Saturday, October 30, 2021

Pair of protests show support for

U of Manitoba faculty on verge of 

possible strike

Faculty association has set a bargaining deadline of Oct. 31 and a strike deadline of Nov. 2

Rachel Bergen · CBC News · 
Erik Thompson, the vice-president of the UMFA, says the province's next premier has the power to stop a looming faculty strike by removing the wage-freeze mandate. (SRC)

Supporters of the union that represents professors, instructors, archivists and librarians at Manitoba's largest university gathered outside a Winnipeg hotel Saturday, ahead of the announcement there of the province's next premier.

The protesters said the candidate who is elected as the next leader of Manitoba's Progressive Conservative Party — and becomes the new premier — must stop interfering in the collective bargaining process between the union and the university.

They gathered Saturday afternoon outside the Victoria Inn in west Winnipeg, where the Progressive Conservatives will make their leadership announcement.

The University of Manitoba Faculty Association, which represents 1,170 people, says its members are close to walking off the job because of five years of wage freezes and government interference.

"It's really the government that's keeping the university and us from reaching an agreement that can allow us to recruit and retain excellent professors and maintain a quality of education that's necessary for students in Manitoba," said Erik Thompson, the vice-president of the faculty association.

The association voted earlier this month to authorize strike action, and has set a bargaining deadline of Oct. 31 and a strike deadline of Nov. 2. 

Retention and recruitment of faculty have been long-standing issues at the university, as administration has imposed wage freezes and below inflation-increases in response to government mandates.

U of M faculty association supporters are calling on the winner of the PC leadership race to lift the wage-freeze mandate they say is driving talented people out of province. (Marouane Refak/SRC)

The provincial government introduced a bill to legislate wage freezes for public sector employees in 2017. That legislation was struck down in court, but earlier this month, the government won its appeal of that that ruling.

U of M staff on average make the second-lowest salaries among 15 research-based universities in Canada, according to the association.

Thompson and the faculty association want the next premier — either Shelly Glover or Heather Stefanson, the two candidates for the party's leadership — to focus on running the province and avoid interfering with the university, as they say former premier Brian Pallister did.

"I would certainly hope this time it's an obvious decision for the leader to make to distance themselves from the legacy of Pallister ... and a policy of restraint that's keeping us from investing in some of our most important institutions."

Paws off: Students Supporting UMFA

Saturday's rally followed one on Friday, at which students showed their loyalty to the faculty association by bringing their dogs to the legislative grounds, telling the government to keep its paws off the bargaining process.

Dozens of students, staff, faculty and other supporters, accompanied by their furry companions, gathered outside the legislature with signs bearing messages like "PC interference bites."

One protester dressed as the cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, while others collected dog droppings and placed them below a sign that read, "Government interference in UMFA bargaining is a pile of," and had an arrow pointing down to the collected bags.

U of M students brought their dogs to the Manitoba legislative grounds on Friday to show support for the university's faculty association, which is locked in a labour dispute. Its bargaining deadline is midnight on Sunday. (Prabhjot Lotey/CBC)

The protest was organized by a grassroots interdisciplinary group called Students Supporting UMFA.

In a letter to Advanced Education Minister Wayne Ewasko posted to social media on Friday, the group said it is concerned that "the consecutive threats of academic disruption will greatly limit the value that we will be able to get out of our post-secondary education — and in turn contribute to the work force."

A person dressed as Scooby-Doo accused the Progressive Conservative government of interfering in collective bargaining between the University of Manitoba and the faculty association. (Prabhjot Lotey/CBC)

CBC News has sought a comment from the province, but a response wasn't immediately provided.

A spokesperson for the university said earlier this month the U of M was continuing to meet with the faculty association, approaching the bargaining team "with the view to conclude a collective agreement."

The group Students Supporting UMFA said the collective bargaining process is being 'dogged' by government interference. (Warren Cariou)

With files from Marouane Refak

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Kitchener-Waterloo

Cambridge, Ont., company ordered to pay warehouse workers for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

National Grocers warehouse employs about 900 unionized workers affected by the decision

Paula Duhatschek · CBC News · 
National Grocers Co. Ltd. has to compensate employees for failing to recognize the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a paid holiday, according to an arbitrator's ruling this week. (Paula Duhatschek/CBC)

A company in Cambridge, Ont., will have to compensate employees for failing to recognize the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept. 30 as a paid holiday, in violation of a collective agreement, an arbitrator has ruled.

A Western University law professor says this week's precedent-setting decision, which involved National Grocers Co. Ltd., will clarify how unionized workplaces handle the new national holiday.

"This interpretation — including the National Day [for Truth and Reconciliation] as a paid holiday under at least unionized workplaces — is going to probably be pretty widespread this time next year," said Michael Lynk, who specializes in labour law.  

National Grocers is a division of Loblaw Companies Ltd. and owns a warehouse in Cambridge. The over 900 employees at the warehouse are represented by Local 1006A of the United Food and Commercial Workers. 

The company had told the union in advance of Sept. 30 it wouldn't recognize the day as a paid holiday, as defined by the collective agreement.

The union disagreed and filed a grievance.

Language in collective agreement key

Arbitrator Norm Jesin ultimately sided with the union.

Its "strongest card," Lynk said, was language in the collective agreement that said the company would recognize a list of specific holidays, along with any future legal holidays declared by either the federal or provincial governments.

This is common language in collective agreements across Canada, Lynk said. Taken together, this case — along with a similar one out of London, Ont. — set a precedent that could make it tough for employers to deny unionized workers the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a paid holiday, he said.

The London case involved concrete workers whose collective agreement also stated their employer would recognize a list of holidays along with "any other holiday proclaimed by the provincial or federal government." The arbitrator, Adam Beatty, also sided with the union in a decision issued Sept. 28, 2021.

"An employer wanting to challenge the demand from its own workforce that it honour the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a statutory holiday is going to be up against two very well-written decisions," said Lynk.

"They'll have to prove that their language in their own collective agreements is quite different from the bargain language in these first two cases."

Day will have 'greater impact' as a result

Not only does the decision set a precedent for many unionized workplaces, Lynk said, it also reinforces the whole point of the holiday: to give people time away from their work and regular activities to reflect on and repair relationships between Indigenous people and the rest of Canada.

"If this was just simply another named day … it would really lose a lot of its punch and a lot of its meaning," said Lynk.

"The fact that it's now looking like it's going to be actually recognized through these decisions as a paid holiday, [it means] people then have the opportunity to reflect upon why we're asking for truth and reconciliation. It has a lot greater impact."

The federal government says it established Sept. 30 as the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour "the lost children and survivors of residential schools, their families and communities."

"Public commemoration of the tragic and painful history and ongoing impacts of residential schools is a vital component of the reconciliation process," the government website says.

The Cambridge company will have to compensate employees, although the arbitrator hasn't yet determined a dollar figure. Lynk expects the penalty will be somewhere in the range of $150,000 to $200,000 in total in back pay.

CBC K-W reached out to Loblaw for comment Thursday but the company did not immediately respond. 

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 New Brunswick

Schools close as thousands of New Brunswick public sector workers launch strike

By Michael MacDonald The Canadian Press
Posted October 29, 2021

 Schools closed across New Brunswick as thousands of public sector workers walked off the job early Friday morning in a bid to secure higher wages. Travis Fortnum has more.


New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs had harsh words for the province’s largest union Friday as thousands of public sector workers started a legal strike that forced the closure of all schools with little warning.

“Parents had to scramble this morning to find alternative child-care arrangements at the last minute,” Higgs told a news conference, referring to the walkout by members of the New Brunswick branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

“CUPE’s actions show that their primary concern is to cause disruption. They have not shown an interest in engaging in meaningful negotiations.”

Education Minister Dominic Cardy said schools across the province will shift to online learning on Monday.

Those who went on strike Friday include school bus drivers, custodians, mechanics, some health-care workers in rehabilitation and therapy, educational support staff, and workers in transportation, corrections and the community college system. The strike is also affecting ferry services and provincial jails.



In all, 22,000 union members are in a legal strike position, with the main demand being higher wages. Union president Steve Drost said most of the union’s members haven’t had a proper raise in 15 years and remain among the lowest paid in the country.

“They’ve fallen so far behind the cost of living,” Drost said in an interview Friday. “They are prepared to do whatever is necessary to get a fair wage.”

Public sector workers in New Brunswick prepare to strike

Before contract talks broke off Tuesday night, the union was seeking a 12 per cent raise over four years, with no conditions attached. The government confirmed Thursday it was offering an 8.5 per cent wage increase over a five-year period.

Higgs said the union’s push for higher wages was unrealistic.

“Responding to these demands will put the future of all New Brunswickers at risk,” he said, adding that the province had contingency plans in place to ensure the health-care system – and its COVID-19 service – would not be affected by the labour dispute.

“We must recognize what the future looks like, beyond just this year …. Let’s make it realistic for those who are paying the bills.”
1:57Public sector workers in New Brunswick prepare to strikePublic sector workers in New Brunswick prepare to strike

Higgs has said his government is committed to working with CUPE to reach a fair deal, but he made it clear Friday he’s prepared to order the strikers back to work if necessary.

“If the union refuses to work with us to reach a reasonable agreement … we will take the actions necessary,” he said. “We are looking at options, including legislation, if that is what is takes to keep New Brunswickers safe and healthy …. I hope this will not be necessary.”

Drost said Higgs’s threat was unnecessary.

“We have designation levels to ensure the safety, security and protection of the public,” the union leader said, referring to the province’s essential worker rules. Legislating workers back would be “an abuse of power,” he said.

Earlier this week, the union had warned there would be a walkout, but it was unclear when that would happen. The announcement of the strike early Friday came as a rude shock to some.

Huey Lord, 49, said three of his four children were at home with him in Rothesay, N.B., which was disrupting his routine as a remote worker for a telecommunications firm. His wife, a nurse, had to go in to work Friday.

“Working from home, even if you have yourself squirrelled away, it’s hard for kids to differentiate between you being the guy working, versus you being the dad getting them waffles at any given point of the day,” he said.

“I’m certainly hoping this (walkout) isn’t a prolonged situation. We were just getting back to a regular routine and another disruption wasn’t something we anticipated.”

Teri McMackin, a 31-year-old resident of Petitcodiac, said the walkout meant shifting her five-year-old son out of kindergarten and back into daycare.

“My child isn’t getting a normal kindergarten experience and that’s the disappointing part,” she said. “He’s been in school for two months, he’s been developing habits and now he’s going back to daycare. For him, it’s a bit confusing.”



Still, McMackin said she supports the union’s actions.

“I want my kids to have fun and to be safe (at school), but I also want the people who are cleaning the schools and driving the buses to be paid fair wages.”

Higgs has said the government’s offer corresponds with agreements reached this fall with three other bargaining units. As well, his government has pledged to increase the pay of casual workers by 20 per cent, improve pension coverage and provide an average of $3,200 in retroactive pay.

The union has pointed out that the government announced its fourth consecutive budget surplus earlier this month.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2021.

-With files from Michael Tutton.
© 2021 The Canadian Press



Some medical services cancelled as CUPE strike enters Day 2

Premier won't rule out using Emergency Measures Act to force some workers back to work

Jordan Gill · CBC News · 
More workers have hit the picket line during day 2 of the CUPE strike. (Patrick Lacelle/Radio-Canada)

Premier Blaine Higgs said he is exploring what to do to bring to an end job action undertaken by some health-care workers and hasn't ruled out using the Emergency Measures Act to force them back to work.

Higgs made the comments Saturday at a news conference about the strike by some CUPE workers, which is in its second day.

"I'm not going to overreact, but I am going to react as necessary," said Higgs.

"We will assess the health and safety impact because that would be the impetus to look at the Emergency Measures [Act.] ... but I don't want to use that loosely."

Higgs said the government would evaluate the state of the strike over the next 24 hours.

He said many of the health-care workers work in COVID-19 screening and vaccination roles, but are not classified as essential workers.

But he said they are important to help curb the spread of the virus regardless of how they are labelled.

"These functions are necessary to the continued health and safety of New Brunswickers," said Higgs.

Some clinics cancelled

As more medical staff hit the picket line, at least one COVID-19 vaccination clinic was cancelled. It was scheduled for Fredericton.

CBC News has reached out to the province to see whether any other clinics or testing sites have been closed because of the strike, but hasn't heard back.

In a tweet, Horizon Health said it is "assessing health care services and will notify the public if there is a change."

Vitalite Health has also confirmed that a flu clinic in Haut-Madawaska today was  cancelled because of the strike.

While some services have already been affected, the province wrote in a press release Friday that contingencies are in place, but there are "no additional designated essential workers for the new services established to manage the COVID-19 pandemic."

"Labour disruptions targeting COVID-19 services would result in a significant reduction in the health system's capacity to provide COVID-19 screening for access to hospitals, COVID-19 assessment and PCR testing, laboratory services and vaccination." 

Higgs said he didn't have exact figures on how many vaccination or testing clinics have been closed because of the strike because "it's kind of random at this stage."

He said this will reduce the number of vaccinations, particularly third doses, but the province is looking at ways to give out more vaccines at pharmacies.

Impacts on province

In a statement posted on the province's website, the government announced several other areas where it says the strike will impact government services.

It says the strike will delay laundry services in some hospitals and nursing homes in Fredericton, Moncton and Saint John. There are also ferry delays, the province says.

Starting Monday, all schools in the province will move to online learning until the strike is over.

Higgs stands behind offer

Higgs told reporters Friday that he stands by the offer the province made to the union.

He said the province offered wage increases of 8.5 per cent over five years, while the union wanted 12 per cent over five years.

Premier Blaine Higgs says he stands by the offer the province made to the union. (Government of New Brunswick)

"We have offered a fair package to the employees," Higgs said.

CUPE spokesperson Simon Ouellette said CUPE president Steve Drost has been in contact with Higgs, but that talks were not fruitful.

"It didn't go very far with the premier," said Ouellette. "He seems to have dug in his heels unfortunately.

"He's not interested in offering wages that are above inflation, which is difficult to understand after he's predicting a fifth consecutive surplus, and we're talking about the folks who ... are getting us out of the pandemic."

Some medical staff join picket line

Even more workers have gone on strike during Day 2 of labour action by CUPE locals in New Brunswick and some CUPE hospital workers have also walked off the job.

Bryan Harris, secretary treasurer of CUPE 1252 and an emergency medical dispatcher for Ambulance New Brunswick, confirmed that some workers in that local have walked off the job.

Harris said he can't say how many medical services have been impacted by the strike.

"I'm in Moncton, and there hasn't really been a whole lot of impact here. I've heard a couple of things, but a lot of it's hearsay. There's nothing I would really be able to confirm."

In a letter posted to the union’s Twitter page CUPE thanked New Brunswickers who had shown support for the action that started on Friday. (Roger Cosman/CBC)

Harris said while the local is "100 per cent" in favour of the strike, that doesn't mean workers really want to be out on the picket line.

"We would much rather be doing our jobs and doing what we love to do, which is helping people. But we're just left with no choice," said Harris.

Those workers are in health zones three, four and seven.

Ten union locals are in strike position and some have been hitting the picket line after the province pulled out of negotiations earlier this week.

On Saturday, Ouellette said there are six locals officially on strike.

These include school district employees, educational support workers, New Brunswick Community College and Le Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick workers.

A letter posted to the union's Twitter page thanked New Brunswickers who had shown support for the action that started on Friday.

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Alia Shoaib
John Eastman with Rudy
John Eastman appeared alongside Rudy Giuliani at a pro-Trump rally on January 6. Jim Bourg

  • As the Capitol riot unfolded, Trump attorney John Eastman wrote to Mike Pence's aide to blame the VP's inaction for the riot.

  • An email exchange between Eastman and a Pence aide while the rioters entered the Capitol, The Washington Post says.

  • Pence was sheltering from the mob at the time, some of whom were calling for his execution.

As Vice President Mike Pence hid from the mob entering the Capitol on January 6, Trump attorney John Eastman told Pence's team that they were to blame for the riot, a new report from The Washington Post says.

Eastman made the comments in an email exchange with top Pence aide Greg Jacob, who described the riot as a "siege" while he sheltered with the vice-president in a secure area.

"Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege," Jacob wrote, according to the paper.

"The 'siege' is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened," Eastman replied, referring to Trump's false claims about the 2020 election being fraudulent.

In the days and weeks leading up to the election certification, conservative legal scholar John Eastman took an active role in urging Pence to overturn the election by concocting various legal theories.

The vice president reportedly repeatedly refused, arguing that he had no constitutional authority to do so.

As the Capitol riot unfolded, Trump himself tweeted, "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution."

Several rioters were heard calling for the vice president to be executed.

Mike Pence has since said about Trump, "I don't know if we'll ever see eye to eye on that day."

In interviews with The Post, Eastman confirmed the content of the emails to Jacobs but denied that he was blaming Mike Pence for the violence at the Capitol.

Eastman argued that Trump's team was right to exhaust "every legal means" to challenge the election results, which he claimed were plagued by fraud.

"Are you supposed to not do anything about that?" Eastman told the paper.

On January 6, as unrest began, Jacob emailed Eastman to memorialize his conversation with Eastman from the day before, two people with knowledge of the matter told The Post.

When Pence and his team were escorted out of the Senate and to a safe location, Jacob again emailed Eastman to criticize the legal advice he had given Pence about stopping certification.

An anonymous individual familiar with the emails told The Post that Jacob later apologized for his use of profanity in the email to Eastman, but stood behind his criticisms.

Greg Jacob included the email from Eastman in a draft opinion article that he wrote in January but ultimately chose not to publish, which The Post obtained and published on Friday.

In the article, Jacob said that by sending that email an hour into the assault on the Capitol, Eastman displayed a "shocking lack of awareness of how those practical implications were playing out in real time."

Jacob further accused outside Trump lawyers of spinning "a web of lies and disinformation, to him and to the public" to pressure Pence to contest the results of the election.

Jacob wrote that the legal profession should now consider whether the attorneys involved should be disciplined for "using their credentials to sell a stream of snake oil to the most powerful office in the world, wrapped in the guise of a lawyer's advice."

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Army shelling in Myanmar blamed for setting 160 homes ablaze


In this photo released by the Chin Human Rights Organization, fires burn in the town of Thantlang in Myanmar's northwestern state of Chin, on Friday Oct. 29, 2021. More than 160 buildings in the town in the northwestern Myanmar, including three churches, have been destroyed by fire caused by shelling by government troops, local media and activists reported Saturday. 
(Chin Human Rights Organization via AP)More

GRANT PECK
Sat, October 30, 2021

BANGKOK (AP) — More than 160 buildings in a town in northwestern Myanmar, including at least two churches, have been destroyed by fires caused by shelling by government troops, local media and activists reported Saturday.

The destruction of parts of the town of Thantlang in Chin state appeared to be another escalation in the ongoing struggle between Myanmar’s military-installed government and forces opposed to it. The army seized power in February from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, but has failed to quell the widespread resistance.

A government spokesman denied “nonsense allegations being reported in the country-destroying media,” and blamed insurgents for instigating the fighting and setting the fires.

Human rights groups and U.N. experts recently warned that the government is planning a major offensive in the country’s northwest, including Chin state, along with the regions of Magway and Sagaing. Residents of the rugged area have a reputation for their fierce fighting spirit, and have put up stiff resistance to military rule despite being only lightly armed with single-shot hunting rifles and homemade weapons.

There were no immediate reports of casualties from the fire, which started early Friday and burned through the night, according to reports.

The humanitarian aid agency Save the Children said its offices were in one of the buildings that was "deliberately set ablaze.”

“The destruction caused by this violence is utterly senseless. Not only has it damaged one of our offices, it risks destroying the whole town and the homes of thousands of families and children,” said a statement from the London-headquartered agency.

Thantlang had already been largely abandoned due to previous attacks by government soldiers.

Eighteen other houses and a hotel were destroyed by fire set off by another shelling on Sept. 18, and a Christian pastor was shot when he tried to help put out the blaze.

More than 10,000 residents then fled the town, some staying temporarily in nearby villages and others seeking shelter across the border in Mizoram, India. About 20 staff and children in care of an orphanage on the outskirts of the town are believed to be its only remaining residents.

The Chin Human Rights Organization issued a statement saying the fires in Thantlang had died down by Saturday morning, after as many as 200 houses may have been destroyed.

“Most of the structures on the main street, which has shop stalls and all kinds of businesses, have been destroyed. There is nothing left to salvage,” said the statement, signed by the group’s deputy executive director, Salai Za Uk Ling. “The manner in which the fire was burning indicates that it was not just the incendiary rocket fires but also deliberately torching of houses and structures manually.”

According to the Chinland Defense Force-Thantlang. a local militia fighting the military, a Presbyterian Church and a building housing the Pentecostal Church on the Rock were among the 164 structures it had counted destroyed by fire.

The defense force said the shelling began after fighting broke out when it tried to prevent government soldiers from looting a house in the town.

In a phone interview Saturday night on state television MRTV, government spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun said the events began when members of the PDF — or People's Defense Forces, as the local militia are generally known — attacked security forces, who returned fire. He said the insurgents took cover in houses in the town and set fires as they fled, keeping government reinforcements from putting out the flames by shooting at them.

He added that it was not possible to bring firefighting resources from the state capital, Hakha, because a bridge on the road connecting the towns had been blown up on Oct. 21.

"It’s needless to say who blew up the bridge. These videos can be found on country-destroying media," said Zaw Min Thin, in a reference to video that circulated widely on social video showing several explosive charges being detonated on the span. He described the sequence of events as “a deliberate plot.”

The statement from the Chin Human Rights Organization expressed concern that what happened may represent just the beginning of a major government offensive known as “Operation Anawrahta.” The government has not acknowledged such a plan.

“The high number of troops being sent to Chin state in recent days and weeks has been truly unprecedented. They have brought with them destruction and death,” said the human rights group. It called for urgent action on the part of the U.N. Security Council "to help prevent mass atrocities before they happen.”
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RACE TRAITOR WITH PRIDE
The white student braving racial politics in South Africa

Mpho Lakaje - Johannesburg, South Africa
Sat, October 30, 2021,

Jess Griesel

Teenager Jess Griesel does not seem the usual red beret-wearing member of South Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) - the party intent on upsetting the country's political landscape.

She is a 19-year-old white, Afrikaans-speaking undergraduate who was recently elected to the Student Representative Council (SRC) of Cape Town university on an EFF ticket.

But in a country as racially charged as South Africa, her stance has not gone down well with some people. When Ms Griesel announced her SRC candidacy in September, one social media user described her as a "race traitor".


Twenty-seven years after the end of white-minority rule - when Nelson Mandela was elected as president in South Africa's first democratic election, calling the country "the rainbow nation" - Ms Griesel tells me the backlash shocked her.


Nelson Mandela led the African National Congress (ANC) into government in 1994

"Being called a race traitor was something that I found very interesting and very telling about South Africa today. It insinuates that there's still an 'us' and a 'them' club."

To understand the reaction she has faced - one needs to understand how the EFF has shaken up politics in South Africa.

Formed in 2013, it is led by the fiery Julius Malema, who has modelled himself on Venezuela's late President Hugo Chavez and unapologetically promotes the interests of poor black South Africans.

The party describes itself as "a left-leaning, radical, anti-imperialist and economic emancipation movement, inspired by the broad Marxist-Leninist school of thought."

Members are disruptive, literally and figuratively.

They are often accused of being anti-white. That is because they have repeatedly demanded that white South Africans give up the land taken from black people.

Some EFF supporters occasionally sing the apartheid-era chant "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer", a highly controversial song that a court ruled as hate speech and which is seen as being directed against the white farming community
.
Parliamentary theatrics

What is undoubtedly the case is that "Red Berets" are unhappy with the status quo.

A few years ago, EFF MPs memorably shook the establishment by their antics in parliament, which is dominated by the African National Congress (ANC) - the liberation movement that has governed since the end of apartheid.

"Pay back the money," they repeatedly shouted in unison, while hitting the desks in front of them with their palms.


EFF MPs go to parliament in miners or maids uniforms

The male MPs were dressed in red construction overalls, their female counterparts were in red dresses and white aprons - the signature EFF uniform representing workers.

The nation watched the theatrics on national television as the speaker of parliament tried in vain to calm the situation.

They were demanding that then-President Jacob Zuma, who has been embroiled in corruption allegations for years, give back taxpayers' money for cash spent renovating his private home.

The former head of state has since returned some of that money and denies any wrongdoing, but he is emblematic of the problems the ANC has faced over the last few years.

With local elections to be held on Monday, the governing party faces a trust deficit, especially following the nationwide power outages of recent months and years.

The rolling blackouts are crippling an economy that has already been bludgeoned by the Covid-19 pandemic.

As a result, the rate of joblessness now stands at a record 34.4%.

The main opposition party - the Democratic Alliance (DA), which traditionally has a white support base - wants to capitalise on the ANC's failures.

It has repeatedly claimed it governs the most efficient municipalities in the country.

But empirical evidence paints a different reality: areas dominated by people who are not white, such as the Cape Flats, Nyanga and Gugulethu, in the DA-run Western Cape, are rocked by alarming murder rates, gangsterism and joblessness.

Like Ms Griesel, the EFF hopes voters will want to cause an upset.
'You can't pretend to be blind'

Her success during the university vote - she was one of 15 people elected to the council - proves just how popular she is among her peers.

"I plan to be the eyes, ears and voice of the students and continue to represent them to the best of my ability," says the teenager, who is studying politics, philosophy and economics.

Although born eight years after the fall of apartheid, Ms Griesel says she has always been aware of the legacy of its racist policies.

South Africa is Africa's most industrialised economy - but it is also one of the world's most unequal

"I grew up in a family that, from a very young age, allowed me to question things. When you live in South Africa you see things.

"You can't pretend to be blind to the inequalities and the socio-economic issues that South Africa presents."

She is referring to joblessness and poverty in black communities.

But that is not the only factor that gave birth to her activism: "I went to a high school where there was plenty of blatant racism and inequality.

"So, ever since then, I have adopted the idea that everyone who had a historic part in creating the inequalities of today, has a personal responsibility to take ownership and try to be a part of dismantling the systemic racism and oppression that still exists in South Africa today."



Ms Griesel wonders why those who have trolled her do not understand that her race should not decide how she acts.

"People see Black Lives Matter and they think that means white lives don't matter.

"It's the same insinuation that people see pro-black parties such as the EFF as anti-white parties, and that's not the case."

As a white person Ms Griesel, however, remains very much an outlier.

This does not mean there has not been change.

"In university spaces there are a lot more white EFF students," she says.

But the reality is that the group she is referring to is quite small.

There is still a long way to go before South Africa sheds its skin of identity politics.

Mpho Lakaje is a journalist based in Johannesburg.
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SC Supreme Court ruling keeps Duke Energy from charging customers $180M in coal-ash costs


Coal ash became a front-burner issue in North Carolina after a February 2014 spill of more than 39,000 tons of coal ash from Duke Energy's shuttered Dan River coal plant.

Duke Energy Corp. (NYSE: DUK) will take a pre-tax charge of up to $200 million against third-quarter earnings after the South Carolina Supreme Court agreed its utilities could not charge customers in that state about $180 million in coal-ash cleanup costs.

The S.C. Public Service Commission issued rate case orders in 2019 that rejected about $115 million in Duke Energy Carolinas coal-ash costs and $65 million for Duke Energy Progress. The commission contended those costs were incurred because the N.C. Coal Ash Management Act (CAMA) has stricter environmental requirements than either South Carolina or federal law.

All routine costs for power production on the combined Carolinas system for both utilities are usually divided between the two states on a pro-rata formula based on the number of customers each utility has in each state. The commission held in 2019 that because the additional costs were imposed by North Carolina legislators, they could not be levied against South Carolina.

An opinion written by Acting Chief Justice John Kittredge in which there was a single partial dissent on the five-person court affirmed the commission on all its decisions in the two rate cases.

Finding that CAMA was a rule made to ensure the environmental safety of North Carolina residents and that it only applied to North Carolina coal plants, Kittredge held that the decision of the commission was proper as a matter of law and neither arbitrary nor capricious.

“North Carolina customers benefit — and were intended to benefit — from CAMA's requirements, whereas South Carolina customers do not enjoy a similar, direct benefit,” Kittredge writes in his opinion on Oct. 27. “It is clear from the level of detail set forth in the PSC's orders that it thoroughly and thoughtfully weighed the testimony and evidence prior to reaching its decisions.”

Kittredge also upheld a decision to disallow about $1 million in coal-ash litigation fees and the commission’s ruling disallowing carrying costs for deferred charges involving coal ash.

Duke spokesman Ryan Mosier says the company is still reviewing the order and the accompanying partial dissent by Justice George Few Jr., which contends that Duke should collect the basic coal-ash costs. But he said Duke is disappointed with the ruling.

“We disagreed with the Public Service Commission of South Carolina in these rate cases because we believe the costs in question were appropriate expenses incurred related to the generation of electricity which has served South Carolina customers for decades,” he says. "Our argument before the court and the evidence in the case made that clear.”

It is not clear if there is any route of appeal for Duke, as there would have to be a federal issue involved to bring the case to the federal courts.

The Office of Regulatory Staff, charged with balancing the rights of customers and utilities in the state, welcomed the ruling. ORS director Nanette Edwards says it “represents a victory for Duke Energy’s South Carolina customers.”

“We argued that Duke Energy’s South Carolina ratepayers should not pay for hundreds of millions of dollars in increased environmental clean-up costs attributed to legislation from another state,” she says.

The impact of coal-ash pollution had been a simmering battle for years in the Carolinas. It came to a head in North Carolina in 2014 when a rusted stormwater pipe under a coal-ash pond at Duke Carolina’s shuttered Dan River Steam Station collapsed and spilled up to 39,000 tons of coal ash into the river in Rockingham County.

Duke was charged with felony violations of the federal Clean Water Act in connection with that spill, and eventually agreed to plead to misdemeanor charges in the case. It also paid significant fines imposed by North Carolina environmental regulators for ash storage and groundwater violations at all of its 12 current and former coal plants in the state.

The N.C. General Assembly passed CAMA as a direct response to Duke’s coal-ash issues, which eventually required the company to either excavate and rebury all the ash at the plants in lined landfills or find some “beneficial reuse” for the ash that prevented future pollution.


Duke has agreed to pay $1 billion of the roughly $8.5 billion it expects it will ultimately cost to make its Carolinas coal-ash sites conform to new federal and state regulations.

Duke made a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today that states “as a result of the Court’s opinion, DEC and DEP expect to recognize total estimated pre-tax charges of approximately $100 million to $200 million in the third quarter of 2021 principally related to coal ash remediation at retired coal sites.”

It also says any future earnings impacts from the ruling “are not considered material” to the company’s overall finances.

The court ruling notes that the South Carolina Public Service Commission allowed Duke utilities to collect about $707 million in coal-ash cleanup costs from customers in that state. That was only about half of what the two utilities requested. But most of the costs were disallowed for reasons unrelated to the difference between N.C. regulatory requirements in CAMA and the S.C. and federal environmental requirements.

It is possible the ruling could mean that Duke would be barred from recovering some future costs for cleaning up the coal-ash sites in South Carolina. The court notes that the Edwards’ regulatory staff had successfully argued that regulators had in the past required Duke to allocate special costs to the state that caused those costs to be charged just to customers in the state that imposed the costs. Thus, South Carolina customers have been spared paying costs incurred by North Carolinas’ Clean Smokestacks Act in 2002 and N.C. Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard in 2007. North Carolina customers are not charged costs imposed on Duke by the S.C. Distributed Energy Resources Act, passed in 2014.

With that established, the issue of increased coal-ash costs because of CAMA could come up in future rate cases. Edwards says the new ruling will be cited in future rate cases in South Carolina. But she notes it is possible that Duke would not be barred from recovering future costs if federal coal regulations or South Carolina's own statutes change in ways that bring those costs up to the charges imposed by CAMA.

Duke did not lose on all counts in the rate case or Supreme Court ruling. The S.C. commission allowed Duke to collect $125 million spent on preliminary work on the never-built Lee Nuclear Station. That was the calculation of South Carolina’s share of the $558 million total Duke Carolinas had spent on the project before deciding against construction.

The South Carolina Energy Users Committee had argued in the case before the Supreme Court that Duke should have been barred from collecting that money. But the court affirmed the commission’s decision to allow that recovery.


APPALACHAN VOICES


By John Downey – Senior Staff Writer, Charlotte Business Journal
a day ago
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5-4 IS A CLOSE RULING
Comedian had right to mock disabled teen singer, Canadian court rules

Leyland Cecco in Toronto
Fri, October 29, 2021, 

Photograph: Plinio Lepri/AP

Canada’s supreme court has ruled that a comedian had the right to mock a disabled teen singer – including joking that he wanted to drown him – in a case that raised questions over satire and the need to protect vulnerable children.

The 5-4 decision from the country’s top court ended a legal battle of more than a decade that had probed the limits of artistic freedom.

Jéremy Gabriel, who is now 24, was born with head, facial, ear and skull deformities. He gained fame as a singer, performing for Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 and singing Canada’s national anthem at a hockey game five years later.

Beginning in 2010, comedian Mike Ward mocked Gabriel’s physical appearance and his singing. Ward said people were only nice to the singer because they believed he might die. He also joked to audiences about trying to kill Gabriel by drowning him. Gabriel, at the time a teenager, was bullied at school and became suicidal.

In 2016, Ward was ordered by Quebec’s human rights tribunal to pay C$35,000 (US$28,000) to Gabriel, as well as C$7,000 to his mother, Sylvie Gabriel. The tribunal concluded that Ward had damaged their dignity and honour and engaged in discrimination.

In 2019, the Quebec court of appeal upheld the discrimination finding, saying artistic freedom has limits, but overturned the award to Ms Gabriel.

On Friday, a majority in the supreme court justices wrote that while Ward “said some nasty and disgraceful things” the case had did not meet the high level set by Quebec law for proving discrimination – and that Ward’s commentary “did not incite the audience to treat Mr Gabriel as subhuman” when he performed.

“A discrimination claim must be limited to speech that has a truly discriminatory effect,” they wrote.

In their ruling, however, the majority left open the possibility that a discrimination claim could be brought where expression by an performer incites others to “vilify them or to detest their humanity” on the basis of a disability or other prohibited ground of discrimination.

The court’s minority, saw the case reflected the need to protect vulnerable people from humiliation.

“We would never tolerate humiliating or dehumanizing conduct towards children with disabilities; there is no principled basis for tolerating words that have the same abusive effect. Wrapping such discriminatory conduct in the protective cloak of speech does not make it any less intolerable when that speech amounts to willful emotional abuse of a disabled child,” the judges wrote.

Speaking to reporters after the ruling, Gabriel said he worried about the message the court’s decision sent to comedians about using children as comedic props.

“I would want to tell [Ward] if today I weren’t here to talk about it because I would have [taken] my own life, how would he feel? How would he react? Would he talk about freedom of speech? That’s a question I would have asked him,” said Gabriel. “What is the limit of treating children? I am a little worried for the future about that.”
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