What Year Is It? Five States have Slavery on the Ballot

Kalyn Womack - Yesterday 



During the November midterm elections, Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont will have to vote whether or not to fully abolish slavery, according to Yahoo! News. Now, we’re obviously not talking about whips and chains. We’re talking about that sly loophole in the 13th Amendment that subjects those convicted of a crime to involuntary servitude.

In other words, America’s prisoners are slaves.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, out of the 1.2 million people incarcerated in the country, two thirds of them are subject to forced labor. Now these five states have to decide whether to strike down involuntary prison labor. Isn’t it ironic how so many people are in denial about slavery and think it’s long gone? In reality, it’s evolved and become more sophisticated.

Related video: Amendment 3 to ban slavery from TN's constitution gets bipartisan support

Duration 3:10   View on Watch

When Black people were freed, they were incarcerated at a disproportionate rate, victim again to the cycle of institutionalized racism.

Here’s what more advocates told Yahoo! News about the situation:

“We know from speaking with formerly imprisoned persons that prisoners can be denied calls from their family, they may be sent to solitary and they may even be denied parole for refusing to work,” said Krysta Bisnauth, senior advocacy officer at Freedom United.

So far three states have removed the exception from the 13th Amendment in their state constitutions. “In 2018, Colorado became the first state since Rhode Island, which was the only state to fully abolish slavery prior to the 13th Amendment. And then Utah and Nebraska, followed in 2020,” Bisnauth explained.

On the national front, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Ga., last year proposed an Abolition Amendment to remove the exception for slavery in the Constitution.

Bianca Tylek, executive director of Worth Rises, says that the criminal justice advocacy organization is hoping to capitalize on the bipartisan response it has received. “We have over 170 co-sponsors in the House, and are quickly moving to [obtain] additional co-sponsors, and call for action this year,” Tylek said.

According to Prison Policy, not only do incarcerated individuals make little to no money for their work, about 86 cents an hour. Plus, it’s not like they’re in there learning useful tools or skills about business and work ethic. Instead (against their will), they’re filling the pockets of 4,100 major corporations who profit from private prison labor, according to Worth Rises.

Currently, conservatives are trying bury the slavery as if its legacy doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. This slavery loophole being on the ballot proves they can’t escape it. Though, it also reminds us, we can’t escape it.

Exclusive-Cheniere to fix Louisiana LNG plant equipment after failing pollution test


 An LNG tanker is guided by tug boats at the Cheniere Sabine Pass LNG export unit in Cameron Parish, Louisiana

Wed, September 21, 2022 
By Nichola Groom and Valerie Volcovici

(Reuters) -Top U.S. LNG exporter Cheniere Energy Inc said it will repair and replace equipment at its Louisiana terminal after tests showed it exceeded newly-imposed hazardous emissions limits on certain known carcinogens, but the work will have no material impact on operations.

A round of testing showed at least one of Cheniere's turbines at its liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal in Louisiana failed the new standards, while the turbines in Texas at the company's only other U.S. LNG facility were meeting the rules, according to documents obtained from state regulators through a series of information requests and reviewed by Reuters.

At issue is a rule under the U.S. Clean Air Act called the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Pollutants, which imposes curbs on emissions of known carcinogens like formaldehyde and benzene, that was re-instated in February to apply to a type of gas-fired turbine only used in the LNG industry by Cheniere.

Cheniere, the top U.S. supplier of LNG to Europe, earlier this year asked the Biden administration for an exemption from the new rules, arguing they could undermine U.S. efforts to ramp up shipments to Western allies to offset supply cuts from Russia. The Environmental Protection Agency denied the request.

Cheniere told Louisiana regulators in an email Sept. 8 that its initial testing showed one of eight generator turbines at its Sabine Pass LNG facility had failed to meet the newly imposed requirement, and that it would conduct repairs on the turbine to bring the emissions down.

“Our turbine engineers determined a repair could improve the emission performance of the turbine," Robert Gray, senior environmental coordinator for the Sabine Pass plant, wrote.

In the same email, Cheniere requested approval from the state to re-test eight compressor turbines and said it was replacing four others, but did not detail the results of initial tests on those pieces of equipment. The company had conducted initial testing on 44 stationary turbines at the facility, according to the email.

Cheniere spokesperson Eben Burnham-Snyder told Reuters this week that the company was "continuing to test and analyze data at Sabine Pass to gain insights and develop solutions that ensure compliance." He said the measures will have no material impact on operations.

EPA spokesperson Tim Carroll said "the agency will work with Cheniere to assure they meet Clean Air Act obligations."

A spokesperson for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, Gregory Langley, said in an email that the agency expected to receive official results from Cheniere in early October and more through the rest of the month.

Cheniere's Corpus Christi facility in Texas submitted testing documents to the state last week that showed emissions from all of its 18 refrigeration turbines were well below the EPA's threshold, according to a copy of the documents seen by Reuters.

A spokesperson for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said the agency has not yet completed a review of the test results, which is required to confirm compliance.

Colin Cox, an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project, said it was important for Cheniere to monitor the turbines to ensure continuous compliance moving forward.

Louisiana and Texas regulators are responsible for overseeing compliance with federal clean air laws and regulations for facilities in their respective states.

The EPA announced in February that the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Pollutants rule will apply to two types of gas-fired turbines that had been left out of the regulation for nearly two decades.

Under the rule, these turbines must comply by September with an emissions limit of 91 parts per billion of formaldehyde, a level that is meant to control other dangerous chemicals too.

Cheniere is the only LNG company that uses these type of turbines and whose facilities are being impacted, according to a list provided by the EPA and previously reported by Reuters.

The EPA years ago had raised concerns to Cheniere about its decision to install higher-polluting gas-fired turbines at its Gulf Coast LNG terminals years before they began operating, Reuters has previously reported.

(Reporting by Nichola GroomEditing by Marguerita Choy)

Holy Land shipwreck reveals tenacity of ancient traders as empires shifted





A diver excavates the remains of an ancient cargo ship, which is believed to have carried goods from all over the Mediterranean

Thu, September 22, 2022 
By Ari Rabinovitch and Rinat Harash

MAAGAN MICHAEL, Israel (Reuters) - An ancient shipwreck found off the shore of Israel and loaded with cargo from all over the Mediterranean shows that traders from the West still came to port even after the Islamic conquest of the Holy Land, researchers say.

A surprise storm? An inexperienced captain? Whatever the reason, the merchant ship made from fir and walnut trees and carrying containers with delights from far-off lands sank in the shallow waters off what is today the Israeli coastal community of Maagan Michael more than 1,200 years ago.

It was around the time the largely Christian Byzantine Empire was losing its grip on this area of the eastern Mediterranean region and Islamic rule was extending its reach.

The shipwreck, dated to the 7th or 8th century AD, is evidence that trade persisted with the rest of the Mediterranean despite the religious divide, said Deborah Cvikel, a nautical archaeologist at the University of Haifa and director of the dig.

"The history books, they usually tell us that ... commerce almost stopped. There was no international commerce in the Mediterranean. We had mainly smaller vessels sailing along the coast doing cabotage," she said.

But this no longer seems to be the case.

"Here we have a large shipwreck, which we think the original ship was around 25 metres (82 feet) long, and...laden with cargo from all over the Mediterranean."

Artefacts on deck show the ship had docked in Cyprus, Egypt, maybe Turkey and perhaps as far away as the North African coast.

The excavation is backed by the Israel Science Foundation, Honor Frost Foundation and the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University.

SHIP GRAVEYARD IN SHALLOW SEAS

The coast of Israel is abundant with ships that sank over the millennia. The wrecks are more accessible to study than elsewhere in the Mediterranean because the sea here is shallow and the sandy bottom preserves artefacts.

A storm might shift the sands and expose a relic, which is what happened with the new discovery at Maagan Michael. Two amateur divers spotted a piece of wood sticking out from the bottom and reported it to authorities.

Eight excavation seasons later, Cvikel's team has mapped out much of the 20-metre-long, five-metre-wide wooden skeleton that remains.

Using underwater vacuums to clear out 1.5 meters of sand, they found over 200 amphoras that still contained ingredients from the Mediterranean diet, like fish sauce, and a variety of olives, dates and figs.

There were sailing tools like ropes and personal items such as wooden combs, as well as animals, including the remains of beetles and six rats.

"You have to be very attentive because some of the remains, like fish bones, or rat bones, or olive pits, they are so tiny that it could be lost in a split second," Cvikel said.

Some of the cargo bore symbols of the Christian Byzantine church and others had writing in Arabic.

Researchers hope to find a hall to display the ship in its entirety to the public, otherwise they will cover it with sand and leave it at the sea bottom with the countless other wrecks.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Former official says Trump ordered staffers to find 'murderers,' 'rapists,' and 'criminals' at the border and 'dump them into Democratic cities'



Cheryl Teh
Wed, September 21, 2022 



Miles Taylor shared an old Twitter thread on Wednesday that detailed some of the "unethical" things that former President Donald Trump had asked him to do while in office.

Miles Taylor said Trump wanted criminals found at the border to be sent to Democrat-run cities.


Taylor said Trump specifically wanted "murderers" and "rapists" to be identified and bussed out.


Taylor said it didn't take a lawyer to "recognize this would likely be very illegal to do."

Miles Taylor, the Department of Homeland Security's chief of staff during the Trump administration, said this week that former President Donald Trump once asked his team to find murderers, rapists, and criminals at the border and to have them sent to Democrat-run cities.

Taylor made this statement during an appearance on CNN this week while weighing in on how Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' have been sending migrants to places like New York and Martha's Vineyard, respectively.


Taylor is best known for penning a 2018 op-ed article in The New York Times that said there was a "resistance" within the Trump administration. He has since become a vocal critic of the former president.

"In January and February of 2019, Donald Trump directed us to go and take immigrants from the border and, quote, 'bus and dump them into Democratic cities and blue states,'" Taylor told CNN.

"But he was much more specific," Taylor said of Trump. "He wanted us to identify the murderers, the rapists, and the criminals, and, in particular, make sure we did not incarcerate them, and we put them in those cities."

Taylor elaborated on what his team did next.

"It doesn't take a lawyer or a genius to recognize this would likely be very illegal to do. But put aside the murderers and the rapists and the criminals — could you take people from the border and just dump them into blue states?" he said. "We went, and we asked the lawyers, and they told us: 'No, the federal government cannot do that.'"

Recalling that his team had told the White House that it would be "illegal" to carry out Trump's plan, Taylor said that DeSantis and Abbott were "walking into the same problem" with their recent efforts.

On Wednesday, Taylor re-tweeted a thread from November 2020 in which he had detailed the "foolish, unethical, un-America, and/or illegal things" that Trump had asked him to do while in office. At the top of the list was what Taylor said was an instruction from Trump to "bus thousands and thousands of illegal immigrants (especially those with criminal records) to Democratic sanctuary cities to create instability and strife."

"DeSantis & Abbott are resurrecting zombie Trump policies that we said were illegal (one of the reasons I quit & warned not to re-elect him)," Taylor wrote in his tweet on Wednesday. "Trumpism is very much alive — and his acolytes are taking it to the next level."

Representatives for Trump, DeSantis, and Abbott did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Ex-Trump Official Accuses Former President Of Sinister Immigration Plot

Ron Dicker

Wed, September 21, 2022 

A former Department of Homeland Security official under Donald Trump said Tuesday that the ex-president concocted an even more twisted scheme than shipping immigrants to blue states. (Watch the video below.)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently sparked further tension over border policy by flying planeloads of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts ― and he’s getting sued for deceiving the passengers. Other convoys are apparently in the works.

But Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff in the DHS, said Trump, whose 2016 campaign cornerstone was to build a border wall, once took the idea of shipping migrants north to the next level.

Taylor said Trump directed officials in early 2019 to dump immigrants into Democratic cities and states. However, the president was “much more specific.”

“He wanted us to identify the murderers, the rapists and the criminals and in particular, make sure we did not incarcerate them, and we put them in those cities,” Taylor said on CNN. “It doesn’t take a lawyer or genius to recognize that this would likely be illegal to do.”

HuffPost did not immediately hear back from Trump’s office in a request for comment.

To stoke fears over immigration in his run for president, Trump infamously called Mexican immigrants “rapists” and criminals.

See more of Taylor’s comments below.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

AUTUMNAL EQUINOX / MERRY MABON

 MABON

 

https://www.bpl.org/blogs/post/the-origins-and-practices-of-mabon

The Origins and Practices of Mabon | Boston Public Library 

Sep 20, 2019 ... Mabon is a pagan holiday, and one of the eight Wiccan sabbats celebrated during the year. Mabon celebrates the autumnal equinox.

https://www.goddessandgreenman.co.uk/mabon

Mabon | The Goddess and the Greenman 

Mabon/Autumn Equinox September 21st-22nd ... This festival is now named after the the God of Welsh mythology, Mabon. He is the Child of Light and the son of the ...

https://www.mabonhouse.co/mabon

How to Celebrate Mabon 2022 

Named after the ancient Welsh hero named Mabon ap Modron, which means Son of Mother, Mabon is the second of three harvest festivals that take place in the Wheel ...

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a37051456/how-to-celebrate-mabon

How to Celebrate Mabon - Cosmopolitan 

Jul 25, 2022 ... Mabon is essentially a harvest festival. Ancient Celts and pagans used this day to give thanks to nature for a good harvest and to pray to ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mabon

Mabon - Wikipedia 

Religion and mythologyEdit · Mabon, the Autumnal equinox in some versions of the Pagan Wheel of the Year · Mabon ap Modron, a figure in Welsh Arthurian legend .....

https://people.howstuffworks.com/mabon.htm

Even Non-Wiccans Can Celebrate Mabon, the 'Pagan Thanksgiving' 

3 days ago ... Mabon, also known as "Pagan Thanksgiving," is a harvest celebration that falls around the autumnal equinox on Sept. 22-23, 2022.

https://www.outdoorapothecary.com/celebrating-mabon

Celebrating Mabon With Herbs & Ancient Traditions 

Sep 14, 2021 ... Mabon was an excellent hunter, possessing a nimble horse and a magnificent hound. When he was three nights old, he was kidnapped from his mother ...

Democrats and Republicans sharply divided over support for UN: poll



Brad Dress
Tue, September 20, 2022 

About 47 percent of Americans support the United Nations, according to a new poll, with a divide seen between Democrats, who generally favor the 193-member international coalition, and Republicans, who view it more negatively.

The Morning Consult poll published Wednesday shows 64 percent of Democrats surveyed have a positive view of the U.N., while only 36 percent of Republicans say the same.

Additionally, 39 percent of Republicans polled hold an unfavorable view of the U.N., while only 12 percent of Democrats do.

The survey was derived from daily polls conducted from Aug. 1 to 31 with a total of roughly 17,350 U.S. adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point.

Since the U.S. joined the international body in 1945, when it was first created, the country has remained a major contributor to the U.N.

However, former President Trump was critical of the U.N., as well as other international organizations, during his presidency and withdrew the U.S. from the U.N. Human Rights Council and the Paris climate accords. Under President Biden, the country rejoined both last year. Trump also formally declared the U.S. would leave the U.N.’s World Health Organization, but Biden reversed that decision as well.

About 33 percent of American voters surveyed said the U.S. should increase its involvement with international organizations such as the U.N., according to a weekly Morning Consult survey of approximately 2,000 registered voters, while 23 percent said the U.S. should decrease its involvement. The margin of error for the survey of registered voters is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

The U.S. ranks low among dozens of nations in terms of the share of adults in each country that hold favorable views of the U.N., according to Morning Consult surveys conducted daily between March 1 and Aug. 31. Countries where a smaller proportion of adults were found to support the body include China, Russia, Japan, Israel and Turkey.

Nations where a high proportion of adults were found to support the U.N. include Nigeria, Poland, Norway and Sweden, according to the polls.

The surveys were conducted in the U.S. among roughly 52,000 adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point, and in the other countries among approximately 500 to 5,000 adults with margins of error of up to 4 percentage points.

Black Brazilians in remote 'quilombo' hamlets stand up to be counted


2 / 31
The Wider Image: Black Brazilians in remote 'quilombo' hamlets stand up to be counted

Tue, September 20, 2022 
By Jimin Kang and Amanda Perobelli

SALVADOR, Brazil (Reuters) - For the first time in its 132-year history, the Brazilian census now underway includes a question counting members of the "quilombo" communities founded by runaway slaves.

On Ilha de Mare, an island with several quilombos off the coast of Salvador, in northeast Brazil, this chance to be counted is one step in a political transformation for which local organizers have long been fighting.

"Being part of the census is a strategy for us, a strategy for resistance and change," says 52-year-old Marizelha Carlos Lopes, a local activist and fisherwoman on the island, where 93% of people identify as Black. "One of our objectives is to escape an intentional invisibility."

Her friend Eliete Paraguassu, 42, is mounting another front in the strategy. She is the first woman from the island campaigning for a spot in the Bahia state legislature – one of a record number of Black candidates running for state and federal office in Brazil in this October's elections.

Together, Brazil's updated census and the rising number of Black candidates are part of a slow reckoning with centuries of slavery that ended only in 1888, making Brazil the last country in the world to abolish the practice.

Quilombos were formed over centuries by enslaved people who escaped forced labor to create isolated, self-subsistence communities in remote forests and mountain ranges or on islands like Ilha de Mare.

Quilombo residents now hope that a proper count of their numbers and more elected voices will open the door to improved social services and guarantees of rights for people and places long left off official maps.

National quilombo association CONAQ has identified nearly 6,000 quilombo territories. CONAQ head Antonio Joao Mendes said government recognition of the communities gained steam under former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva two decades ago, when the communities won more formal land rights and support for cultural programs.

Lula's presidential candidacy this year presents a stark contrast, Mendes said, with incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro, who has dismantled many of those programs and slowed the recognition of additional quilombos.

Bolsonaro was fined 50,000 reais ($10,000) in 2017 for insulting quilombo residents, saying that "they do nothing" and are "not even good for procreating." An appeals court threw out the case because he was a federal lawmaker at the time.

On Ilha de Mare, quilombo residents have for generations survived on the hard work of artisanal fishermen and fisherwomen.

Marizelha's 26-year-old nephew, Uine Lopes, who wakes at 3 a.m. to fish in the crystalline waters surrounding his community of Bananeiras, has proudly memorialized their tradition with a tattoo on his left arm of his grandfather casting a net.

ISLAND OF CALM

With no bridges to the mainland about a kilometer away, residents on the car-free Ilha de Mare get around like their ancestors: on foot, horseback and small boats. Uine Lopes says it feels like an island of calm away from the bustle and violence of the big city.

In the afternoons, women gather to scrape meat from crabs and clams caught that day, while others weave traditional straw baskets. In the evenings, neighbors often gather for dance or gymnastics classes by the seashore.

Yet the fishing communities say their livelihoods are threatened by pollution from a nearby petrochemical port across the bay, where a boat carrying propane gas exploded in 2013.

An industry group responsible for cleaning up the spill said it was monitoring the bay to protect surrounding communities, but Marizelha Lopes recalls losing an entire season of fishing and tourism due to contamination.

"There are still no specific studies or public policies that will guarantee our safety," her nephew said. "We have no escape route."

The port authority did not respond to requests for comment.

Frustrated by a lack of answers to what she calls "environmental racism" against her island community, Eliete Paraguassu, who like Marizelha collects shellfish, is making the leap into politics.

In the run-up to the Oct. 2 vote, she has traveled to nearby cities to drum up support for her candidacy to the state legislature, with stickers declaring "My vote will be antiracist" and "Justice for Marielle."

The latter is a reference to Marielle Franco, a Black city councilwoman in Rio de Janeiro who fought for racial justice and was shot dead in 2018, in what some have called a political assassination.

Her legacy has been a rallying cry for Black women like Paraguassu. Of the 513 lawmakers elected to the lower house of Congress in 2018, just under a quarter identified as Black – and only 12 of those were women.

By contrast, 50.7% of Brazilians in the 2010 census identified in the two racial categories that the government statistics agency combines in its definition of "negro," or Black.

Alternating his time between fishing on Ilha de Mare and studying rural education at university, Uine Lopes is one of a handful of students determined to bring the fruits of their research back to the island.

"We need to be aware, to vote for as many Black people as possible who are committed to the fight, who have specific visions for Indigenous communities, quilombolas, fishermen, riverside residents and so many other communities that experience a lack of state support," he says.

Marizelha did not attend school past fifth grade. But watching her nephew combine academic pursuits with service to the community has inspired her.

"I am increasingly convinced that universities are important," she said. "But our resistance and fight are what equips and prepares us for the confrontation." (This story refiles to replace link)

(Reporting by Jimin Kang and Amanda Perobelli; Editing by Brad Haynes and Rosalba O'Brien)

Granderson: The fathers writing abortion laws are showing no mercy for daughters

LZ Granderson
Thu, September 22, 2022

Demonstrators outside the Texas Capitol in May fight for abortion access. (Eric Gay / Associated Press)

I heard John Mayer’s “Daughters” playing in the grocery store recently, and though it had been years since I listened to the 2003 classic, the chorus came rushing back to me:

Fathers be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do…

I don’t have a daughter. God blessed me with a beautiful baby boy, which is challenging enough, even in a patriarchal society skewed to benefit boys. I often tell my friends without children that parenting is like second-guessing answers to a test that’s impossible to study for but easy to fail.

I do not envy fathers trying to raise girls in a world where “what was she wearing?” is still viewed as a valid question and “boys will be boys” an acceptable answer. Nonetheless that song, which looks at how a daughter’s relationship with her father can shape future relationships with men, reminded me of the powerful mythology regarding fathers and daughters. From the “daddy’s little girl” colloquialism to pop culture references such as “Daughters” or the #GirlDad hashtag, the fabled bond remains one of our most enduring touchstones. If we can only get our lawmakers to reflect that cherished connection.

This week CNN confirmed what the optics have long suggested: Male lawmakers, many of them fathers, are most eager to punish women for having an abortion.

One state representative in Texas, Bryan Slaton, introduced a bill in 2021 that would have made getting an abortion punishable by death, saying in part that “it is time for Texas to protect the natural right to life.”

Because nothing says “pro-life” like the death penalty.

Slaton found four other male co-sponsors for the bill, including Rep. Briscoe Cain, who was put in Twitter jail in 2019 for posting “My AR is ready for you,” addressing the threat to Beto O’Rourke.

Because nothing says “pro-life” like making death threats.

That same CNN report cites a candidate for the state Senate in Idaho who is quoted as saying women should carry a pregnancy to term even at the risk of their own health, embracing their natural “sacrificial behavior.” As if making the difficult choice to terminate a wanted pregnancy comes without sacrifice.

And while nationally the Democratic platform speaks of protecting reproductive rights, locally, votes are not entirely along partisan lines. The network pointed out that “more than 140 Democrats from eight of the roughly dozen states with the most restrictive abortion laws voted in favor of the bans, and the vast majority of these state lawmakers were men.”

Nine male Democrats in Mississippi voted to pass the 15-week abortion ban that was challenged all the way up to the Supreme Court and led to the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.

Only male Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the trigger ban in Arkansas that criminalized abortion under nearly all circumstances.

Texas state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., an antiabortion Democrat, said men “have shown that they have a natural instinct to protect the human race,” which I guess is his way of explaining the disproportionate number of antiabortion laws written by men. An interesting take given all of the wars men have started and violent crimes they have committed.

What does a father tell his daughter about a world that now seeks to imprison her for miscarriages, as happened in Oklahoma last year, or force her to carry a fetus to term even if it is developing without a skull and cannot live, as a Louisiana woman was told to do this summer? I wish those examples were only hypothetical, but they are indeed the laws of fathers being forced upon daughters, including their own.

Is this what Mayer meant when he implored men to be good to their baby girls?

Kenny Chesney’s “There Goes My Life,” another tribute to how fathers cherish their daughters, chronicles the thoughts of a young man who initially didn’t want to be a dad. The lyrics do not mention abortion, but it is clear the young lovers decided not to have one. Released in 2004, that song reflects a time when a daughter’s right to choose for herself was protected by the Constitution. That world no longer exists.

In a post-Roe world, I wonder: Will artists like Mayer and Chesney croon about forced childbirth? It doesn’t sound like a radio hit to me, but it would be closer to today’s reality than the half-truths we tell ourselves about fathers and daughters.

@LZGranderson

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Ohio BP oil refinery fire leaves 2 workers dead; facility shut down

Claire Thornton
Wed, September 21, 2022 

The BP-Husky Refinery is pictured Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2022, in Oregon, Ohio. A fire at the facility injured two people Tuesday evening and the facility was shut down Wednesday.

An Ohio oil refinery remained shut down Wednesday after a fire that killed two workers, officials said.

Two staff members died after a blaze at the Husky Toledo Refinery in Oregon, Ohio, BP confirmed in a statement to USA TODAY. The two employees, who were not identified, were injured in the Tuesday evening fire, the company said.

"Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of these two individuals," BP said.

BP has not said what caused the fire, which was extinguished around 10:15 p.m. Tuesday. There is also no word on the extent of the damage.

The refinery fire happened a few weeks after an electrical fire at a BP refinery in northwest Indiana, which caused the company to temporarily close that facility. No one was hurt.



The Husky Toledo Refinery, located just east of Toledo, can process up to 160,000 barrels of crude oil per day and “has been an important part of the region’s economy for more than 100 years,” according to BP’s website.

The refinery has been "safely shut down" and is offline Wednesday, BP said in a statement, adding all other staff members were accounted for. More than 800 employees work at the facility, according to BP's website.

Video on social media shows billowing dark clouds of smoke and flames engulfing the refinery.

BP said it worked closely with local fire crews in addition to its own fire department.

BP announced last month it had agreed to sell its 50% interest in the Husky Toledo Refinery to its joint venture partner Cenovus Energy.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: BP Husky Toledo oil refinery fire kills 2 workers; facility shut down

Sick leave policies get more attention after threat of railroad strike

Katie Wedell, USA TODAY
Wed, September 21, 2022 

A recently dodged transportation crisis between the country's biggest railroads and the employees who work for them put the question of sick leave, and who does and doesn't get it in America, squarely at the forefront of national debate.

One of the major sticking points in negotiations between the nation’s railroads and the unions representing railroad workers this summer was a request for paid sick leave.

Because more than 95% of employers offer at least some paid sick days to their employees, many outsiders to the industry were shocked to learn that railroad employees didn’t have that benefit in their contracts.

The ability to take a sick day with no repercussions is a benefit many workers take for granted, but it's not guaranteed by law in most parts of the country.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, HR experts said more companies are paying attention to their sick leave policies as important recruitment tools because workers are demanding those days.

The 12 rail unions and a committee representing 30 railroads came to tentative agreements early Thursday last week to avoid a strike that would have kicked off Friday and parked one-third of the nation's freight trains, plus many commuter trains.

President Joe Biden stepped in personally to avoid a work stoppage that would have exacerbated supply chain bottlenecks and caused major economic disruptions.

The unions still need to vote in the coming weeks on whether to accept the new contracts.

RAIL WORKERS STRIKE: Will other unions seek what the railroad unions are asking for?

STRIKE AVERTED: Biden hails railroad labor deal as Amtrak works to restore service
How common is it for workers to have zero sick days?

About 96% of American employers offer some form of paid sick leave to their employees, according to the Society for Human Resource Management.

The number of days offered ranges from one day a year to unlimited.

“But there are industries where workers have no days designated as sick leave,” said Johnny Taylor Jr., SHRM president and CEO.

All workers, regardless of industry or union representation, have the right to take unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act without the fear of losing their jobs.

Only 14 states have laws guaranteeing paid sick leave, but those laws often exclude workers in some industries, including government employees as well as railroad and airline employees.

The workers who don’t get any sick days tend to be low-wage workers and those working part-time, said Eileen Appelbaum, co-director of the think tank Center for Economic and Policy Research.

“Generally speaking, if you're not either low-paid or part-time, your employer provides paid sick days and certainly more than one,” she said. “It's not unusual to have five or seven paid sick days in a year and to be able to carry some number of them over.”

Eileen Appelbaum, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research

Railroad work clearly differs from a desk job in that trains can’t run without key personnel.

But other industries with similar staffing needs, such as commercial airlines, have paid sick time built into their employee contracts.

Pilots accrue paid sick time that goes into a bank, according to contracts negotiated by the Air Line Pilots Association, International.

Taylor said he was surprised rail workers hadn’t negotiated paid sick time into their contract before now.

“At the end of the day, they're covered by a union,” he said. “As much as they would like to point to the fact that they don't have it, frankly, they just didn't negotiate that.”

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Limited sick leave can hurt employee recruitment

Appelbaum said the lack of sick leave could be part of the reason the rail industry, which pays high wages, is having trouble recruiting workers.

“I mean this is an industry that has a problem with staffing, or so they claim,” she said. “I don't think we have to look very far to see why that's a problem.”

Many other industries have redundancy employees who can do more than one job and who can be available to work when others call in sick, she said.

“You need to have other people who can step into that job or a pool of people who say that they're available,” Appelbaum said. “There might have to be a premium pay for stepping in at short notice or something like that.”

Sick time is just one element of a benefits package that industries use to recruit workers to otherwise undesirable jobs, Taylor said.

“It is a way to differentiate to make an ‘unsexy' job or industry more attractive,” he said.
How much sick leave do most jobs give?

SHRM, the human relations industry group, says there is a trend toward giving employees a bank of paid days off that can be used for any purpose – a sick day, a vacation or a personal day.

Their numbers show that’s what 67% of employers offer.

“We know from the pandemic that if a sick person comes to work because they don't have enough sick days, they then bring it to the workplace and get other people sick,” Taylor said.

Society for Human Resource Management President and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr.

It’s not in the company’s best interest to lose multiple workers to sickness, but there’s a flip side to offering paid sick days.

“We don't want people, when you give them a certain number of days for sick days, to feign sick just because they don't want to lose (those days),” Taylor said.

With a PTO system in which a day can be taken for any reason, it removes the need to lie about or prove illness to take a sick day, he said. And it makes it possible for people to take days to deal with their mental health without having to explain.

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About 6% of employers don’t designate a specific number of PTO days at all but rather leave it up to the employee and their manager in what’s called unlimited, open or managed time off, according to SHRM.

More than a dozen states and some counties and cities have passed legislation guaranteeing workers paid sick leave, according to advocacy group A Better Balance. But many of those laws exempt railroad workers specifically, in addition to government employees and some others.

For example, a New Mexico law that took effect July 1 allows workers to earn and take up to 64 hours of paid sick time a year.
Why didn't railway workers get the same type of sick leave?

But there are caveats. Laws like New Mexico's, which does not apply to “flight deck/cabin crews subject to the Railway Labor Act, certain railroad workers,” can have limits

The Railway Labor Act governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries and therefore is written in as an exemption to many employment-related laws.

Instead of paid sick days, union members say they’ve been operating under various complex attendance policies that did not guarantee the ability to take a day off for illness or a doctor’s appointment without punishment.

A Better Balance is pushing for a federal sick leave law that would guarantee workers across the country the protected right to take time away from work for illness in their family without losing their jobs.

The Healthy Families Act would guarantee workers nationwide the right to earn up to seven paid sick days a year. The bill was last reintroduced in the House and Senate in 2021.
Rail unions say their sick leave policy was unfair

The railroads argued their attendance policies already provide ample opportunity for workers to call in for illness or a medical appointment without labeling a specific number of days as paid sick leave.

Employees who are essential to train operations can temporarily remove themselves from service, or “mark off,” for any reason, including sickness or personal reasons, said Ted Greener assistant vice president for public affairs for the Association of American Railroads, in an email.

“Mark-off days are not penalized. Some railroads use a point system to track these days off, which is not an issue unless employees reach zero points,” Greener said. “Sick days are not explicitly called such in this context, but they operate in a similar manner.”

But the unions have called the points system demoralizing.

Dennis Pierce, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said the turning point in negotiations last week came when the unions “finally convinced” the railroad companies to provide workers sick time.

The tentative agreement members of the 12 rail unions must vote on this week includes only one paid sick day, far short of the unions’ goal of 15.

But Pierce said even a single day is an improvement from recommendations by a Presidential Emergency Board that Biden assembled in July, which advised the unions to drop the sick leave question and handle any attendance policy disputes in the grievance and arbitration process.

In addition, the deal gives engineers and other workers voluntary days off – allowing their work schedule to resemble something closer to five days a week rather than a full week – and guarantees they won’t be fired for visiting physicians.

“That’s a big win for us,” he told USA TODAY in an interview. “We actually, for the first time ever, negotiated contract language that prevents the railroads from punishing our guys under the attendance policy to go to the doc. That's been a critical issue.”
How does the Hi-Viz points system work?

One of the attendance policies that uses points, and has been criticized by the rail unions, is BNSF Railroad’s Hi-Viz policy.

Under the system implemented in February, workers are given a bank of 30 points. If they miss a call to work an assignment, or can’t work because of illness or family emergency, they lose points.

The number of points lost depends on the type of employee, day of the week and type of assignment, but it typically ranges from 2 to 15 points for a 24-hour missed day.

Points are not affected by rest days required when an employee works a certain number of consecutive hours.

Employees can earn back 4 points by being available for work for 14 days straight, according to the policy. They don’t necessarily work all those days in a row; they just have to be available to work.

Anyone who losses all their points can be punished or terminated.

After much criticism of the system, the railroad revised the policy on June 1 and said employees would no longer lose points if they missed a call to work the day before or after a scheduled vacation. More ways to earn bonus points were also added, including rewarding those available to work most often with 7 points a month.

The unions and their supporters said those changes were not enough to fix a bad attendance policy.

“These changes do nothing to address the policy’s fundamental flaws," the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO said in a statement. "For example, allowing a worker to bank a few extra points will not offset the massive 15-point cost of a worker missing one high-impact day.”

Instead of addressing worker fatigue, the unions argued the changes incentivized exhaustion because they rewarded those who worked the most hours with more chances to earn points.

Neither iteration of the policy allows for an employee to take a paid sick day with no consequences, which is what the unions demanded during contract negotiations.

An AAR spokesperson said in a statement that the organization representing the major freight railroads is pleased with the tentative agreement.

"The agreements also address several scheduling and related matters, including time away from work for routine and preventive medical care, and provide that certain medical absences are not counted toward normal attendance handling," the statement said.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Railroad strike hinged on lack of paid sick leave. How common is that?