It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, September 15, 2022
Meet Little Amal: A puppet celebrating New York City’s roots
Commuters and tourists gather around a large puppet named Little Amal as she walks around Grand Central Station in New York, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. New York City's latest celebrity visitor is stopping traffic even in this jaded, larger-than-life town. Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee, is on a 17-day blitz through every corner of the Big Apple as part of a theater project hoping to raise awareness about immigration. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s latest celebrity visitor is stopping traffic even in this jaded, larger-than-life town.
“When we talk about migration and refugees, we tend to forget that more than half of the people we’re talking about are children,” said playwright and director Amir Nizar Zuabi, the artistic director of Little Amal Walks NYC. “The reality is they’re children and all children are beautiful in their own special way. And I think that’s what Amal brings to the table.”
She will visit tourists meccas — Times Square, Grand Central Station, the American Museum of Natural History and Central Park, among them — and also communities far from the glitz of Manhattan, like Corona in the Queens borough and Bedford–Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.
“The role of the project is to talk about displacement, to talk about immigration, to talk about vulnerability in different contexts and, of course, each locality,” said Zuabi.
At each of the 55 planned stops, organizers have reached out to community artists and leaders to create a special event anchored by the place visited. So Amal will join kids her age to hear a reading of the inclusive picture book “Julián Is a Mermaid” at the Brooklyn Public Library. And when she goes to Harlem she will listen to a drum circle performed by students from the Harlem School of the Arts and be accompanied by a stilt walker from Kotchenga Dance Company.
Yazmany Arboleda, a Colombian American artist who is creative producer of the New York visit, calls it one of the largest scale theatrical experiences ever built in the city: “This is the biggest stage on Earth and it comes from all the pluralism, of all the stories, of all the people who live here.”
The puppet comes to the city after completing a 5,000-mile trek across Europe, from the Syrian-Turkish border to Manchester in northwest England. She has traveled through 12 countries — including greeting refuges from Ukraine at a Polish train station and stopping at refugee camps in Greece — and met with Pope Francis.
“New York is interesting because it is a city built from displacement, forced migration and migration. These are the elements that created the city. And the city looms tall and has a very, very interesting engine of creativity, of innovation, of audaciousness. So bringing this project here is very interesting for us,” said Zuabi.
During a recent rehearsal at the performing arts institution and project co-producer St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, Zuabi stressed the core idea with his 10 puppeteers, four of which are needed to manipulate the puppet at any one time.
“She is a 10-year-old lost in the city. Whenever you are in doubt, go back to that,” he told them as they stretched in a circle. “She’s never safe in this city. If we understand that, I think we can make real magic.”
Some other stops for the puppet — designed and built by Handspring Puppet Company — include salsa dancing in Washington Heights, walking along the Coney Island boardwalk and listening to drummers in Jackson Heights. At Grand Central Station on Thursday, she loomed over admiring pedestrians, who gazed up and took pictures.
“We often focus on the plight of the immigrant or the refugee, and I think what this work does is really bring our attention to the promise and the beauty,” said Arboleda. “As she walks through New York, we’re all going to be learning along.”
One of Amal’s stops will be Liberty Island, where she’ll come face-to-toe with the Statue of Liberty, who welcomes the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
“The core of this project is empathy, is to fight indifference, because indifference is like a stone. You can’t turn it. It’s what it is. The minute you start cracking indifference, something happens,” said Zuabi.
House OKs bill to curb political interference with census
By MIKE SCHNEIDER and KEVIN FREKING A briefcase of a census taker is seen as she knocks on the door of a residence Aug. 11, 2020, in Winter Park, Fla. The House has passed legislation on a party-line vote that aims to make it harder for future presidents to interfere in the once-a-decade headcount that determines political power and federal funding. The bill is a Democrat-led response to the Trump's administration's failed efforts to place a citizenship question on the 2020 census. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed legislation Thursday intended to make it harder for future presidents to interfere with the once-a-decade census that determines political power and federal funding, a move that comes in response to the Trump’s administration’s failed effort to make a citizenship question part of the 2020 headcount.
The legislation was approved 220-208 with only Democratic lawmakers voting for it. The bill requires the Commerce secretary to certify to Congress that any new question sought on a future census be adequately studied and tested, and that the Government Accountability Office conduct a review of the certification.
It also seeks to limit political influence by mandating that a U.S. Census Bureau director can be fired only in cases of neglect of duty or malfeasance in office. It vests the director with all technical, operational and statistical decisions and says a deputy director has to be a career staffer with experience in demographics, statistics or related fields.
“Partisan manipulation of the census is simply wrong,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Reform, which investigated the Trump administration’s efforts to add the citizenship question. “My bill would protect the census and ensure this cannot happen again regardless of which party is in power.”
Republicans unanimously opposed the bill, saying it places more power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, reducing accountability.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said that the changes are designed to make it easier for future census results to favor Democratic-leaning states over Republican-leaning states by making it harder to overrule the director even when the president or Congress is concerned about decisions they believe will yield an unfair or inaccurate count.
The bill faces an uphill climb in the evenly divided Senate given the party-line vote in the House. But Sen. Gary Peters, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said “clearly we will take a very serious look at it.”
The census determines how many congressional seats each state gets and the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal spending each year. Its results are used for redrawing political districts. The 2020 census was one of the most challenging in recent memory because of the attempts at political interference, the COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters.
In the years leading up to the 2020 census, the Trump administration unsuccessfully tried to add a citizenship question to the census questionnaire, a move that advocates feared would scare off Hispanics and immigrants from participating, whether they were in the country legally or not. The Supreme Court blocked the question.
The Trump administration also unsuccessfully tried to get the Census Bureau to exclude people in the country illegally from population figures used for divvying up congressional seats among the states, also called the apportionment numbers. The Trump administration tried to end data collection and processing earlier than the revised schedule put out by the Census Bureau in response to the pandemic, a move critics saw as an attempt by the administration to release the apportionment numbers while President Donald Trump was still in office.
The apportionment numbers were released in April 2021, four months after President Joe Biden took office and Trump left.
Critics claimed the citizenship question was inspired by a Republican redistricting expert who believed using citizen voting-age population instead of the total population for the purpose of redrawing of congressional and legislative districts could be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.
Even though many of the Trump administration’s political efforts failed, some advocates believe they did have an impact, with significantly larger undercounts of most racial and ethnic minorities in the 2020 census compared to the 2010 census.
The Black population in the 2020 census had a net undercount of 3.3%, while it was almost 5% for Hispanics and 5.6% for American Indians and Native Alaskans living on reservations. Those identifying as some other race had a net undercount of 4.3%.
With the legislation, “we are reaffirming our commitment that every person in every community is counted,” Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., and chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
Biden plans floating platforms to expand offshore wind power
President Joe Biden shows a wind turbine size comparison chart during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, June 23, 2022, with governors, labor leaders, and private companies launching the Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership. The Biden administration says it will hold its first offshore wind auction next month. It's offering nearly 500,000 acres off the coast of New York and New Jersey for wind energy projects that could produce enough electricity to power nearly 2 million homes. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday announced plans to develop floating platforms in the deep ocean for wind towers that could power millions of homes and vastly expand offshore wind in the United States.
The plan would target sites in the Pacific Ocean off the California and Oregon coasts, as well as in the Atlantic in the Gulf of Maine.
President Joe Biden hopes to deploy up to 15 gigawatts of electricity through floating sites by 2035, enough to power 5 million homes. The administration has previously set a goal of 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030 using traditional technology that secures wind turbines to the ocean floor.
There are only a handful of floating offshore platforms in the world — all in Europe — but officials said the technology is developing and could soon establish the United States as a global leader in offshore wind.
“Today we’re launching efforts to seize a new opportunity — floating offshore wind — which will let us build in deep water areas where turbines can’t be secured directly to the sea floor, but where there are strong winds that we can now harness,″ White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy said at a news conference Thursday.
Deepwater areas in the Pacific especially have potential to vastly expand offshore wind energy in the U.S., McCarthy and other officials said.
McCarthy acknowledged that the floating technology is at an early stage. But she said “coordinated actions” by federal and state officials, working with the private sector, can position the U.S. “to lead the world on floating offshore wind and bring offshore wind jobs to more parts of our country, including the West Coast.″
Two pilot projects are planned off the north and central California coast, and a third is planned in southern Oregon, officials said.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said her state and California have some of the best wind resources in the world, but called floating platforms crucial to develop them due to the depth of the ocean floor along the West Coast.
Heather Zichal, CEO of the American Clean Power Association, an industry group, called the announcement a “game changer” that will spark investment in a new domestic supply chain and allow the U.S. to lead in this emerging technology. Along with incentives in the sweeping climate-and-tax bill, Zichal said she expects costs for offshore wind development to dramatically decrease, allowing deployment of clean energy at the scale needed to take action to address climate change.
The Energy Department announced nearly $50 million, including funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law Biden signed last year, for research, development and demonstration work to support floating offshore wind platforms. Officials aim to cut the cost of floating offshore wind energy 70% by 2035, to $45 per megawatt hour, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.
“We think the private sector is going to quickly see the real opportunity here not only to triple the country’s accessible offshore wind resources but to make the U.S. a global leader in manufacturing and deploying offshore wind,″ she said.
Emerging technology for floating platforms “means there’s real opportunity for greater energy security,″ affordability “and course tens of thousands of good-paying in-demand jobs,″ such as electricians, engineers, ship builders and stevedores, Granholm said.
The Biden administration “is all-in on making floating offshore wind a real part of our of our energy mix and winning the global race to lead in this space,″ Granholm said. ”And that’s why we set this big, hairy audacious goal″ of 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind by 2035.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said her department has approved the nation’s first two major offshore wind projects in federal waters and has begun reviewing at least 10 more. An offshore wind lease sale off the New York and New Jersey coast set new records, she said, and a lease sale also was held in North Carolina. Seven lease sales for offshore wind projects are planned by 2025.
More than half of the nation’s offshore wind resources are in deep waters where traditional offshore wind foundations are not economically feasible, Haaland said, adding that “floating wind will help us reach areas once not attainable. And this is critical because floating wind will help us build on the administration’s goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030.″ The world’s first floating wind farm has been operating off Scotland’s coast since 2017. Norway-based Equinor, which operates the 30-megawatt Hywind Scotland project, is currently building a huge, floating offshore wind farm off Norway to provide electricity for offshore oil and gas fields.
Lauren Shane, a spokeswoman for Equinor in the United States, said the company is upbeat about floating offshore wind and will evaluate possible opportunities in the U.S. “We’re excited about the development of offshore wind in the U.S.,″ she said.
Another offshore wind developer with projects in the United States, Denmark-based Ørsted, also applauded the administration’s efforts.
“The administration’s innovation priority is well-placed, and with the right investment and public-private partnerships,″ floating platforms “can expand deployment, drive down costs and bring more clean energy to millions of Americans,” said Bryan Stockton, head of regulatory affairs for Ørsted North America.
___
McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$T CONSPRIACI$T Infowars sales spiked as Jones talked about Sandy Hook
Brittany Paz, the corporate representative for InfoWars, is questioned by plaintiff's attorney Chris Mattei during the Alex Jones Sandy Hook defamation damages trial in Superior Court in Waterbury, Conn., on Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. (H John Voorhees III/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool)
WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Infowars’ revenues and website viewership spiked as Alex Jones alleged on his show in 2014 that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, according to documents shown to a jury Thursday.
Jones and his Free Speech Systems company are on trial in Connecticut in a lawsuit brought by an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight of the 20 first graders and six educators killed in the December 2012 massacre in Newtown. They say Jones inflicted emotional and psychological harm on them, and they have been threatened and harassed by Jones’ followers.
Jones has already been found liable for spreading the myth that the shooting never happened and the six-member jury in Waterbury will be deciding how much he and his company should pay the plaintiffs in damages. The trial started Tuesday and is expected to last a month.
Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the families, showed internal Infowars documents detailing the revenue and website-visit spikes around the time of an article on Sept. 24, 2014, on the Infowars website that said no one died at Sandy Hook and Jones discussing the article on his show the next day.
The families’ lawsuit claims that Jones trafficked in lies to increase his audience and sales of the nutritional supplements, clothing and other merchandise he sells on the Infowars website and hawks on his web show. Jones and guests on his show said the shooting was staged with crisis actors as part of gun control efforts.
The discussion of revenue and web viewership came Thursday as Mattei spent a second day questioning Brittany Paz, a Connecticut lawyer hired by Jones to testify about his companies’ operations.
Documents showed daily revenues to the Infowars online store increased from $48,000 on Sept. 24 to more than $230,000 on Sept. 25. Total user sessions on the Infowars website, meanwhile, increased from about 543,000 on Sept. 23 to about 1 million on Sept. 24, the documents showed.
Paz also was asked about Infowars videos that show Jones and guests using lies and misinformation to claiming the massacre was staged. She acknowledged that much of what was said was not true.
In the videos, Jones says the school shooting was a “giant hoax” and “the fakest thing since the $3 bill.” He said there were aerial images of student actors running in circles in and out of the school when the images actually were of a nearby firehouse where people gathered after the shooting. He also claimed CNN was using green screens in fake interviews with people in Sandy Hook.
Mattei later showed an email from a company executive showing internal conflict within Infowars about continuing to discuss conspiracy theories about the school shooting.
“The Sandy Hook stuff is killing us,” Infowars editor Paul Watson wrote, asking why the company was risking its reputation and audience by harassing the parents of dead children.
Last month, a jury in Texas awarded the parents of one of the slain Sandy Hook children nearly $50 million in a similar lawsuit against Jones and his company. Paz acknowledged that Infowars broadcasted misinformation. She also acknowledged that Jones did not check the qualifications of a guest who appeared numerous times on his show—- a conspiracy theorist who claimed to be a school security expert who had investigating the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado — even as Jones boasted of his credentials and Infowars received emails questioning the guest’s credibility. Paz testified that she believes Jones and his companies have made at least $100 million in the decade since the massacre and Jones is now worth millions of dollars. Website traffic data reports run by Infowars employees and presented at the trial also show that by 2016, his show aired on 150 affiliate radio stations, and the Infowars website got 40 million page views a month. Mattei showed Paz internal Infowars emails between employees sharing Google Analytics data. Paz earlier testified that she was told by Infowars employees that they didn’t use Google Analytics regularly to track website viewing data. After showing her the emails, Mattei asked if it was still her testimony that Infowars didn’t regularly use Google Analytics.
“I don’t know at this point,” she said.
Jones now says he believes the shooting happened, but he insists his comments were protected by free speech rights, which he cannot argue at trial because he has already been found liable for damages.
The families say the emotional and psychological harm to them was profound and persistent. Relatives say they were subjected to social media harassment, death threats, strangers videotaping them and their children, and the surreal pain of being told that they were faking their loss.
Jones’ lawyer, Norman Pattis, said in his opening statement Tuesday that any damages should be minimal and claimed the families were exaggerating the harm they say they have suffered.
On his Infowars show Thursday, Jones once again called the proceedings in Connecticut “a show trial.”
The judge “now has to carry out this fraud,” he said. “But across the legal community, people are just saying, ’My God, this is something worthy of Venezuela. This is unbelievable.’”
A displaced family wades through a flooded area after heavy rainfall, in Jaffarabad, a district of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, Aug. 24, 2022. A new study says human-caused climate change juiced the rainfall that triggered Pakistan's floods by up to 50%. But the authors of the Thursday, Sept. 15, study say other societal issues that make the country vulnerable and put people in harm's way are probably the biggest factor in the ongoing humanitarian disaster. (AP Photo/Zahid Hussain, File)
Climate change likely juiced rainfall by up to 50% late last month in two southern Pakistan provinces, but global warming wasn’t the biggest cause of the country’s catastrophic flooding that has killed more than 1,500 people, a new scientific analysis finds.
Pakistan’s overall vulnerability, including people living in harm’s way, is the chief factor in the disaster that at one point submerged one-third of the country under water, but human-caused “climate change also plays a really important role here,” said study senior author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College of London.
There are many ingredients to the still ongoing humanitarian crisis — some meteorological, some economic, some societal, some historic and construction oriented. Add to that weather records that don’t go back far enough in time.
With such complications and limitations, the team of international scientists looking at the disaster couldn’t quantify how much climate change had increased the likelihood and frequency of the flooding, said authors of the study. It was released Thursday but not yet peer reviewed.
What happened “would have been a disastrously high rainfall event without climate change, but it’s worse because of climate change,” Otto said. “And especially in this highly vulnerable region, small changes matter a lot.” But other human factors that put people in harm’s way and weren’t adequate to control the water were even bigger influences.
“This disaster was the result of vulnerability that was constructed over many, many years,” said study team member Ayesha Siddiqi of the University of Cambridge.
August rainfall in the Sindh and Balochistan provinces -- together nearly the size of Spain -- was eight and nearly seven times normal amounts, while the country as a whole had three-and-a-half times its normal rainfall, according to the report by World Weather Attribution, a collection of mostly volunteer scientists from around the world who do real-time studies of extreme weather to look for the fingerprints of climate change.
The team looked at just the two provinces over five days and saw an increase of up to 50% in the intensity of rainfall that was likely due to climate change. They also looked at the entire Indus region over two months and saw up to a 30% increase in rainfall there.
The scientists not only examined records of past rains, which only go back to 1961, but they used computer simulations to compare what happened last month to what would have happened in a world without heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas — and that difference is what they could attribute to climate change. This is a scientifically valid technique, according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Study co-author Fahad Saeed, a climate scientist at Climate Analytics and the Center for Climate Change and Sustainable Development in Islamabad, Pakistan, said numerous factors made this monsoon season much wetter than normal, including a La Nina, the natural cooling of part of the Pacific that alters weather worldwide.
But other factors had the signature of climate change, Saeed said. A nasty heat wave in the region earlier in the summer -- which was made 30 times more likely because of climate change -- increased the differential between land and water temperatures. That differential determines how much moisture goes from the ocean to the monsoon and means more of it drops.
And climate change seemed to slightly change the jet stream, storm tracks and where low pressure sits, bringing more rainfall for southern provinces than they usually get, Saeed said.
“Pakistan has not contributed much in terms of causing global climate change, but sure is having to deal with a massive amount of climate change consequences,” said University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn’t part of the study.
Overpeck and three other outside climate scientists said the study makes sense and is nuanced properly to bring in all risk factors.
The nuances help “avoid overinterpretation,” said Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field. “But we also want to avoid missing the main message -- human-caused climate change is increasing the risks of extreme events around the world, including the devastating 2022 Pakistan flooding.” ___
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
U$A GIVES BACK STOLEN FUNDS US sets up Afghan relief fund with frozen central bank money
WITH STRINGS
By FATIMA HUSSEIN
yesterday FILE - President Joe Biden speaks about the end of the war in Afghanistan from the State Dining Room of the White House, Aug. 31, 2021, in Washington. The U.S. and Swiss governments and Afghan economics experts say they'll transfer $3.5 billion in frozen funds from Afghanistan’s central bank to use for the country’s people as hunger grips every province there. The Taliban government will not be a part of the new Afghan Fund, which will maintain its account with the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A year after the tumultuous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration said Wednesday it will transfer $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan central bank funds to benefit the Afghan people, as hunger grips every province there.
Funds will be dispersed after trustees of the new Afghan Fund meet to determine a timetable. The trustees are two Afghan economists, a U.S. government representative and a Swiss government representative.
Notably, the Taliban government will not have access to the fund, which will be held at the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. The bank in a news release said its role is “limited to providing banking services to and executing the instructions of the Board of Trustees of the Fund without involvement in the Fund’s governance or decision making.”
In the interim, Afghanistan’s central bank, which in February had $7 billion in frozen funds, “must demonstrate that it has the expertise, capacity, and independence to responsibly perform the duties of a central bank,” the U.S. Treasury and State departments said in a joint statement. “Robust safeguards have been put in place to prevent the funds from being used for illicit activity.”
The World Bank says income and economic output in Afghanistan have dropped between 20% and 30%, imports have declined by roughly 40%, and 70% of Afghan households report they are unable to fully meet basic food or non-food needs.
In February, President Joe Biden issued an executive order that called for banks to provide $3.5 billion of the frozen money to a trust fund for distribution through humanitarian groups for Afghan relief and basic needs.
The other $3.5 billion will stay in the U.S. to finance payments from lawsuits by U.S. victims of terrorism that are still working their way through the courts, prompted by claims brought by family members of people killed on Sept 11, 2001.
“The Afghan Fund will help mitigate the economic challenges facing Afghanistan while protecting and preserving $3.5 billion in reserves from Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), Afghanistan’s central bank, for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan,” Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said.
He said the Taliban’s “repression and economic mismanagement” had exacerbated longstanding economic challenges for Afghanistan that had made the return of the funds untenable.
In a Tuesday letter to Afghanistan’s central bank, Adeyemo said until conditions for the central bank are met, their control of assets “would place them at unacceptable risk and jeopardize them as a source of support for the Afghan people.”
Shah Mehrabi, a Montgomery College economics professor, is one of the trustees of the new fund. He told The Associated Press that the money should be used primarily to maintain price stability in the country, rather than for humanitarian purposes.
“I think the purpose of board, as a member, is to address the liquidity and price stability issues in the country expeditiously, prior to a harsh winter,” he said. “There are ways we can provide relief so that Afghans are able to have food and energy and to perform their basic daily duties.”
Human Rights Watch said in August that Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis cannot be effectively addressed unless the U.S. and other governments ease restrictions on the country’s banking sector to allow economic activity and humanitarian aid.
Nearly half the Afghan population — 18.9 million people — is estimated to be acutely food insecure between June and November 2022, the World Food Programme said. All 34 provinces in the country are facing some level of crisis or emergency levels of acute food insecurity.
Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said the people of Afghanistan are facing humanitarian and economic crises born of “decades of conflict, severe drought, COVID-19, and endemic corruption.”
“Today, the United States and its partners take an important, concrete step forward in ensuring that additional resources can be brought to bear to reduce suffering and improve economic stability for the people of Afghanistan while continuing to hold the Taliban accountable,” Sherman said.
WikiLeaks founder’s family brings campaign to Mexico
John Shipton Sr. and Gabriel Shipton the father and brother respectively of Julian Assange participate in an event sponsored by the Mexican ruling party Morena, at the Unión Telefónica headquarters, entitled "Freedom for Julian Asange: a global struggle," in Mexico City, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — This week the objective was to insert mention of Julian Assange into a meeting between Mexico’s president and the United States’ top diplomat. Next week, it will be to have Australia’s prime minister bring it up with the U.S. president at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
The efforts are part of the campaign by John Shipton, father of the WikiLeaks founder, to find allies and convince the U.S. to drop espionage charges against Assange, who remains in a British prison awaiting extradition to the U.S.
The journey by the septuagenarian Australian architect together with another son, Gabriel, brought them this week to Mexico. The country has become the family’s main ally in Latin America since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered Assange political asylum and called for the U.S. to allow him to seek refuge there.
“We call President López Obrador an ice-breaker,” because afterward the leaders of Chile, Colombia and Bolivia called for his release too, Gabriel Shipton said during the visit to Mexico. Among a packed scheduled of events, John Shipton received the key to the capital Wednesday on behalf of Assange, a ceremonial honor the city bestows on distinguished guests. The day before, he addressed Mexico’s Senate.
American prosecutors say Assange helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published, putting lives at risk. He faces 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse.
His defenders consider Assange a symbol of a free press and a fight for justice who exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange was arrested in London in 2010 at the request of Sweden pending a preliminary investigation into allegations of sexual assault, which he has denied. In 2012, he broke the conditions of his bail and sought refuge in Ecuador’s embassy where he stayed until being asked to leave in 2019. He was immediately arrested again.
When his father visited him in jail that year, Assange asked for help.
That led Shipton to launch his globetrotting campaign with Gabriel, trying to reach average people, because politicians want those people’s votes, he said.
They went from Australia to Europe, the United States and Mexico. Each politician’s statement in favor of Assange’s release, every headline, is oxygen for Assange, who has been held in a maximum security prison.
The effort has been all consuming, Shipton said in a Mexico City hotel, as he and Gabriel listed the day’s events, which included a protest at the U.S. embassy, a meeting with a government official, press interviews and phone calls, including one with Assange.
Those calls from prison cut after 10 minutes, said Shipton, who declined to say how often they speak or what they discuss. “I can’t report on conversations between father and son. This is not public,” he said.
Shipton was estranged from Assange until his 20s, according to a documentary called “Ithaka,” produced by Gabriel Shipton, which suggests a complicated relationship.
John Shipton smiled remembering Assange’s wedding in March to his lawyer Stella Moris, a day Shipton described as “like a flower in the desert.”
Uncomfortable with media, but conscious that he needs then, Shipton questions them constantly, telling them Assange’s case directly affects their ability to continue reporting freely.
His visit to Mexico will finish with his participation in Independence Day activities Thursday night and Friday. López Obrador invited Shipton to events with relatives of Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Ché Guevara, in what appeared to be an attempt to evoke emblematic figures of the 20th century.
The Shiptons plan to continue their efforts in Latin America next year, hoping that Brazil’s Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva returns to the presidency.
“You just take each moment as it comes and you do your very best you can, you don’t depend upon optimism, hope, you just do your work,” Shipton said, noting it’s a work that never ends.
MELBOURNE (Reuters Breakingviews) - If there were more Yvon Chouinards, humans might be doing a better job of battling global warming. Such sentiments are doing the rounds on social media since the founder of Patagonia revealed https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/
on Wednesday that he has ceded control of his outdoor clothing firm. His motive: to direct the earnings generated by what will remain a for-profit company into a charity fighting climate and environmental risks that will own virtually all Patagonia’s shares. Yet he could have built a bigger war chest more quickly by selling the company. That he didn’t is an apt riposte to breaking up ESG.
The idea of separating environmental, social and governance concerns from each other has been gaining traction https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?
It has some appeal: around $17 trillion in assets, per the U.S. Sustainable Investment Forum, sit in funds run by managers from BlackRock to AllianceBernstein that claim to include ESG considerations in their investment decisions. Yet often they aren’t clear about the relative importance of each of the three, creating consternation and confusion. A climate-focused ESG fund probably should own Tesla, for example, whereas one prioritising social or governance performance would have a tough time justifying the investment.
In practice, all three should form an integral part of a fund manager’s overall analysis. Not only do they interact with one another, excluding or downplaying one type of performance could result in plenty of risks and opportunities being overlooked.
Forcing companies to pick between the three concepts would also create unnecessary dilemmas. Chouinard, for example, wants to steer more money towards protecting the planet. By handing virtually all shares over to a charitable trust, though, he’s limiting his contribution to the firm’s annual earnings of some $100 million a year, per the New York Times https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?
But Patagonia has a strong brand and a roughly 10% profit margin that beats publicly traded apparel companies like Abercrombie & Fitch. So he ought to be able to sell it at a handy premium to the roughly 13 times trailing earnings A&F commands. At, say, a 20 times multiple, he’d have some $2 billion to deploy.
That, though, would risk selling the company to those who might not defend either the company’s environmentally friendly culture or its employees. His unusual solution is one few are likely to replicate. But behind it is a more responsible approach to managing a business than forcing ESG issues into unneeded siloes.
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CONTEXT NEWS
Yvon Chouinard has ceded control of outdoor clothing brand Patagonia, the founder disclosed in a letter on Sept. 14. As a result, all company profit will go to a non-profit entity which will spend it to fight climate change.
As part of the deal, Chouinard and his family have transferred all stock with voting rights to the Patagonia Purpose Trust. Overseen by family members and their advisers, according to the New York Times, the trust will be responsible for approving key decisions like choosing the board of directors.
All non-voting stock, which represents the vast majority of shares, has been given to the Holdfast Collective, which Chouinard calls "a nonprofit dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature".
Patagonia has annual revenue in excess of $1 billion and profit of some $100 million, the New York Times reported on Sept. 14.
(Editing by Robyn Mak and Thomas Shum)
'Earth Is Now Our Only Shareholder': Founder Gives Away Patagonia to Save the Planet
"Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn't end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people," said Yvon Chouinard. "We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving this planet."
"We needed to find a way to put more money into fighting the crisis while keeping the company's values intact," Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard wrote in a letter explaining his family's ownership decision. (Photo: Patagonia/Facebook)
Patagonia founder and "reluctant billionaire" Yvon Chouinard just raised the bar for corporate action on the fossil fuel-driven planetary emergency.
"Instead of 'going public,' you could say we're 'going purpose.'"
The 83-year-old, his wife Malinda, and their adult children, Fletcher and Claire, gave away the company, valued at about $3 billion. The rock climber-turned-businessman explained the decision in an interview published Wednesday by The New York Times, along with a letter on the outdoor clothing retailer's website.
"While we're doing our best to address the environmental crisis, it's not enough. We needed to find a way to put more money into fighting the crisis while keeping the company's values intact," Chouinard wrote. "One option was to sell Patagonia and donate all the money. But we couldn't be sure a new owner would maintain our values or keep our team of people around the world employed."
"Another path was to take the company public. What a disaster that would have been. Even public companies with good intentions are under too much pressure to create short-term gain at the expense of long-term vitality and responsibility," he continued. "Truth be told, there were no good options available. So, we created our own."
As the Times detailed:
In August, the family irrevocably transferred all the company's voting stock, equivalent to 2% of the overall shares, into a newly established entity known as the Patagonia Purpose Trust.
The trust, which will be overseen by members of the family and their closest advisers, is intended to ensure that Patagonia makes good on its commitment to run a socially responsible business and give away its profits. Because the Chouinards donated their shares to a trust, the family will pay about $17.5 million in taxes on the gift.
The Chouinards then donated the other 98% of Patagonia, its common shares, to a newly established nonprofit organization called the Holdfast Collective, which will now be the recipient of all the company's profits and use the funds to combat climate change. Because the Holdfast Collective is a 501(c)(4), which allows it to make unlimited political contributions, the family received no tax benefit for its donation.
The newspaper noted that "Patagonia has already donated $50 million to the Holdfast Collective, and expects to contribute another $100 million this year, making the new organization a major player in climate philanthropy."
Chouinard told the Times that "I didn't know what to do with the company because I didn't ever want a company," and called the plan an "ideal solution" for his family.
"I don't respect the stock market at all," he explained. "Once you're public, you've lost control over the company, and you have to maximize profits for the shareholder, and then you become one of these irresponsible companies."
As he put it in the letter: "Instead of 'going public,' you could say we're 'going purpose.' Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth for investors, we'll use the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth."
It was important to Chouinard's children "that they were not seen as the financial beneficiaries," he told the Times. "They really embody this notion that every billionaire is a policy failure."
"I was in Forbes magazine listed as a billionaire, which really, really pissed me off," he recalled. "I don't have $1 billion in the bank. I don't drive Lexuses."
The family's move was welcomed by climate action and conservation advocates.
"Wow," tweeted Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn. "Patagonia has long been an incredible ally in the fight for climate justice—they've offered their stores, funding, and advertising for mobilizations and more—but this takes it to a whole new level. Kudos to the entire team."
"The world really can be different friends."
Marine biologist and policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson said she "could not be more proud to serve on the board of directors" of Patagonia, and celebrated that "as of now, Earth is our only shareholder—ALL profits, in perpetuity, will go to our mission to 'save our home planet.'"
Chouinard suggested the innovative approach could inspire action from others in the business world.
"Hopefully this will influence a new form of capitalism that doesn't end up with a few rich people and a bunch of poor people," he said. "We are going to give away the maximum amount of money to people who are actively working on saving this planet."
Supporters agreed. Congresswoman Marie Newman (D-Ill.) simply tweeted: "More please."
As poet Amanda Gorman pointed out Wednesday, "The world really can be different friends."
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Patagonia founder gives company away to environmental trusts By The Associated Press Yvon Chouinard, the founder and chairman of Ventura-based Patagonia Inc., is photographed Sept 28, 2005, in the original Chouinard Equipment blacksmith shop located in Ventura, Calif., where he once forged pitons for mountaineers. In a letter posted on the privately-held company's website on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2022, Chouinard said the 50-year-old company would transfer 100% of the its voting stock to the Patagonia Purpose Trust and and 100% of its nonvoting stock had been given to the Holdfast Collective. (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via AP, File)
The founder of outdoor gear company Patagonia, long known for environmental activism, says the company is transferring all of its voting shares into a trust “dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature.”
In a letter posted on the privately-held company’s website on Wednesday night, founder Yvon Chouinard said the 50-year-old company would transfer 100% of the its voting stock to the Patagonia Purpose Trust and and 100% of its nonvoting stock had been given to the Holdfast Collective.
Each year after reinvesting profits back into the company, Chouinard said remaining funds will be distributed as a dividend to the trusts in their ongoing efforts to fight the climate crisis.
Chouinard said the other options for the Ventura, California company to dedicate itself to protecting the planet — selling the company and donating the proceeds; or taking the company public — were not viable for Patagonia’s ultimate goals.
“Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth for investors, we’ll use the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source of all wealth,” Chouinard wrote.
Patagonia makes outdoor clothing, gear and accessories for everything from skiing to climbing and camping.
Chouinard said he “never wanted to be a businessman,” and started Patagonia as a craftsman, making climbing gear for himself and his friends.
Patagonia founder hands over company in bold move to fight climate change "I am dead serious about saving this planet," he said. "Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth, we are using the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source," founder Yvon Choulnard said.
File Photo by longtaildog/Shutterstock
Sept. 15 (UPI) -- The founder of popular outdoor retailer Patagonia says he's turned over total control of the company, which is worth roughly $3 billion, to two environmental non-profits for their fight against climate change.
Founder Yvon Chouinard announced the move in a letter posted to the Patagonia website late on Wednesday. Choulnard founded the outdoor gear company 50 years ago and has always been environmentally conscious.
"Earth is now our only shareholder," Chouinard said in a statement.
"It's been a half-century since we began our experiment in responsible business. If we have any hope of a thriving planet 50 years from now, it demands all of us doing all we can with the resources we have."
The Chouinard family has transferred the company to non-profits Patagonia Purpose Trust and the Holdfast Collective. The company said every dollar that's not reinvested will be distributed as dividends to protect the planet.
"As the business leader I never wanted to be, I am doing my part," Chouinard added. "Instead of extracting value from nature and transforming it into wealth, we are using the wealth Patagonia creates to protect the source.
"I am dead serious about saving this planet."
Yvon Chouinard, the 83-year-old founder of Patagonia, says he decided to hand over the outdoor retailer to help in the global climate crisis.
Photo courtesy Campbell Brewer/Patagonia
The Patagonia Purpose Trust now owns all of Patagonia's voting stock and 2% of total shares. It was founded to create a more permanent legal structure to enshrine the company's purpose and values.
The Holdfast Collective, on the other hand, now owns all of Patagonia's non-voting stock, which amounts to 98% of all shares. It said that all revenue will go toward protecting nature and biodiversity, supporting thriving communities and fighting the climate crisis.
"Two years ago, the Chouinard family challenged a few of us to develop a new structure with two central goals," Patagonia CEO Ryan Gellert said in a statement. "They wanted us to both protect the purpose of the business and immediately and perpetually release more funding to fight the environmental crisis
"We believe this new structure delivers on both and we hope it will inspire a new way of doing business that puts people and planet first."
Patagonia Chair: ‘We are turning capitalism on its head by making the Earth our only shareholder’
BYCHARLES CONN September 14, 2022 Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia founder. AL SEIB / GETTY IMAGES
For 50 years there has been an impassioned debate about the appropriate aims and responsibilities of companies. Some side with Milton Friedman’s influential viewpoint, asserting that the only responsibility of business is to generate profits for shareholders. Others believe companies have broader responsibilities to society and the environment. Lately, even state legislatures have weighed in, proposing to ban financial managers who take ESG criteria into account. But while the battle of words continues, investors, customers, employees, and the public have moved forward. The question now is not whether but how far the pendulum has shifted towards responsibility and purpose. Surveys show that most investors believe ESG goals should trump short-term profit, and more than ever, employees and consumers are choosing companies based on what they stand for.
Great companies are loved and respected for their values and commitments to their communities in addition to what they make, not for the creation of shareholder wealth. This year Patagonia was named in the top group of most reputable companies based on criteria such as product quality, trust, citizenship, and ethics. So was Chick-fil-A. You couldn’t find two companies with more divergent values, but both have a clear purpose that extends beyond generating profits. They stand for something that people understand. Our most loved companies are already purpose-led organizations.
As a tech entrepreneur, public company CEO, and investor, I have benefited from shareholder capitalism. It’s a system that has brought us reductions in absolute poverty, longer lives through medical innovation, and many other improvements, as well as great shareholder returns. But let’s be honest: it made its gains at an enormous cost, including increasing inequality and widescale uncompensated environmental damage. We have subsidized buoyant shareholder returns by fraying the fabric of our societies and using up the planet we live on. We all know this is happening—the world is literally on fire.
Even Big Business knows the narrow extractive model of shareholder capitalism does not serve us. Leading institutions like The Business Roundtable and the World Economic Forum have worked to re-brand shareholder capitalism as stakeholder capitalism, adding responsibilities to workers, the environment, and society. Their investors demand this shift. But while this new moniker sounds good, to date actions haven’t caught up to words. The flowery language of annual reports is simply incompatible with standard forms of incorporation that require companies to only maximize shareholder returns.
Recently, a more concrete movement around company responsibility has gained momentum, the Benefit Corporation, which is a form of incorporation that puts people, environmental, and governance aims alongside profit inside company legal charters and requires specific goals and improvement over time. Similar efforts by accounting bodies and think tanks seek to develop general accounting standards for measuring companies’ social and environmental impacts that could be required for future company reporting. These two innovations are much more substantial progress toward making companies responsible players in building sustainable, prosperous societies.
At Patagonia, we signed up as a Benefit Company early on–and it has helped us clarify our responsibilities. For us, this means constantly measuring and managing our environmental footprint, seeking to reduce our use of water, carbon, and dangerous chemicals in our clothing. We invest in regenerative organic agriculture and in the circular economy by using recycled fabrics and repairing and re-selling used clothing. We price our products to reflect their real costs. We unapologetically support climate and environmental activism. And we transparently report our progress to our communities. We have used purpose capitalism to create a successful company that is committed to minimizing environmental impact and being a positive force in society.
A few years ago, we changed our mission to something both simple and hard: We’re in business to save our home planet. This clear definition of purpose is beyond any stretch goal. It has forced us to go much deeper into what it will take to have zero negative environmental impact while still making great products for our outdoor athlete customers.
Now in our 50th year, we’re going further still. Our founder Yvon Chouinard and his family have given all their Patagonia equity to a charitable entity to fund environmental conservation. We are directing all the value created by the company to specific conservation projects and advocacy. Instead of exploiting natural resources to make shareholder returns, we are turning shareholder capitalism on its head by making the Earth our only shareholder.
As a closely held company, this huge change was easier for us than others. But the point is for companies to make transparent purpose commitments that make sense to their business, and to be held to account by their communities.
Companies have responsibilities to their workers, customers, the environment, and yes, their investors. Shareholder capitalism advocates think goals other than profit will confuse investors. Nonsense. Investors already look to many company attributes when allocating capital. Over time, the market will continue to work and responsible purpose-led companies will attract more investment, better employees, and deeper customer loyalty. This is not “woke” capitalism. It’s the future of business if we want to build a better world for our children and all other creatures.
Charles Conn is the chair of Patagonia.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
Ahead of a Thursday House Oversight Committee hearing on Big Oil's central role in driving global climate chaos, congressional Democrats unveiled internal documents spotlighting the extent to which fossil fuel giants such as Chevron, Exxon, and Shell have worked to mislead the public about their contributions to the climate crisis and efforts to mitigate environmental damage.
"The committee's investigation has shown that, rather than outright deny global warming, the fossil fuel industry has 'greenwashed' its record through deceptive advertising and climate pledges—without meaningfully reducing emissions," Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) wrote in a memo released hours before Thursday's hearing, which major Big Oil PR firms have refused to attend. Watch the hearing
As part of its yearlong probe into the industry's public relations tactics, the panel uncovered documents confirming that oil and gas giants are "devoted to a long-term fossil fuel future," despite their splashy vows to transform their businesses to meet critical climate goals.
"These revelations are the latest evidence that oil giants keep lying about their commitments to solve the climate crisis and should never be trusted."
The committee, which subpoenaed oil and gas firms for internal documents related to their marketing campaigns, said in a summary that "Big Oil relies on accounting gimmicks, tricky language, and delay tactics to claim the mantle of climate leadership while continuing to be a primary cause of an ongoing climate catastrophe."
"Despite BP previously rebranding itself as 'Beyond Petroleum,' internal documents highlighted how carbon capture and storage (CCS), one of the energy technologies touted by the company, could 'enable the full use of fossil fuels across the energy transition and beyond,'" the House panel noted. "An internal Shell email discussing carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) warned an executive, 'We want to be careful to not talk about CCUS as prolonging the life of oil, gas or fossil fuels writ large.'"
The committee obtained documents from 2019 showing that employees from Exxon and Chevron pushed to water down an oil and gas industry messaging document on the Paris climate accord, which both companies have publicly claimed to support.
"Creating a tie between our advocacy/engagements and the Paris Agreement could create a potential commitment to advocate on the Paris Agreement goals," Peter Trelenberg, Exxon's manager of environmental policy and planning, warned in a private memo to Exxon CEO Darren Woods.
Khanna, chair of the oversight panel's Subcommittee on Environment, said in a statement Wednesday that "the documents I released today as part of my investigation into Big Oil's efforts to deceive the American public about the climate crisis are explosive."
"Internal emails and messaging guidance show that Big Oil's climate pledges rely on unproven technology, accounting gimmicks, and misleading language to hide the reality," said Khanna. "The documents also show a culture of intense disrespect towards leading climate activists like Bill McKibben and influential climate groups like the Sunrise Movement."
One email obtained and released by the House Oversight Committee shows BP communications official Tom Wolf mocking an op-ed by McKibben, a renowned environmentalist and co-founder of 350.org.
"I'm sorry, I live on earth so I don't get what planet this guy lives on," Wolf wrote.
In response, Khanna said that "Big Oil executives are laughing at the people trying to protect our planet while they knowingly work to destroy it."
Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said that "these revelations are the latest evidence that oil giants keep lying about their commitments to solve the climate crisis and should never be trusted by policymakers."
"First, their own documents showed that oil and gas companies lied about their product's role in causing climate change," said Wiles. "Now, more internal documents reveal that they are lying about their commitment to solving it. If there is one thing consistent about the oil and gas majors' position on climate, it's their utter inability to tell the truth."
"As Americans pay the price for deadlier and costlier climate disasters, it's outrageous that board members from the companies fueling the climate crisis and making record profits refused to attend a hearing to answer questions from members of Congress," Wiles added. "We applaud the House Oversight Committee for its continued work to hold oil and gas corporations accountable for their climate deception."
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UPDATE
Rail Unions Stress Tentative Deal Must Still Win Approval From Rank-and-File
Early reactions suggest some rail workers are furious at the agreement, with one anonymous employee calling it "garbage" that "everyone hates" thus far.
President Joe Biden meets with the negotiators of a new tentative railway labor agreement in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. on September 15, 2022. (Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
Two unions representing 125,000 active and retired rail employees stressed Thursday that the tentative agreement they reached with freight carriers to avert a strike still must win approval from rank-and-file members, a reminder that came as the White House hailed the deal it helped broker as a victory for workers and the economy.
"This contract will not become final until our members have an opportunity to review its terms and approve it through a ratification vote," said Jeremy Ferguson, president of SMART Transportation Division, and Dennis Pierce, head of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET).
"It's a garbage deal. Everyone hates it so far. It does nothing for me. I'll vote no. This has been a complete waste of time."
BLET and SMART-TD represent roughly half of the railroad workers that would be covered by the new agreement.
The unions, which had been preparing to strike as soon as Friday as rail giants refused to budge on workers' basic sick leave demands, said the tentative deal includes "an immediate wage increase of 14% once compounded with an additional 4% on July 1, 2023, and 4.5% on July 1, 2024."
"In addition, wage increases of 3% effective July 1, 2020, 3.5% effective July 1, 2021, and 7% effective July 1, 2022, will be fully retroactive, for a compounded increase of 24% over the 5-year term of the agreement," Ferguson and Pierce said. "The agreement also includes annual lump-sum bonus payments totaling $5,000."
Additionally, they noted, the agreement includes provisions that "will create voluntary assigned days off for members working in thru freight service, and all members will receive one additional paid day off."
"Most importantly, for the first time ever, the agreement provides our members with the ability to take time away from work to attend to routine and preventive medical care, as well as exemptions from attendance policies for hospitalizations and surgical procedures," Ferguson and Pierce added, pointing to a central demand of rail workers who for years have been laboring under a scheduling system that punishes employees for taking time off to see the doctor.
The union leaders said they also succeeded in fighting off rail carriers' efforts to impose higher healthcare costs and other damaging provisions.
Overall, the union leaders said they secured a deal that "exceeded the recommendations of the Presidential Emergency Board," a body formed by President Joe Biden that suggested a compromise agreement that excluded any sick leave—angering workers and heightening the likelihood of a national strike.
A recent SMART-TD survey of its members showed that 78% opposed the emergency board's recommended agreement.
Now the key question is whether the tentative deal announced Thursday is enough of an improvement over the presidential board's proposal to win approval from the rank-and-file.
Early reactions suggest that some union members are furious with the newly released agreement and plan to oppose its ratification. The Washington Post's Lauren Kaori Gurley observed that responses from rail workers have been a mixture of "optimism and deep skepticism."
One unnamed rail worker bluntly told Jonah Furman of Labor Notes that "it's a garbage deal."
"Everyone hates it so far," the worker added. "It does nothing for me. I'll vote no. This has been a complete waste of time."
Furman also pointed to social media posts indicating worker opposition to the deal and continued support for a national rail strike:
In a speech outside the White House on Thursday, Biden touted the tentative agreement as a "great deal for both sides" that "will keep our critical rail system working."
Following the president's remarks, a reporter shouted out, "Mr. President, is it premature to celebrate before the unions vote?"
Biden didn't respond.
NBC News reported Thursday that "as part of the agreement reached last night, there will be a 'cooling off' period of several weeks to ensure that if a vote doesn't succeed for any reason, there still would not be an immediate rail shutdown."
During the coronavirus pandemic, major U.S. railroads have raked in record profits on the backs of their employees, who have been working without a contract for three years due to management's refusal to offer even minimal sick leave benefits.
On Wednesday, Republican senators attempted to pass legislation that would have forced rail workers to accept the woefully inadequate proposal put forth by the Presidential Emergency Board. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) blocked the bill.
"Last year, the CEO of CSX made over $20 million in total compensation, while the CEOs of Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern made over $14 million each in total compensation," Sanders said in a speech on the Senate floor. "In other words, within the rail industry corporate profits are soaring and the CEOs are making incredibly large compensation packages."
"I would also add that the parent company of BNSF, one of the largest freight rail companies in America, is Berkshire Hathaway owned by Warren Buffett," the senator continued. "Mr. Buffett is the fourth wealthiest man in America worth nearly $100 billion. During the pandemic, as rail workers risked their lives to keep the economy going, Mr. Buffett became $33 billion richer."
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Biden, Dems see both political, economic wins in rail deal
President Joe Biden, with Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, left, speaks about a tentative railway labor agreement in the Rose Garden of the White House, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON (AP) — While President Joe Biden was quick to hail Thursday’s strike-averting rail agreement as a win for America, it was also a big win for him politically, allowing Democrats to sidestep what could have been an economic debacle before November’s midterm elections.
Pressured to choose between labor and business, the president pushed hard for them to work together.
Prodded by a strategic late-night phone call from Biden — and fortified with Italian takeout — corporate and union negotiators spent 20 hours in intense talks at the Labor Department. They reached wee-hours common ground following an appeal to act in the shared interests of the nation, avoiding a strike that would have shut down railroads across the country.
By keeping the trains running, Biden overcame a major economic threat that doubled as a political risk. His fellow Democrats already face a difficult fight to maintain their narrow hold on power in Congress amid soaring inflation. Biden’s own approval rating, though improving, is still underwater.
The tentative deal, which still requires approval from a dozen unions, would raise members’ pay 24% over five years and improve work schedules and health care in a way that Biden said recognizes “the dignity of their work.” Railroad companies could continue vital operations and avoid a costly shutdown, while being in a better place to recruit and retain employees.
“This agreement allows us to continue to rebuild a better America with an economy that truly works for working people and their families,” Biden said Thursday in celebratory remarks in the Rose Garden. “Today is a win, I mean it sincerely, a win for America.”
Members of one union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 19, voted to reject the tentative agreement, but the IAM agreed to delay any strike by its members to allow more time for possible additional negotiations and for other unions to vote.
White House officials had worried that a rail shutdown, no matter how long, would have perilous economic consequences just as voters make up their minds ahead of the November elections. The settlement, instead, now provides Biden an opportunity to show his administration is delivering for voters, as dire news coverage yields to relief at the cost of only a few canceled Amtrak trains.
Through the talks, Biden managed to avoid the disruption without offending either labor or corporate constituencies. Biden, his advisers and Democrats across the country know the broadest possible coalition is needed to help candidates compete in midterms that have historically favored the party out of political power.
Biden intentionally chose not to dictate the terms of the agreement to either side, said Labor Secretary Marty Walsh.
“The president’s focus was making sure that a contract was done that is satisfactory to everybody — and also prevented a major disruption to our economy,” said Walsh, who moved the last six hours of negotiations into his office.
What initially appeared to be a worst-case scenario ultimately turned into a collective sigh of relief.
“This is the best outcome the Biden administration could have hoped for,” said Jake Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis who has researched the labor movement. He noted that the unions’ requests for sick leave and reliable scheduling aligned with Biden’s own values.
“Unlike in past labor disputes involving the railroads, the administration never had to put real pressure on the unions, but instead could act like an honest broker looking for a compromise between management and union positions,” Rosenfeld said. “That keeps the administration in good graces with labor more broadly.”
Business interests also praised the administration’s efforts. John Drake, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president of transportation policy, said Walsh came to the table with a level of expertise and the trust of stakeholders. That made it easier to finalize a deal.
“The ramifications of a rail strike were so catastrophic that we couldn’t even begin to catalog it,” Drake said. “This is 100% a win.”
Not everyone celebrated. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had proposed a measure on Wednesday that would have forced the unions to accept a contract. He criticized Senate Democrats for blocking his proposal, only to have aides stay silent on Thursday when asked whether the agreement was good for the economy.
Biden has gone out of his way to champion organized labor, often having members of local unions introduce him for speeches across the country.
UAW Local 598′s Ryan Buchalski, introduced Biden on Wednesday at the Detroit auto show as “the most union- and labor-friendly president in American history” and someone who was “kickin’ ass for the working class.” Buchalski harked back to pivotal sitdown strikes by autoworkers in the 1930s.
In the speech that followed, Biden recognized that he wouldn’t be in the White House without the support of unions such as the UAW and the IBEW electrical workers, saying that autoworkers “brung me to the dance.”
About 16% of voters in the 2020 election came from union households, which backed Biden 56% to 42% in the narrowly decided race, according to AP VoteCast.
The president’s approval took a major hit starting last year because of inflation worsened by supply chain disruptions for autos, furniture and other basic goods coming out of the pandemic recession. The problems intensified this year with a baby formula shortage and diminished supplies worldwide of food, oil and natural gas after Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine. Consumer inflation hit a 40-year high in June, only to start drifting down in the two months since.
Biden’s popularity has been regaining ground as gasoline costs have declined. A new poll by AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows his approval improving from a low of 36% in July to 45% in the most recent survey.
Estimates put the daily cost of a railroad shutdown at $2 billion. A stoppage would have left stranded raw materials for factories, fuel and even the chemicals needed to treat wastewater. That would have been a potentially debilitating blow just eight weeks before Election Day, which could determine control of the House, Senate and state governments.
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said the deal will ultimately have an impact on the midterm elections because workers want officials who will stand up for them. The mix of the pandemic, high prices and economic inequality has left many workers at the breaking point and they want a different social contract, she said.
“That’s what this election is all about — rewriting the rules of the economy,” Shuler said.
___
AP Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.
