Nasdaq: SBUX) for unfair labor practices against pro-union baristas in Arizona.

Across the country, more than 200 of the coffee chain's 9,000 company-operated stores have filed for union elections, and more than a dozen have approved unions, including workers at a Starbucks in Mesa, who approved to unionize in February. To date, none have successfully negotiated a contract.

Baristas have filed dozens of unfair labor practice charges against the coffee giant amid their efforts to unionize. In March, NLRB investigators in Arizona became the first to advance a complaint against the Seattle-based company, saying they had found sufficient evidence of alleged retaliation and intimidation at a Phoenix Starbucks location.

On April 13, investigators filed a second complaint, alleging further mistreatment, including discipline, interrogation, coercive statements, according to agency records, at the Scottsdale 101 shopping center Starbucks location at 7000 East Mayo Blvd. According to the complaint, Starbucks has until April 27 to respond, with a hearing set for June before a NLRB administrative law judge.

Starbucks employees detail pattern of corporate retaliation for their unionization efforts in Arizona

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert
Apr 17, 2022

Laila Dalton protests at her reinstatement rally April 6 outside the Starbucks store she was fired from. Laila Dalton

A Phoenix Starbucks store is facing a federal complaint for retaliation against unionizing employees.

Laila Dalton and Alyssa Sanchez both say they were retaliated against for supporting the union.

The results of the store's union vote should be known by the end of the month.

Employees at a Starbucks in Arizona, who began unionizing earlier this year, allege the coffee giant has engaged in a pattern of retaliation for organizing – leaving workers with cut hours, threats and harassment, and the loss of their jobs.

While waiting for a hearing regarding a complaint they filed with the National Labor Relations Board about the poor treatment, employees who remain at the store say working conditions inside are getting worse.

"Things have really started to shift and change and now I'm at the point where like, this job is causing my mental health to be at such a low point. I think the lowest it's ever been in my entire life," Tyler Gillette, a Starbucks employee of two and a half years, told Insider.

Gillette is an experienced training barista who worked at several locations before helping to open the Scottsdale & Mayo location in Phoenix, Arizona, last year.

Gillette, as well as three other current and former employees of the location, said a change in management at the end of 2021 signaled a shift in working conditions. The once warm and friendly environment turned cold and rigid. Suddenly, scheduling accommodations were denied, requests for days off were left pending, and management began "cracking down" on every little rule.

Several employees, inspired by unionization at Starbucks locations in Buffalo, began to discuss organizing their store earlier this year.

Laila Dalton, a 19-year-old former barista at the Phoenix store, is a vocal advocate of unionizing at her location but says retaliation began almost immediately after beginning to publicly organize – and eventually led to her being fired.

"After I handed out the ballot cards, on my next shift I was punished, basically for wanting to start a union and create a better work environment so we can all have a voice," Dalton told Insider.

The harassment increased — one coworker said Dalton had "a target on her back" — with Dalton, a supervisor on the floor with no extensive history of disciplinary action, being written up for infractions like wearing headphones after closing, "improper call outs" for absences while in the hospital and after her aunt died, and recording the meetings where she said she was harassed to tears.
Signs held by Starbucks union supporters as they protest for Laila Dalton's reinstatement April 6. Laila Dalton

Federal union-busting complaints

Dalton, as well as Gillette and their coworkers Alyssa Sanchez and Bill Whitmire, filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board on January 26, alleging Starbucks had violated federal law by retaliating against union supporters.

In its March 29 response to the complaint, Starbucks denied all allegations of retaliation made by employees of the Arizona store.

Starbucks Workers United, a growing union effort that began with Buffalo, New York, Starbucks employees, has filed more than 20 complaints alleging similar retaliation directed toward union supporters.

As union efforts have gained steam at Starbucks locations nationwide — with multiple stores voting unanimously to unionize — the coffee company has faced increasing reports and formal complaints regarding union-busting tactics and retaliation. In Memphis, Tennessee, seven would-be union workers were fired for what Starbucks called "safety" reasons after they invited press to a closed store to discuss their efforts.

In Buffalo, at least two stores that attempted to unionize were closed entirely, which Starbucks said was a coincidence.

At the store in Phoenix, two union organizers are facing cut hours, one had her hours cut down until she had to find a new job, and Dalton was fired in what she calls "100% retaliation" for organizing. Dalton's firing was not included in the original complaint of retaliation.

A Starbucks spokesperson told Insider: "Any partner's interest in a union does not exempt them from the standards we've always held. We will continue enforcing our policies consistently for all partners. And any claims of anti-union activity are categorically false."

"We are 100% committed to following the NLRB process," the spokesperson added.

Starbucks prepares for union fight

For its part, Starbucks appears to be preparing for increased union activity. The coffee chain recently hired a new strategy chief as unionization efforts ramp up across the US and on Wednesday began advertising for an in-house lawyer with experience in 'strike contingency planning.'

In an April 4 Town Hall meeting, his first since returning to Starbucks as CEO and the same day Dalton was fired, Howard Schultz said the company was being "assaulted in many ways by the threat of unionization."

While Dalton remains active in trying to organize the Phoenix store and hopes to be reinstated following the results of the NLRB hearing on June 14, she says workers who remain at the store have been telling her how much worse work has been since the union effort has gained more attention.

"Everyone is texting me, keeping me in the loop. And I mean it sounds like they're really trying to intimidate them," Dalton told Insider. "They're starting to take people one by one, starting to ask them if they have any questions about why I got fired, or any questions about how to vote, on how to vote on the ballot."

A reinstatement rally

Sanchez left Starbucks after her managers declined to accommodate her schedule, which she said was directly related to organizing. While she didn't want to leave her position and was never officially fired, she said her hours were cut until she couldn't afford to continue working with the company and found a new job.

Whitmire, a supervisor and union committee member, remains at the Phoenix location but says the store environment has become hostile and his hours are being cut down from full-time to part-time.

Gillette told Insider the company appears to be doing something similar to them. Both employees previously had consistent schedules of over 30 hours to make ends meet. Since publicly supporting the union, both have had their hours cut nearly in half.

"I'm at the point where I have to for my own well being I have to really consider quitting, which is exactly what they want — and they've done this to so many other people; pushed them to the point where it's like, for their livelihood and for their sanity, they have to quit. We have to quit," Gillette said.

Starbucks union supporters protest for Laila Dalton's reinstatement on April 6. Laila Dalton

In addition to the cut hours, Gillette — who is transgender and autistic — said they are now also facing increased harassment about their gender and disability since publicly supporting the union. Coworkers and managers now consistently misgender them and they said they were forced to take a two-week leave of absence until they could get medical documentation that said they were cleared to work after requesting accommodations to make their shifts more comfortable.

"It's causing my mental health to really suffer. It's messing with my livelihood. I wasn't able to pay rent this month. So now if I don't figure something out by the end of this month, I'm gonna be homeless because Starbucks is royally screwing me over," Gillette said.

At the Arizona location, despite the impacts of the managerial crackdown on former and current staff, union support has been increasing. Employees and regular customers of the store held a reinstatement rally on behalf of Dalton on April 6 and the remaining workers are holding an official union vote this week. Ballots are due April 19 and the store should know if its union efforts were successful within two weeks after that.

"They could try this on me. I'm not scared. I still have a smile on my face. I still know that I will be back and I am confident about this election because it doesn't really matter what management does," Dalton said. "We have such a great team and we love each other so much."

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ECONOMY
A surge in retail union organizing is the surest sign yet that workers are fed upMore: Starbucks Labor Union NLRB

NOT ONE WORD SAYING NUCLEAR

Mitsubishi Heavy aims to build 'reactor-on-a-truck' by 2030s

Japanese engineering firm expects to tap demand for non-carbon energy

Mitsubishi Heavy's microreactors will be able to provide power to remote and disaster-hit areas. 

(Image courtesy of Mitsubishi Heavy)
TOMOYOSHI OSHIKIRI, 

Nikkei staff writer

April 19, 2022 

TOKYO -- Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries plans to develop and commercialize nuclear reactors small enough to be delivered on trucks by the end of the next decade, hoping to draw on demand for non-carbon emitting energy.

Opinion: Poilievre sounds like Trump. Will that wreck the Conservatives?

Conservative leadership candidates all seem to hate each other.

Keith BaldreyBURNABY NOW

Pierre Poilievre/Canadian Press

The most important question facing the Conservative Party of Canada may not be who will be its next leader, but if the party can remain intact no matter who that winner is.

While party leadership races can often feature bruising, bitter internal battles, the leadership contest the Conservatives are mired in seems particularly nasty. It’s been filled with the kind of heated rhetoric that makes one wonder whether some of the main contestants (and their supporters) can stand to be in the same room.

The most divisive figure is Ontario MP Pierre Poilievre, whose hard-right, populist and ideological campaign seems to be taking pages out of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign book.

Poilievre cheered on the right-wing truck convoy in downtown Ottawa and used it to launch attacks on the Trudeau government. One of his recent messages is it is now the time to “get rid of the gatekeepers” in Ottawa, which sounds like a riff on Trump’s “drain the swamp.”

Leadership candidate Jean Charest has blasted Poilievre and said he should be disqualified from the race entirely because of his support for the truck convoy and its blockade. Another leadership candidate, Patrick Brown, has accused Poilievre of backing “discriminatory policies,” such as a ban on wearing the niqab while taking a citizenship oath.

Poilievre, for his part, fired back by issuing a statement that called Brown a liar. As for Charest, Poilievre attacked him before he even entered the race by branding him a false Conservative.

In any event, Poilievre is widely considered the front-runner. He has drawn large crowds on a speaking tour through western Canada, and is getting more media attention than any of his opponents.

Critics dismiss his policies as simplistic when it comes to things like tackling inflation and taxation. Poilievre is weirdly attached to cryptocurrency as the magical answer to this. He is framing himself as the populist alternative to the establishment in Central Canada, even though was once a government MP from Ottawa, the epitome of that establishment.

Nevertheless, Poilievre is doubling down on playing off voters who are either seething with rage or deeply unhappy with the state of affairs in their own lives. He is offering them a different way forward, as simplistic or unworkable as it may be.

Whether that plays well in Metro Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal - where the vast majority of the ridings are located - remains to be seen. Of course, he has to win the leadership race first and it employs a complex voting system consisting of each riding being assigned 100 “points,” with a ranked preferential ballot system.

A big rally for Poilievre in Edmonton may look impressive, but Quebec with its 78 ridings has 7,800 points, compared to Alberta’s 3,400.

The Conservatives vote for a new leader on Sept. 10. The party was splintered before the race even began and one has to assume the internal divisions are much deeper now, given the nasty vitriol and scorched-earth approach dominating any discussion.

Will a new version of the old Reform Party emerge from what could be political wreckage? Or can the new leader keep together a party that seems to be on the verge of fracturing?

The eventual answers to those questions will shape the federal political landscape for years.

Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC.