Boxed in by poachers, African elephants only use fraction of potential range

Elephants alter their movement patterns and feeding times to avoid poachers, today occupying just 17% of their potential range in Africa as a result of threats posed by humans. Photo by David Giffin

April 1 (UPI) -- African elephants have habitat to spare, but new research suggests their range has been constrained by 2,000 years of human pressure.

Despite human development and population growth across Africa, a new survey of the African elephant's potential range -- published Thursday in the journal Current Biology -- suggests there is still plenty of suitable habitat.

Humans have been targeting elephants for their tusks for thousands of years, but the ivory trade began rapidly expanding during late 17th century.

The growth of the ivory trade, as European colonizers arrived on the continent, dramatically shrank the size of the African elephant population, as well as the species' geographic range.

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Today, the continent's elephants remain hemmed in by poachers, unable to utilize the full scope of Africa's available habitat.

According to the new study, roughly 62% of Africa, or 7 million square miles, is suitable for elephant habitation. Much of the potential habitat is only sparsely populated by humans.

For the study, scientists used GPS collars to track where elephants roam today.

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Researchers analyzed the habitat features present across their current range, including vegetation type, tree cover, surface temperature, precipitation, slope and human influence.

Finally, scientists extrapolated the data to determine where else the megafauna could live but don't.

Researchers found large swaths of unused habitat in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where not long ago massive forests hosted hundreds of thousands of elephants.

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Today, the two nation's are home to just 5,000 to 10,000 elephants.

The authors of the new study also pinpointed places where elephants are unable to survive.

"The major no-go areas include the Sahara, Danakil and Kalahari deserts, as well as urban centers and high mountaintops," study co-author Iain Douglas-Hamilton said in a press release.

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"That gives us an idea of what the former range of elephants might have been. However, there's a dearth of information about the status of African elephants between the end of Roman times and the arrival of the first European colonizers," said Douglas-Hamilton, a zoologist at Oxford University and founder of Save the Elephants.

Historical evidence suggests elephants once occupied nearly every part of the African continent.

But through the centuries, these highly intelligent animals have learned to avoid humans and the threats they pose, concentrating themselves into a drastically reduced range.

"Elephants are quick to recognize danger, and find safer areas," said Douglas-Hamilton.

Previous studies have shown elephants alter their migration and feeding patterns to avoid poachers.

The latest findings are a reminder of what the African elephant's range and population size might look like if the threat of poaching was eliminated, researchers said.

"Elephants are generalist mega-herbivores that can occupy fringe habitats," Wall concludes. "Their range may have shrunk, but if we gave them the chance they could spread back to parts of their former habitat."


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White House: U.S. wind power plan would avert 80M tons of carbon emissions


A wind turbine is seen at a farm near Somerset, Pa. The administration said Monday that reaching the new goals would create more than $12 billion in annual investments and create more than 77,000 clean energy jobs. File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo

March 29 (UPI) -- The Biden administration on Monday launched an ambitious program to greatly boost the development of offshore wind power in the United States, initially focusing on the Eastern Seaboard.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, national climate adviser Gina McCarthy, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and other administration officials said the plan calls for deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power across the country by 2030.

The United States currently has only 28 megawatts of capacity and one functioning offshore wind farm.

Reaching the goals will create more than $12 billion annually in capital investment along both U.S. coasts and create tens of thousands of jobs in the industry and in spin-off areas, the officials estimate.

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Additionally, the plan says the efforts will prevent nearly 80 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, create close to 50,000 direct jobs in the offshore wind sector and 33,000 indirect jobs.

"President Biden has declared very clearly that when he thinks of climate, he thinks of people and jobs -- good-paying, union jobs," McCarthy said in a statement issued by the White House.

"This offshore wind goal is proof of our commitment to using American ingenuity and might to invest in our nation, advance our own energy security, and combat the climate crisis," added Granholm.

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Under the measures announced Monday, the Interior Department unveiled a new priority wind energy leasing area in the New York Bight -- a swath of shallow waters in the Atlantic Ocean between Long Island and the New Jersey coast -- which a recent study showed could support up to 25,000 development and construction early in the 2030s.

The administration also said it has launched the environmental permitting process for the proposed 1,110-megawatt Ocean Wind offshore farm -- which, if built, would be located 15 miles off the southern New Jersey shore and provide enough power for 500,000 homes in the state.

The Interior Department earlier this year began environmental reviews for the proposed Vineyard Wind farm in Massachusetts and the South Fork in Rhode Island, with up to ten additional projects to be considered later in 2021.

Okla. asks court to reconsider overturned murder conviction in tribal dispute

April 1 (UPI) -- Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter has asked a state appeals court to reconsider its ruling overturning the conviction of a death row inmate on tribal jurisdiction grounds.

Hunter filed a motion Thursday asking the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to rehear Shaun Bosse's case.

He was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder in 2010 for the deaths of his girlfriend, Katrina Griffin, and her two children, Christian Griffin and Chasity. The conviction was overturned earlier this year after the Supreme Court ruled that state courts don't have jurisdiction over crimes that happen on tribal land and involve tribal members.

Griffin and her children were members of the Chickasaw Nation and their slayings happened on tribal lands.

The Supreme Court decision doesn't mean Bosse will walk free, though. Rather, it means he must be prosecuted under the Major Crimes Act. Only federal prosecutors can bring a case in crimes committed by or against American Indians on reservation land.

Hunter said the case, though, should be reheard in state court because Boose isn't an American Indian.

"This is about fighting to ensure justice for victims of not only the brutal crimes committed by Shaun Bosse, but also those being revictimized by fallout from the McGirt ruling," he said. "We continue to believe the state has jurisdiction over non-Native Americans on tribal reservation lands, even if the federal government also has jurisdiction. Exclusive federal jurisdiction only applies to Native Americans."

The Chickasaw Nation filed a brief Wednesday saying it supports the continued prosecution of Bosse for the slayings.

"We grieve for the family of Mr. Bosse's victims," the tribe said in a document shared with KTEN-TV in Ada, Okla. "At the same time, our unequivocal view is that the court's opinion is correct.

"What is more, we are dedicated to the fulfillment of our rights and responsibilities as a sovereign tribal government with jurisdiction over the Chickasaw Reservation in accord with federal law."

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Haaland establishes missing, murdered Native American women unit


Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the new Missing & Murdered Unit will offer federal resources to investigate cases of missing and slain American Indian and Native Alaskan women. File Photo by Leigh Vogel/UPI | License Photo

April 1 (UPI) -- Newly sworn-in Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Thursday she's establishing a new unit to address missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Haaland, who is the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, said the new Missing & Murdered Unit within the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services will provide federal assistance to the investigation of such cases.

The department said the crimes often go unsolved due to a lack of resources and funding in local jurisdictions.

"Violence against Indigenous peoples is a crisis that has been underfunded for decades," Haaland said.

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"Far too often, murders and missing persons cases in Indian country go unsolved and unaddressed, leaving families and communities devastated. The new MMU unit will provide the resources and leadership to prioritize these cases and coordinate resources to hold people accountable, keep our communities safe, and provide closure for families."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, homicide is the third-leading cause of death for American and Alaska Native girls and women aged 10 to 24. Some 1,500 American Indians and Alaska Natives are on the National Crime Information Center's list of missing persons in the country, and about 2,700 murders and homicides have been reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting Program.

The Interior Department said the new unit will build on a task force established in 2019 by former President Donald Trump to address the issue.

The MMU will work with tribal authorities, the BIA and FBI on active missing and homicide investigations. The unit also will work with the Justice Department's National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, the FBI's Forensic Laboratory and Behavioral Analysis Units, the U.S. Marshals Missing Child Unit, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"Whether it's a missing family member or a homicide investigation, these efforts will be all hands-on deck," Haaland said. "We are fully committed to assisting Tribal communities with these investigations, and the MMU will leverage every resource available to be a force-multiplier in preventing these cases from becoming cold case investigations."

Celebrities, activists sign open letter supporting transgender women

March 31 (UPI) -- Hundreds of celebrities and activists are showing their support for transgender women and girls.

Singers Selena Gomez and Janelle Monáe, actresses Laverne Cox and Gabrielle Union, activist Gloria Steinem and over 460 others signed an open letter from GLAAD released Wednesday on Transgender Day of Visibility.

The letter declares "that transgender women are women and that transgender girls are girls" and denounces anti-transgender attacks, rhetoric and legislation.

"All of us deserve the same access, freedoms, and opportunities. We deserve equal access to education, employment, healthcare, housing, recreation, and public accommodations. And we must respect each person's right to bodily autonomy and self-determination," the statement reads.

The letter also calls out trans-exclusionary feminists for "promoting damaging and violent ideas about trans people for years."

"True feminists do not wish to limit any woman's identity or freedom to fully be herself," the letter reads.

The letter also addresses the "ongoing epidemic of murder and violence" specifically targeting Black and Latinx trans women. More than 44 trans people were killed in 2020, while at least nine deaths have been reported this year.

"We all must fight against the unnecessary and unethical barriers placed on trans women and girls by lawmakers and those who co-opt the feminist label in the name of division and hatred. Our feminist must be unapologetically expansive so that we can leave the door open for future generations," the letter concludes.

Other notable signatories include Regina King, Cynthia Erivo, Brie Larson, Wanda Sykes, Lena Waithe, Sarah Paulson, America Ferrera, Halle Berry, Melissa Etheridge and Lena Dunham.

Earlier this week, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem issued executive order banning transgender girls and women athletes from competing in female sports at public schools.

In addition, Arkansas passed a bill banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

Though House has passed Equality Act, anti-LGBT efforts persist in U.S.

Activists hold rainbow flags during the People's March for Roxanne Moore in Times Square along New York City's Seventh Avenue on October 2, 2020. Moore, a 29-year-old Black transgender woman from Reading, Pa., was shot 16 times by police officers. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo


WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- While the House passed the Equality Act that would expand the federal Civil Rights Act to protect members of the LGBT community last month, Democrats' Senate majority means it's unlikely to reach President Joe Biden's desk.

Meanwhile, legislative proposals to limit lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights -- especially transgender rights -- are being debated in at least 30 states like Alabama, Texas and Montana. In Mississippi, a bill forbidding transgender athletes from joining women and girls' sports teams was signed by Gov. Tate Reeves last week.

"This is telling trans kids that they don't belong, that they're not welcome in our society, we don't want them to play sports, we don't want them to be a part of our community at all," said Jarvis Dortch, executive director for the Mississippi American Civil Liberties Union.

Such bills, he said, send a message of ostracization to transgender students.

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Daye Pope, organizing director for Trans United, said Senate approval of the Equality Act is important because it would block passage of the state-level bills.

"It would say and enforce that you can't actually discriminate against trans youth in school. And in sports, you can't actually discriminate against queer and trans people in public restrooms and in restaurants," she said.

While laws such as Mississippi's sports ban bill also go directly against Biden's Jan. 20 executive order barring gender identity-based discrimination, it does not have the force of law that only Congress can enact.

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"What's really important for LGBT people is sex discrimination," said Luis Vasquez of the UCLA School of Law. "The problem is that the Civil Rights Act explicitly says sex, but it doesn't explicitly say sexual orientation or gender identity."

The Equality Act would include those categories.

With Biden's executive orders, however, federal agencies under the president's control are directed to read legislation that mentions "sex discrimination," such as the Civil Rights Act, to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

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"What the Equality Act is trying to do is take all of that guesswork out, take all of the inconsistencies out so that now whenever an LGBT person feels that they've been discriminated against in violation of those laws, they'll be able to make their case and point to language that will explicitly say, 'Title Seven says that you can't discriminate in employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,'" Vasquez said.

Gallup found recently that more than 5% of Americans identify as a member of the LGBT community, with most identifying as bisexual. Also, one in six Generation Z adults consider themselves LGBT.

As people grow more comfortable sharing their sexuality and gender identity, hate crimes against LGBT members are increasing.

Demonstrators protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court as justices hear oral arguments in three cases on LGBT discrimination protections, in Washington, D.C., on October 8, 2019. The cases involve accusations of discrimination based on sexual orientation and one on whether discrimination laws apply to transgender workers. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI

The Human Rights Campaign, a leading rights group, reported that at least 44 transgender or gender non-conforming people were killed by violence in 2020, mostly Black and Latinx transgender women.

Pope says it's "a really scary time" because of so many state bills that target trans and non-binary youth.

"Being a kid and being a teen is hard enough," she said. "You're trying to find yourself, you're trying to make sense of school and peer groups and your home life, and trans youth are already more likely to attempt suicide or self-harm."

According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, transgender youth are twice as likely as their cisgender peers to "seriously consider suicide." This pattern follows into adulthood, where transgender adults are nearly four times as likely as to have a mental health condition than cisgender adults.

Gaining Senate approval of the House-passed Equality Act would provide legal protections against intolerance toward the LGBT community. But Senate Democrats need to keep all 50 of their voters on board and get 10 Republicans to join them in preventing a filibuster that would block consideration of the proposal.

Since Biden took office, Pope said, a majority of the president's time has been spent "undoing the damage" of former President Donald Trump -- including repealing the transgender military ban, initiating legislation to stop housing discrimination and promising more to come.

"Under the new administration, we want to be bold, we want to be proactive and aggressive about ... equal rights for queer and trans people in this country," Pope said.

Pew Research Center: Hispanic, Black workers still underrepresented in STEM

April 1 (UPI) -- Hispanic and Black workers continue to be underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, workforce and education trends do not appear to show an increase, according to a Pew Research Center study released Thursday.

The study found that Hispanic workers make up just 8% of all STEM workers in the United States despite accounting for 17% of total workers in the country, while Black workers comprise 11% of all employed adults and 9% of STEM workers, including 5% in engineering and architecture.

The share of Hispanic workers in STEM has increased 1% since 2016, in line with their growth in the overall workforce, while there has been no change in the share of Black workers in STEM jobs since 2016.

Students from the two groups are also underrepresented among STEM graduates as Black students earn 7% of STEM bachelor's degrees, below the 10% of all bachelor's degrees, while Hispanic students represent 12% of STEM graduates versus 15% of all college graduates.
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Conversely, White and Asian workers are overrepresented in the field. The study found that White workers constitute 67% of workers in STEM jobs, surpassing their 63% share of total employment, while Asian workers hold 13% of STEM jobs compared to 6% of employment across all occupations.

Women represent 50% of people employed in STEM, compared to 47% of the overall workfoce but representation varies across employment clusters. Women make up 74% of those in health-related employment, 48% in life science, 47% in math and 40% in physical science but just 25% of computer occupations and 15% of engineering.

The study also found that pay disparities based on race and gender exist within the field as women in STEM earn an average of $66,200 compared to $90,000 earned by men.

Asian men are the top earners in the field with median earnings of $103,300, followed by White men and Asian women at about $90,000, Hispanic men at $73,000 as well as Black men and White women both above $60,000, while Black women and Hispanic women earn $57,000.

The report was conducted by analyzing federal data using gender, racial and ethnic diversity among those employed in and earning degrees in STEM fields.

Lebanon on brink of hunger crisis; 

meat is a 'luxury'

A customer walks past an sparsely stocked shelf in a supermarket in Beirut, 

Lebanon, on March 24. Photo by Wael Hamzeh/EPA-EFE


BEIRUT, Lebanon, April 1 (UPI) -- Lebanon's deteriorating economy, an expected reduction of subsidies and political inertia have left the population at risk of acute hunger within months, experts told UPI, warning of a potential humanitarian crisis requiring immediate international intervention.

Food insecurity has become a major source of concern in Lebanon, which has been added to a list of the world's 20 worst hunger hot spots in need of urgent assistance.

Last week, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program warned that acute hunger is due to rise steeply in most world regions, including the Middle Eastern countries of Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, which are seriously affected by a rapid currency depreciation and skyrocketing inflation.

"Lebanon is not as bad as Syria, Yemen or Sudan, but the main reason that Lebanon has been included was because of the rapid deterioration of its food security situation, rapid increase in poverty and unemployment, in addition to the devaluation of the Lebanese pound," Maurice Saade, FAO's representative in Lebanon, told UPI.

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With Lebanon importing 80 percent of its food and the devaluation of the national currency, food prices have increased accordingly, Saade said. "So we have rapid decline in purchase power and rapid increase in inflation."

But the most alarming factor is Lebanon's inability to maintain food subsidies for much longer due to the dwindling foreign currency reserves at the Central Bank, which dropped from $30 billion a year ago to $16 billion.

Caretaker Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni told Bloomberg earlier this month that only $1 billion to $1.5 billion can be still used to fund subsidies, enough for two to three months.

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Saade warned that if food subsidies are removed, "that will cause deterioration in food security in the country."

Price of bread

The subsidized food basket that included 300 items -- meat, poultry, oil products, milk and vegetables, but also branded coffees, cashew, coffee creamer, frozen strawberries and saffron -- has been reduced to about 42 items. Many of the subsidized foods, medicines and fuel were smuggled abroad, ending up in Syria, Turkey, Kuwait, Egypt, Sweden, Nigeria and Ivory Coast.

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Even with subsidies on wheat, medicine and fuel for electricity generation remaining for now, the price of a bundle of bread has increased three times in recent few months, reaching 3,000 LL last week.

"Bread is the food of the poor...If the government decides to remove completely the subsidy on bread, it could go up to 10,000 LL and very few poor people can afford that," Saade said.

Manar, a 36-year-old divorcee with three children ages 5 years to 17 months, has been living on donations since her ex-husband lost his job as a salesman at a clothing store.

Every month, she receives a food box from Nusaned, a non-governmental group. Her family and neighbors also help her buy some fruits and vegetables while the pharmacist in the Beirut neighborhood of Burj Abi Haidar where she lives helps secure her medications and treat her children when sick.

"I am able to feed my children, but they haven't drunk milk for five months," Manar, who asked not to disclose her family name, told UPI. "Meat and chicken have become luxuries...only the politicians can afford them."

Sabah Hazzouri is luckier. She and her five-member family occasionally eat meat, chicken or fish shared by a neighbor. With two of her sons jobless, the family cannot survive on the monthly salary of her third son, a police officer with a wife and 2-year-old son.

"He earns 800,000 Lebanese pounds [$62 at the black market rate of 13,000 LL for 1 U.S. dollar], but he has to pay half of it every month for his house loan," Hazzouri told UPI. "It is getting very hard every day."

Securing sustainable support for the growing number of poor has prompted a local NGO to be more creative. "Cedars for Care" established the Habbat El Barak (black cumin) chicken farm in eastern Lebanon to provide families in need with healthy food through sustainable produce.

"We are distributing for free around 350 boxes, each containing 30 eggs, to needy families per month," Iffat Idriss of Cedars for Care told UPI. "We have to be creative and think long term."

As the subsidy program that was put in place last year proved to benefiting the rich more than those in need, the World Bank stepped in with a $246 million loan to provide emergency cash assistance for one year and access to social services to 786,000 poor and vulnerable Lebanese. Ration cards are being considered to prevent corruption, manipulation and mishandling.

"That program would help a lot...But the problem is it excludes the Syrian and Palestinian refugees," Saade said.

'All ages suffering'

Like most of the Lebanese, the estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees and 200,000 Palestinian refugees are getting poorer due to the country's worsening economy.

"Food needs are unfolding dramatically. People from all ages are suffering," said Bujar Hoxha, country director of CARE International in Lebanon, which supported 1 million people in the country last year.

With more than 60% of the Lebanese living below poverty line, the Lebanese pound losing 90% of its value and inflation soaring above 130 percent, "the state of Syrian and Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon is even worse," Hoxha told UPI.

He warned that Lebanon is in "no-war situation" but is facing a humanitarian crisis that requires immediate attention.

The country could reach acute hunger within three months.

"It is weeks for certain families...a matter of weeks for some communities and months for other communities. But they are all moving toward acute food problems," Hoxha said.

Anti-Union Amazon Workers Explain How Mandatory Anti-Union Meetings Turned Them Against RWDSU

OF COURSE IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THIS IS ILLEGAL UNDER LABOR/ LABOUR LAW

36-year old anti-union worker Daniel Tavaris displays anti-union flair that the company encourages workers to wear (Peter J. Callahan/Payday Report)

BY: MIKE ELK MARCH 29, 2021

(Note: None of these anti-union workers that we interviewed provided by Amazon, but were meet randomly in the parking lot of the warehouse, independent of the company anti-union PR efforts. You can watch all the interviews with anti-union workers here)

While captive audience meetings are often depicted as being hostile situations, Jeremiah Okai said he found the meetings were “cool.” 

“They were cool, they were just telling us what the union did,” said 19-year-old Okai. 

It was the presentation about union dues that helped persuade him to vote against the Amazon union in Alabama.

“[The union] is going to take money away from me,” Okai said. “I don’t want no money taken away from me.”

A COMMON MYTH UNION DUES ARE THE BEST TAX CREDIT A WORKER CAN GET IT A 100% TAX DEDUCTION

Ashley Beringer, 32, says she found the mandatory anti-union meetings to be a bad thing.

“It’s just them, I guess, just trying to protect their, you know, their businesses,” said Beringer. 

She said she was on the fence about the union, but the mandatory anti-union meetings helped persuade her to vote against the union. 

“I guess I’m more so against it because I don’t know much about [unions], I’ve never had to deal with unions until now,” she said. 

She said she found the captive audience meetings informative and ultimately decided to vote against the union as a result. 

“I don’t want someone coming in and changing everything, especially if certain things are, you know, are good in the situation,” said Beringer. “And if [the union] comes in, I don’t know how it’s gonna be.” 

Ken Worth, 59, said that the mandatory anti-union meetings helped him reflect on his own negative experiences with unions in the past. 

“I’ve been a member of unions in the past and was actually a member of this same union,” Worth said. “I don’t really feel like they represented us well. I think that, you know, unions could do a whole lot more.” 

(Watch interviews with 4 anti-union workers here)

Across workers, especially young workers who have never dealt with a union, many are finding little reason to suddenly shift things up and bring a union into what is a good paying job. 

Many of the workers that voted against the union like 36-year-old Daniel Tavaris said that he feared a union could change what is a good situation for them where they make roughly $16 an hour — nearly $10-an-hour above the minimum wage. 

Walking by with a lanyard covered with “Vote No” pins, Tavaris said that Amazon asked him to wear the pins at work to show their opposition to the union. 

“I got this from Amazon, they’ve been giving them out,” said Tavaris. “Everybody has been wearing them.” 

In the end, Tavaris sees little need for a union. 

“I don’t really have any problem,” he said of his decision against the union at Amazon. 

Echoing the sentiments of many Amazon workers who voted against the union, Okai said, “Amazon didn’t give me no reason to support a union, I can support myself.”

Payday Report – Covering Labor in News Deserts

Mike Elk

Mike Elk is a yinzer labor reporter who covered the drug war in Brasil and spent years covering union organizing in the South for The Guardian. In 2016, he used his $70,000 NLRB settlement from being fired in the union drive at Politico to start the crowd-funded Payday Report. The son of United Electrical Workers (UE) Director of Organization Gene Elk, he lives in his hometown of Pittsburgh. Email: Melk@PaydayReport.com

INEQUALITY
The US Labor Board Isn’t Strong Enough To Protect Workers From Amazon. Some Union Organizers Want To Go Around It.

Rob Dobi for BuzzFeed News

In the lead-up to the biggest union vote in Amazon’s history, the company has already shown it can break the rules and get away with it.

Caroline O'DonovanBuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on March 30, 2021

Amazon repeatedly violated the rights of employees who pushed for health and safety improvements during the coronavirus pandemic, according to the nation’s top labor regulator. But a year after the global health crisis began, the company has so far faced minimal consequences.

As COVID-19 spread in the spring of 2020, Amazon employees in New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Arizona, Pennsylvania, California, New Jersey, and Michigan pressured the company to slow down production and ramp up precautions by organizing petitions, press conferences, and even walkouts. Some of those employees subsequently faced disciplinary action at work. A few were even fired, according to charges they later made with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency tasked with adjudicating complaints about unfair labor practices and defending workers who want to unionize.

In going up against their enormous and powerful employer, these Amazon workers turned to the NLRB for protection as they exercised their legal rights to discuss problems at work and act collectively to fix them. But despite serving as the government’s primary counterweight against powerful companies restricting their workers’ labor rights, the NLRB is notoriously toothless, and in its current form, has little power to penalize employers — especially those the size of Amazon, one of the nation’s largest private employers after hiring more than 400,000 people last year.


Even when the NLRB sides with workers, the consequences, or so-called remedies, it’s able to mete out — typically small monetary settlements, back pay, or posting a flyer — are so minor that they do little to deter employers from violating the rules again. If Amazon workers do persevere despite retaliation and termination and successfully form a union, it’s only one shop at a time out of hundreds.

“From Amazon’s point of view, the NLRB is not a problem,” UC Santa Barbara labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein told BuzzFeed News. “As a remedy for employer violations of the law, it’s very weak. It can have a public role as part of a larger campaign, you can get a judgment against the company, but it’s weak.”

This week, all eyes are on Bessemer, Alabama, where Amazon workers await the results of an NLRB-facilitated union election widely believed to be the most pivotal in the company’s history. Indeed, even a victory at a single facility could activate Amazon employees around the country to follow suit.


But recent events in Alabama suggest the consequences Amazon has faced so far have not discouraged the company from taking a hard line against unions, and under current labor law, the government has little power to intervene. That’s why, even if the union wins in Alabama and workers embark on the long and difficult journey to winning a contract, some labor leaders question whether the best path to attaining more benefits for workers even goes through the federal agency in charge of the matter.

Over the last few months, the NLRB has found merit with many of the high-profile charges brought by Amazon employees last spring, including Courtney Bowden’s claim that she was illegally terminated, Jonathan Bailey’s that he was illegally interrogated, Christian Smalls’ that he was illegally fired, and the claims by a group of workers in Chicago that they were illegally disciplined and intimidated following a series of walkouts.

Of those four cases, Amazon has so far paid one individual an undisclosed settlement and agreed to post a flyer in a Queens warehouse promising not to interfere with employees’ rights to discuss workplace conditions, take collective action, and organize a union. Workers in Chicago who were disciplined for going on strike are currently negotiating the terms of a nonfinancial settlement with Amazon; Smalls’ hearing regarding his termination by Amazon has been delayed until May. Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, the Seattle-based tech workers and former leaders of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice who were fired last April following their efforts to advocate on behalf of warehouse workers, are awaiting a response to their charge with the board, which they filed last October.


Al Seib / Getty Images
Union workers rally in support of unionizing Alabama Amazon workers on March 22 in downtown Los Angeles.

“Even when you win,” Lichtenstein said, “winning doesn’t mean that much.”

Bowden reached a private settlement with Amazon and withdrew her charge, meaning there are no official consequences for Amazon. “I felt like they did the best they could with everything,” she said of the NLRB in an interview with BuzzFeed News. “But I know it didn't hurt Amazon at all.”

Amazon declined to comment on pending litigation. Regarding its settlement with Bowden, a spokesperson said, “While we disagree with allegations made in the case, we are pleased to put this matter behind us. The health and safety of our employees is our top priority and we are proud to provide inclusive environments, where employees can excel without fear of retaliation, intimidation or harassment.”

The company denied allegations made about its anti-union behavior, saying, “Our employees know the truth—starting wages of $15 or more, health care from day one, and a safe and inclusive workplace.”


But Amazon’s campaign against the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union’s Bessemer organizing drive has been so aggressive that President Joe Biden made a statement defending the Amazon workers’ “free and fair choice to join a union,” a move by a sitting president “almost unprecedented in American history,” according to the Washington Post.

Newly appointed NLRB press secretary Kayla Blado, who has been tasked with improving the agency’s outreach, told BuzzFeed News, “Working people should understand their rights and be able to act collectively without any coercion or intimidation from any parties.”

But statistics reflect the extent of the challenge: The number of NLRB elections held in the US has steadily declined over the last five years, with the total number in 2020 — 827 — falling to a low not seen since the National Labor Relations Act was passed in the 1930s, according to pro-union researcher Eric Dirnbach.

"Even when you win, winning doesn’t mean that much."


The feeble state of US labor laws combined with the monolith of opposition presented by Amazon every step of the way has compelled some labor leaders to experiment with organizing strategies that don’t rely on the NLRB. Unsure whether the board is capable of protecting workers and ushering them toward a union, organizers everywhere from college campuses to Google’s campus have pursued alternatives such as minority unionism, where affiliation is declared by a small group of employees without a majority vote. Some Amazon employees say they don’t need a traditional affiliation at all to consider themselves a union.

Some of these alternative methods make it difficult if not impossible for members to collectively bargain with management on behalf of all employees, preventing them from securing a contract that applies to everyone.

But in a country where corporate profits have far outpaced wage growth and government regulators have few tools to punish employers who violate labor laws, workers are starting to decide that they need to experiment with more aggressive tactics and not place their hopes on a federal agency seemingly overmatched in its duties.

Bowden said she felt validated that the NLRB found merit in her allegations against Amazon. But the final outcome of her case made one thing clear: “I don’t think they’re as strong as Amazon.”


Rachel Wisniewski for Buzzfeed News
Courtney Bowden at her home in Philadelphia


When Courtney Bowden applied to Amazon in 2018, she saw the job as a temporary step. She’d studied psychology at Penn State, but couldn’t go back to finish her degree until she paid off some student loans, a goal she hoped getting full-time work at Amazon could help her achieve. Though she was shocked by how difficult the job was and nearly quit after her first day, she soon found she was good at it — and she knew better-paying work would be hard to find.

As time went on, Bowden couldn’t help being critical of how Amazon treated its workers. One thing that bothered her was the fact that employees were required to park in a lot and take a 20-minute shuttle ride to the warehouse, but weren’t paid for that time. Bowden, who has never been in a union, started trying to convince her coworkers to help her pressure management to change that policy.

“I realized when I was going by myself I wasn’t getting nowhere fast. The fastest way was if more people went,” she said. “I felt like it was power in numbers, and the more people, the more things we could get as a collective.”


One morning in December 2019, she got a group of workers at her warehouse in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, to go to the supervisor’s office to complain — so many participated that they delayed the day’s deliveries by about an hour, Bowden said. Shortly thereafter, management started making retroactive travel pay deposits into employee accounts.

After that victory, Bowden set her sights on paid time off, aligning with Amazon workers in Chicago, Sacramento, New Jersey, and New York who, through an independent, loosely organized, worker-led network called Amazonians United, were fighting for the same thing.

By the time the coronavirus became a workplace issue, Bowden was already feeling targeted by management, according to the charge she filed with the NLRB last March. Bowden said an Amazon HR representative warned her she could get in trouble for what she was doing in February 2020, and that not long after, a different manager penalized her for how she was wearing her hair, even though Bowden said she’d seen plenty of other workers wearing their hair loose below their shoulders.

The final blow came in March, after Bowden had been agitating for Amazon to enforce social distancing by having fewer employees per shuttle. The company, which alleges that Bowden made verbal threats to another employee, suspended her and then terminated her employment. Bowden denies making any threats.


She filed her charge with the NLRB independently, hoping that she’d eventually get her job back and prove that Amazon “can’t do what they did and get away with it.”

But life post-Amazon proved difficult. When the state-subsidized childcare program Bowden relied on found out she was unemployed, it kicked her out. Eventually she got part-time work stocking shelves for a grocery store contractor in the early mornings, leaving her 4-year-old daughter with her mom, who was working from home.

In mid-November, Bowden learned the NLRB had determined that Amazon had “been interfering with, restraining, and coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed” in the National Labor Relations Act and was taking up her case, according to a board filing obtained by BuzzFeed News. But her preparation for her March hearing was derailed when her mom died unexpectedly of a heart attack at home on Dec. 13.


Rachel Wisniewski for Buzzfeed News
Bowden at home with her daughter


The sudden death of her mom, who was 62, left Bowden alone with her small daughter, without a job, dealing with expensive funeral preparations. When Amazon offered her a cash settlement (the amount of which she’s not permitted to share), Bowden felt she had no choice but to take it.

To her disappointment, the terms of the settlement mean the company doesn’t admit any wrongdoing, and she is banned from working at an Amazon facility again. But, she said, “I don't regret it because if it wasn’t for me, 800 people wouldn't have gotten their checks.”

Amazon declined to comment on the specifics of Bowden’s efforts in Pennsylvania.

At a warehouse in Queens, another Amazon employee, Jonathan Bailey, said he was “interrogated and threatened” by management following his efforts to shut down the facility in protest of dangerous working conditions during the pandemic. He filed a charge with the board in May.

When he got the news that the agency was siding with him and would require Amazon to post a flyer in the warehouse promising not to interrogate employees or interfere with organizing, he celebrated by posting the notice to Facebook, saying, “I’m proud to be a member of Amazonians New York City and fight with my coworkers for our rights!”

But Bailey found the NLRB process surprisingly slow, and, after four years of then-president Donald Trump, under-resourced, he told BuzzFeed News. Seven months after he filed the charge, the NLRB regional director reviewed his allegations and decided to take action.

When Bailey learned the terms of a settlement negotiated by the NLRB would result in the same outcome — Amazon hanging a flyer in the Queens warehouse about workers’ rights — as if he had gone to trial before an administrative law judge and won, he opted to settle the case. “[Amazon] hired this really big union-busting law firm and, you know, for them, it’s a tiny line item of their costs,” said Bailey, who is now running for public office. “They don’t really care.”

Without going through the legal process of voting to unionize, Amazonians United likely won’t be able to collectively bargain with Amazon. But Bailey feels what they’ve already been able to accomplish is just as effective as a contract. Last year, he and other workers associated with Amazonians United New York succeeded in getting Amazon to give them safe and sick leave and paid time off, benefits to which they are legally entitled.

“We have not had a union election, but we have conducted actions and we have won changes — material changes,” he said. For Bailey, a union isn’t a legal designation but simply workers who “can take actions together to change the conditions in which you work.”

The idea that workers themselves, not the government, should have the power to declare themselves a union, while unconventional, is growing in popularity. Members of the Chicago branch of Amazonians United have repeatedly relied on the NLRB to adjudicate whether or not Amazon has violated their rights at work, most recently when employees were disciplined following a series of walkouts over COVID-19 safety measures. Earlier this month, the board ruled in the workers’ favor in five of their seven claims, and they are currently negotiating a possible settlement. In January, Amazon announced it would be closing the warehouse, DCH1, where the organizers worked and reassigning them to other locations in the region.


While Amazonians United Chicagoland says it has used “the NLRB and the National Labor Relations Act as tools to fight back against Amazon’s retaliation,” the group has no plans to pursue an NLRB election.

“We’re rooting for our coworkers in Alabama and we hope their and our fights inspire workers to stand up,” the group said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “But we’re simply building [a] strong worker organization without worrying about [union] elections.”


Patrick T. Fallon / Getty Images
The Amazon.com Inc. fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama on March 26, 2021


The outcome of the election at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse has been the subject of intense national attention over the last few months, just as the NLRB election process has been the focus of labor organizing for the past few decades. But some union leaders, tired of a legal playing field tilted so heavily toward employers and disappointed with the agency’s failure to protect workers, are pushing for experimentation with more radical strategies.


As the Teamster union’s national director for Amazon, Randy Korgan has the tough job of taking on perhaps labor’s most formidable foe in the United States. The Teamsters have organized workers in the freight, logistics, and warehousing industry for over a century, and Korgan said his main concern is finding the fastest route to what he believes is the only thing that will reverse the decline in wages Amazon has brought to that industry — a union contract. And he doesn’t necessarily see that route going through the NLRB. Rather, he said, “There are a lot of other ways to build worker power, as well as seek representation,” though he declined to elaborate on what the specifics of that pathway to a contract could look like.

This month, as the situation in Bessemer was heating up, the Des Moines Register reported that a Teamsters local in Iowa had started organizing Amazon workers there with the goal of helping both warehouse workers and drivers seek union recognition outside the NLRB. Organizing Amazon delivery drivers is a particular challenge because they aren’t employed directly by Amazon, but by small logistics firms called Delivery Service Partners or DSPs. Amazon can terminate a DSP’s contract for any reason, including if its employees join a union — as it did in Michigan in 2017.

That strategy makes it difficult for unions to make inroads. A group called the Amazon Delivery Drivers Coalition has held small rallies and, with help from the Teamsters, filed unfair labor practice charges against Amazon and DSPs on behalf of workers at a few delivery stations throughout the midwest.


There is currently a bill, the PRO Act, before the Senate aimed at strengthening the NLRB, both by increasing penalties for employers who violate the law and by prohibiting some of the anti-union tactics at their disposal. But even if this proposed legislation passes, which currently seems unlikely, or Biden appointees make other moves to strengthen labor law, some labor leaders still believe that there’s good reason to explore strategies for getting workers a union contract that don’t involve the NLRB.

"Some of the new people just don’t know about the struggle that we had to go through."


One alternative path, employed by the Communication Workers of America (CWA) union in campaigns for workers on college campuses and at Google, is minority unionism, sometimes called a members-only union, when a group of workers collectively decide to unionize without a majority vote. The main drawback is that a minority union can’t legally bargain on behalf of all employees, which means they can’t negotiate a contract, but a major benefit is the union can choose to represent workers like temps and contractors who Google doesn’t directly employ. In January, around 230 Google workers — out of more than 100,000 worldwide — formed the Alphabet Workers Union (Alphabet is Google’s parent company) under the umbrella of the CWA, and around 500 more signed on within days, according to the Verge.

Detractors called it “fake union,” and a very public snafu over a press release led some members to call for disaffiliation from CWA, underscoring the risks of moving forward publicly without a formal unionization vote.

But a spokesperson for AWU says it has no plans to part ways with CWA at this time, writing in an email statement: “We are here to work with all Alphabet workers who want to improve our workplace, whether they’re members of AWU or not.”

“Winning an NLRB election is really hard and really resource-intensive,” said Rebecca Givan, a Rutgers labor studies professor. “In some situations, workers are able to do that. But it’s not necessarily the quickest path to winning improvements on the job … I think we’ll continue to see a lot of different approaches.”

The results from Bessemer will be counted this week. Whether it’s a victory or a loss for the union, the road to a contract will be a long one.

Meanwhile, Bowden is trying to move on with her life; in a few weeks, she’s planning to start a new job at a food processing facility that pays slightly less than Amazon’s widely touted $15 an hour.

She hopes the process of taking her complaint to the NLRB raised awareness about the power of organizing within Amazon. But while the benefits and pay she worked for remain, with the high turnover, not many of the people she worked with are left to continue the fight.

“Some of the new people just don’t know about the struggle that we had to go through,” she said. “They’re getting the benefits that people like me had to fight for.” ●



Caroline O'Donovan is a senior technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.