FRACKQUAKES
Dutch government to end gas extraction in northern province after 60 years and many damaging quakes

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Extraction from one of the world's largest natural gas fields will end in October, the Dutch government announced Friday, turning off a lucrative source of revenue that also sparked unrest by causing a string of earthquakes.

“The gas tap will be turned off on Oct. 1. That means an end to extraction after 60 years," Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.

However, he said it remains possible gas could still be pumped from the Groningen field after that date if there is a “perfect storm” of an extremely cold winter this year and a problem with storage of gas from other sources amid ongoing concerns about gas deliveries caused by Russia's war in Ukraine.

Faced with mounting anger from residents whose homes were repeatedly rattled by the shallow tremors, the government had already wound down extraction from the field which held 2,800 billion cubic meters of gas. Only enough is now being pumped to keep gas installations in the region operational.

Thousands of households are still waiting for their homes to be strengthened after years of shaking that damaged buildings. Thousands more are awaiting compensation.

Groninger Bodem Beweging, an organization that represents residents in the region, called the announcement “a step in the right direction,” but added its members would not be celebrating yet and will continue to push for a definitive end this year with no possibility of more extraction.

Gas was extracted in Groningen for decades by a consortium including energy giants Shell and ExxonMobil before the government decided in 2018 to gradually stop pumping the energy source that warms most Dutch homes.

A damning parliamentary report issued in February into the government's handling of the extraction calculated that the Dutch state earned 363 billion euros from Groningen gas. The report said the government put profits before people, prompting an apology from Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

“The interests of the people of Groningen have been structurally ignored in natural gas extraction in Groningen, with disastrous consequences,” a parliamentary commission said in a statement in February.

“We can’t take away the suffering of the past,” Rutte said Friday, but he said authorities are working hard on repairs and strengthening. The government has pledged to spend at least 22 billion euros on repairs to homes and infrastructure and to “invest in the long-term economic perspective” of the region.

Johan Atema, director of NAM, the company set up in 1947 to extract gas from Dutch fields, called the closure announcement an important decision.

“Many Groningen residents are still experiencing a huge impact from the earthquakes and we therefore fully support the final closure of the gas field,” he said in a statement.

“Looking back, this gas field has simultaneously provided the Netherlands and surrounding countries with reliable energy for decades, and with its yields it has made a major contribution to prosperity in our country,” he added.

Mike Corder, The Associated Press

Scientists discover troubling explanation behind recent whale death: ‘It’s heartbreaking to see this kind of destruction’



Hayleigh Evans
Fri, June 23, 2023

A dead sperm whale washed ashore in Hawaii on Jan. 27, and scientists suspect they have found the culprit: plastic.

What happened?

Scientists believe the whale, which beached in Kauai, died from ingesting fishing traps and nets, plastic bags, and other marine debris. The 56-foot, 120,000-pound marine mammal had foreign objects at the opening of its intestinal tract that prevented it from digesting its food.

“This is the first sperm whale in Hawaiian waters where we have seen this kind of ingestion of discarded fishing gear and nets,” Kristi West, the director of the University of Hawaii’s Health and Stranding Lab, said in a press release. “It’s heartbreaking to see this kind of destruction in an individual animal.”

After examining the whale’s stomach, scientists found six hagfish traps, seven varieties of fishing nets, two kinds of plastic bags, and multiple fishing lines. The whale’s stomach was so big that researchers were unable to study its entirety and believe there were more items they could not recover.

Why is this whale death concerning?

The whale death is a jarring reminder of how dangerous plastic pollution is to marine life. Even creatures as large as sperm whales can fall victim to plastic debris in the ocean.

Researchers estimate there are 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic waste in the ocean. Roughly 269,000 tons of this waste floats on the ocean surface, and about four billion plastic microfibers per square kilometer pollute the deep sea.

Not only does this pose a risk to marine life that mistake these items for food, but it can also contaminate human food. Toxins from plastic pollution contaminate fish, and humans are exposed to these toxins when eating seafood.

What can I do to help protect marine life?

Plastic waste is endangering marine species, and it is our responsibility to reduce ocean pollution. Luckily, there are a variety of solutions everyone can participate in.

The simplest way to fight plastic pollution is to reduce our reliance on single-use plastics. There are many reusable products that you can introduce to your daily life to replace these items.

When you go shopping, bring reusable grocery bags, and instead of using plastic water bottles, try carrying around a reusable one.

Participating in beach or river cleanups or donating to organizations that conduct them, like 4ocean or The Ocean Cleanup, is the most direct way to prevent ocean plastic pollution. Clearing trash from coastlines not only saves the ocean from plastic debris, but you may also save a life.

Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.

Get a clue, says panel about buzzy AI tech: It's being 'deployed as surveillance'


Image Credits: PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA/AFP / Getty Images

Connie Loizos
Thu, June 22, 2023 

Earlier today at a Bloomberg conference in San Francisco, some of the biggest names in AI turned up, including, briefly, Sam Altman of OpenAI, who just ended his two-month world tour, and Stability AI founder Emad Mostaque. Still, one of the most compelling conversations happened later in the afternoon, in a panel discussion about AI ethics.

Featuring Meredith Whittaker (pictured above), the president of the secure messaging app Signal; Credo AI co-founder and CEO Navrina Singh; and Alex Hanna, the director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute, the three had a unified message for the audience, which was: Don't get so distracted by the promise and threats associated with the future of AI. It is not magic, it's not fully automated and -- per Whittaker -- it's already intrusive beyond anything that most Americans seemingly comprehend.

Hanna, for example, pointed to the many people around the world who are helping to train today's large language models, suggesting that these individuals are getting short shrift in some of the breathless coverage about generative AI in part because the work is unglamorous and partly because it doesn't fit the current narrative about AI.

Said Hanna: "We know from reporting . . .that there is an army of workers who are doing annotation behind the scenes to even make this stuff work to any degree -- workers who work with Amazon Mechanical Turk, people who work with [the training data company] Sama -- in Venezuela, Kenya, the U.S., actually all over the world . . .They are actually doing the labeling, whereas Sam [Altman] and Emad [Mostaque] and all these other people who are going to say these things are magic -- no. There's humans. . . .These things need to appear as autonomous and it has this veneer, but there's so much human labor underneath it."

The comments made separately by Whittaker -- who previously worked at Google, co-founded NYU’s AI Now Institute and was an adviser to the Federal Trade Commission -- were even more pointed (and also impactful based on the audience's enthusiastic reaction to them). Her message was that, enchanted as the world may be now by chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard, the technology underpinning them is dangerous, especially as power grows more concentrated by those at the top of the advanced AI pyramid.

Said Whittaker, "I would say maybe some of the people in this audience are the users of AI, but the majority of the population is the subject of AI . . .This is not a matter of individual choice. Most of the ways that AI interpolates our life makes determinations that shape our access to resources to opportunity are made behind the scenes in ways we probably don't even know."

Announcing the Security Stage agenda at TechCrunch Disrupt

Whittaker gave an example of someone who walks into a bank and asks for a loan. That person can be denied and have "no idea that there's a system in [the] back probably powered by some Microsoft API that determined, based on scraped social media, that I wasn't creditworthy. I'm never going to know [because] there's no mechanism for me to know this." There are ways to change this, she continued, but overcoming the current power hierarchy in order to do so is next to impossible, she suggested. "I've been at the table for like, 15 years, 20 years. I've been at the table. Being at the table with no power is nothing."

Certainly, a lot of powerless people might agree with Whittaker, including current and former OpenAI and Google employees who've reportedly been leery at times of their companies' approach to launching AI products.

Indeed, Bloomberg moderator Sarah Frier asked the panel how concerned employees can speak up without fear of losing their jobs, to which Singh -- whose startup helps companies with AI governance -- answered: "I think a lot of that depends upon the leadership and the company values, to be honest. . . . We've seen instance after instance in the past year of responsible AI teams being let go."

In the meantime, there's much more that everyday people don't understand about what's happening, Whittaker suggested, calling AI "a surveillance technology." Facing the crowd, she elaborated, noting that AI "requires surveillance in the form of these massive datasets that entrench and expand the need for more and more data, and more and more intimate collection. The solution to everything is more data, more knowledge pooled in the hands of these companies. But these systems are also deployed as surveillance devices. And I think it's really important to recognize that it doesn't matter whether an output from an AI system is produced through some probabilistic statistical guesstimate, or whether it's data from a cell tower that's triangulating my location. That data becomes data about me. It doesn't need to be correct. It doesn't need to be reflective of who I am or where I am. But it has power over my life that is significant, and that power is being put in the hands of these companies."

Added Whittaker, the "Venn diagram of AI concerns and privacy concerns is a circle."

Whittaker obviously has her own agenda up to a point. As she said herself at the event, "there is a world where Signal and other legitimate privacy preserving technologies persevere" because people grow less and less comfortable with this concentration of power.

But also, if there isn't enough pushback and soon -- as progress in AI accelerates, the societal impacts also accelerate -- we'll continue heading down a "hype-filled road toward AI," she said, "where that power is entrenched and naturalized under the guise of intelligence and we are surveilled to the point [of having] very, very little agency over our individual and collective lives."

This "concern is existential, and it's much bigger than the AI framing that is often given."

We found the discussion captivating; if you'd like to see the whole thing, Bloomberg has since posted it here.

After jobs warning, Germany's Axel Springer says AI can liberate journalists

Reuters
Thu, June 22, 2023

FILE PHOTO: Illustration shows Artificial Intelligence words


BERLIN (Reuters) - A senior executive at German media giant Axel Springer on Thursday said artificial intelligence would free journalists to devote more time to core reporting, days after an internal email warned the technology would lead to significant job losses.

"For newsrooms, AI opens up new paths and freedoms. Journalists can outsource tedious work to AI and devote more time and energy to their core tasks," Chief Information Officer Samir Fadlallah told Reuters on the sidelines of a media conference in Berlin.

The company will address challenges around the technology "constructively," he said.

In an email seen by Reuters earlier this week, the publisher outlined a "digital only" roadmap for its mass-circulation Bild tabloid to be implemented by the beginning of 2024, saying that its "AI offensive" meant that many jobs would become redundant.

"The functions of editorial managers, page editors, proofreaders, secretaries and photo editors will no longer exist as they do today," the editorial leadership team wrote to Bild staff.

While Springer did not comment on the number of jobs at risk, company sources told Reuters a low three-digit number of employees would ultimately have to leave.

Fadlallah said his focus was on regulatory challenges and the opportunities the technology opens up for consumers.

"We see great potential in Generative AI to provide our readers and users with even more attractive and individually tailored products," he said, adding that it offers users "completely new opportunities for interaction."

"The focus is certainly on topics such as necessary regulation, remuneration for the use of our content as training material for large language models, and data protection," he said.

The company has said it aims to improve earnings at its flagship Bild and Welt publications by 100 million euros ($109.14 million) by 2025 through revenue increases and cost savings, and intends to fully stop producing print edition newspapers in the medium term.

Axel Springer is active in more than 40 countries and employs more than 18,000 people worldwide. Alongside its German titles, the firm owns English-language news website Politico, U.S. media company Insider and classified portals StepStone and AVIV.

($1 = 0.9163 euros)

(Reporting by Klaus Lauer, Writing by Anna Mackenzie)

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says AI Is ‘Most Important Step Yet’ For Humans and Tech

Priya Anand and Emily Chang
Thu, June 22, 2023 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

(Bloomberg) -- Sam Altman, chief executive officer of artificial intelligence startup OpenAI Inc., said there are many ways that rapidly progressing AI technology “could go wrong.” But he argued that the benefits outweigh the costs, “We work with dangerous technology that could be used in dangerous ways very frequently.”

Altman addressed growing concern about the rapid progress of AI in an interview onstage at the Bloomberg Technology Summit in San Francisco. Altman has also publicly pushed for increased regulation of artificial intelligence in recent months, speaking frequently with officials around the world about responsible stewardship of AI.

Despite the potential dangers of what he called an exponential technological shift, Altman spoke about several areas where AI could be beneficial, including medicine, science and education.

“I think it’d be good to end poverty,” he said. “But we’re going to have to manage the risk to get there.”

OpenAI has been valued at more than $27 billion, putting it at the forefront of the booming field of venture-backed AI companies. Addressing whether he would financially benefit from OpenAI’s success, Altman said, “I have enough money,” and stressed that his motivations were not financial. “This concept of having enough money is not something that is easy to get across to other people,” he said, adding that it’s human nature to want to be useful and work on “something that matters.”

“I think this will be the most important step yet that humanity has to get through with technology,” Altman said. “And I really care about that.”

Elon Musk, who helped Altman start OpenAI, has subsequently been critical of the organization and its potential to do harm. Altman said that Musk “really cares about AI safety a lot,” and that his criticism was “coming from a good place.” Asked about the theoretical “cage match” between Musk and his fellow billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, Altman joked: “I would go watch if he and Zuck actually did that.”

OpenAI’s products — including the chatbot ChatGPT and image generator Dall-E — have dazzled audiences. They’ve also helped spark a multilbillion-dollar frenzy among venture capital investors and entrepreneurs who are vying to help lay the foundation of a new era of technology.

To generate revenue, OpenAI is giving companies access to the application programming interfaces needed to create their own software that makes use of its AI models. The company is also selling access to a premium version of its chatbot, called ChatGPT Plus. OpenAI doesn’t release information about total sales.


Microsoft Corp. has invested a total of $13 billion in the company, people familiar with the matter have said. Much of that will be used to pay Microsoft back for using its Azure cloud network to train and run OpenAI’s models.

The speed and power of the fast-growing AI industry has spurred governments and regulators to try to set guardrails around its development. Altman was among the artificial intelligence experts who met with President Joe Biden this week in San Francisco. The CEO has been traveling widely and speaking about AI, including in Washington, where he told US senators that, “if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong.”

Major AI companies, including Microsoft and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, have committed to participating in an independent public evaluation of their systems. But the US is also seeking a broader regulatory push. The Commerce Department said earlier this year that it was considering rules that could require AI models to go through a certification process before being released.

Read more: Regulate AI? Here’s What That Might Mean in the US: QuickTake

Last month, Altman signed onto a brief statement that included support from more than 350 executives and researchers saying “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Despite dire warnings from technology leaders, some AI researchers contend that artificial intelligence isn’t advanced enough to justify fears that it will destroy humanity, and that focusing on doomsday scenarios is only a distraction from issues like algorithmic bias, racism and the risk of rampant disinformation.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Dall-E, both released last year, have inspired startups to incorporate AI into a vast array of fields, including financial services, consumer goods, health care and entertainment. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mandeep Singh estimates the generative AI market could grow by 42% to reach $1.3 trillion by 2032.

--With assistance from Dina Bass.


Amazon Is Spending $100 Million to Teach Cloud Customers About AI
Dina Bass
Thu, June 22, 2023 


AWS Chief Executive Officer Adam Selipsky 

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud unit is building a program to help customers develop and deploy new kinds of artificial intelligence products as the biggest seller of cloud services tries to match Microsoft and Google in the market for so-called generative AI.

Amazon Web Services is investing $100 million to set up the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, which will link customers with company experts in AI and machine learning. They’ll help a range of clients in health care, financial services and manufacturing build customized applications using the new technology. Highspot, Twilio, Ryanair and Lonely Planet will be early users of the innovation center, Amazon said.

The goal is to help sell more cloud services, convincing clients to turn to AWS as they build new generative AI applications rather than Microsoft Corp.’s Azure, which has seized an early lead owing to its partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, or Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which pioneered much of the early technology underpinning this new frontier.

“We will bring our internal AWS experts free-of-charge to a whole bunch of AWS customers, focusing on folks with significant AWS presence, and go help them turbocharge their efforts to get real with generative AI, get beyond the talk,” AWS Chief Executive Officer Adam Selipsky said Thursday at Bloomberg’s technology conference in San Francisco.

Amazon unveiled its own generative AI tools earlier this year, but longtime employees and customers deemed the announcement uncharacteristically vague, Bloomberg reported in May. One customer who tested the tools awarded the technology an “incomplete” grade, while people familiar with AWS product launches wondered if Amazon released the AI tools to counter perceptions it has fallen behind Microsoft and Google.

Amazon has denied its generative AI tools were rushed or incomplete and said the technology is ready for customers to test and provide feedback. Asked about Amazon’s position in the AI race, Selipsky said: “Are we really going to have a conversation about three steps into a 10k race? Amazon has always taken a much more long-term view of the world than any other company.”

With the viral releases of OpenAI’s Dall-E image-generation software and the ChatGPT chatbot over the past year, companies are rushing to incorporate the technology into their products and services, and the cloud giants are positioning themselves to cash in. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Mandeep Singh estimates the market for generative AI, in which AI models analyze volumes of data and use it to generate new images, texts, audio and video, could grow by 42% to reach $1.3 trillion by 2032.


--With assistance from Brad Stone and Natalie Lung.

(Updated with customers with early access to the innovation center.)

The 'Black effect': Overcoming the challenge of making AI more inclusive to tap new consumers

Damon Embling
Fri, 23 June 2023


Marketers and advertisers have gathered on the French Riviera for this year’s Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity to hear how to be more authentic and inclusive in an increasingly tech-driven marketplace.

Bombarded with advertising messages online every day, consumers are becoming increasingly savvy when it comes to deciding what kind of content and brands to engage with.

Going beyond prices and offers, many are scrutinising companies not only for their sustainability credentials, but their commitment to diversity and inclusion too.

Will AI re-write creativity? Here's what to expect from Cannes Lions 2023

'Untapped' Black consumers

At Cannes Lions, creative minds have been told to wake up to the "untapped" potential of the Black consumer market, during a session titled 'Harness the Black Effect: Diversity as a Game Changer for Brands'.

The audience heard that Black consumers represent more than €1.6 trillion in annual buying power in the US alone. Yet Black audiences make up less than two per cent of American advertising and marketing spend

When you talk about AI and some of these new-age kind of approaches, we want to make sure that AI is being mindful of how it’s implementing across diverse consumers.

"In 2023, investment is still really low towards dedicated Black-facing campaigns and there's quite a bit of an opportunity that’s left on the table thereby," Brianne Boles-Marshall, Diverse Media Strategy and Investment Lead at American automaker General Motors (GM) told Euronews Next in Cannes.

"It's just like anything else, if you're not speaking directly with an audience, they may feel like your message is not for them. So, if you want to change the game of your brands, if you want to let [the consumer] know that yes, our products are for you, you speak with them, not at them".

Boles-Marshall added that research has shown that the "Black Effect," the impact of Black consumers, influences mainstream consumer behaviours to a greater degree.
Making AI inclusive

Advertisers, marketers, and the media are tackling inclusivity in an increasingly tech-driven environment, with the rise of things like generative AI (artificial intelligence) creating content.

It’s an extra challenge for businesses as they strive to be more diverse and representative.

"We have to evolve with the technology, and we have to make sure the technology, as it evolves, is inclusive," said Boles-Marshall. “When you talk about AI and some of these new-age kind of approaches, we want to make sure that AI is being mindful of how it’s implementing across diverse consumers".

She continued: "We’re not trying to usurp Black consumers; we’re trying to leverage the power they already have. So as long as tech obeys that rule too, I think we’ll be in good shape".

Changemakers: Leo Burnett’s Chaka Sobhani on why workplace diversity really matters

Being in tune with consumers

Younger people, in the 18-25 age group, are taking greater notice of inclusive advertising when making purchase decisions, according to consumer research carried out by Deloitte in 2021.

But the consulting firm highlights that it is not enough to just market inclusiveness or diversity, stressing its data shows 57 per cent of consumers are more loyal to brands who commit to addressing social inequities in their actions.

Deloitte also points out that getting future customers onboard involves brands demonstrating a range of equitable outcomes, including in recruitment and retention, as well as marketing products for users of differing abilities.

“Words alone don’t cut it. If you don't pass the smell test, it's actually going to cost you more money to better your reputation in the marketplace than if you had just followed through with what you had said in the first place,” Boles-Marshall, from GM, told Euronews Next.

“Consumers are savvy, they are investigating things and they're sharing what they've investigated with other consumers. It's wildfire".

Cannes Lions: How the metaverse and gamification has become a gamechanger for the skin care industry

Electrifying inclusivity

GM is going through a transformation of its own right now, setting itself a goal of electrifying most of the vehicles it manufactures by 2035. The company also wants to be carbon neutral five years later. A journey it says will be fully inclusive.

“At General Motors, we have dedicated media budgets towards Black consumers. We've targeted Black-owned media in consumer segments, but we have also taken note of how we're delivering against all diverse segments,” said Boles-Marshall.

“For us, it's all about everybody in, we want to make sure that everybody sees themselves in our products and everybody's locking arms to drive our products into the all-electric future".

For more from this interview at the 2023 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, watch the video in the media player 

Mexican president pushes new Labor Minister to resolve Grupo Mexico conflict



Thu, June 22, 2023 
By Daina Beth Solomon

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday said he will ask incoming Labor Minister Marath Bolanos to meet with mining company Grupo Mexico and a top union leader to attempt to resolve labor disputes stretching back more than a decade.

Grupo Mexico, a conglomerate controlled by one of Mexico's wealthiest people German Larrea, recently clashed with Lopez Obrador over a railway concession and has several mines where production has stalled, at times for years, amid conflicts with workers.

The San Martin lead, copper, zinc and silver mine in the central state of Zacatecas, where work stopped from 2007 to 2018 due to a strike, came under U.S. scrutiny last week for potential violations of a regional trade pact after a union known as The Miners argued that the strike is legally still in place.

The underground Taxco mines in the central state of Guerrero, which principally produce lead and zinc, have been shut down due to a strike since 2007. A strike also interrupted work at the Buenavista open-pit copper mine in the Cananea mining district of the northern state of Sonora from 2007 to 2010.

Lopez Obrador said he would ask Bolanos to meet with Grupo Mexico CEO Larrea as well as Napoleon Gomez Urrutia, the longtime leader of The Miners union that represents workers throughout the sector. He is also a senator in Lopez Obrador's MORENA party.

"We have to seek conciliation, truly thinking of the workers, not the interests of the business leaders or the union leaders," Lopez Obrador told his daily news conference.

He tapped Bolanos earlier this week to become labor minister in place of Luisa Maria Alcalde, who will become interior minister amid a Cabinet reshuffle as some officials vie to become MORENA's presidential candidate.

Lopez Obrador noted that Alcalde did not have a good relationship with Gomez Urrutia, and said he hoped her successor could spur discussions.

"Now that Marath is in the Labor Ministry, we can come to an agreement," the president said.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Trafigura Mexico Oil Head Eschenbach Leaves as AMLO Roils Firms



Lucia Kassai and Amy Stillman
Thu, June 22, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Trafigura Group Mexico Oil and Gas Director Katia Eschenbach has left the company as the nationalist energy policy in Latin America’s second-largest economy poses challenges for trading firms.

Eschenbach had led the firm’s operations in Mexico for 12 years, with a goal of profiting from the country’s energy market revamp under the previous administration, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Eschenbach didn’t return messages seeking comment, and Trafigura said in a statement that it doesn’t comment on personnel matters.

Trafigura, one of the world’s largest commodity trading houses, is among a number of foreign firms that have faced difficulties operating in Mexico under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s nationalist energy policies, which have included canceling permits for fuel imports and terminal projects.

AMLO, as the president is known, suspended Trafigura’s fuel-import contracts in 2021, claiming that the company was transporting contraband fuel. Trafigura denied the accusation and resumed normal operations in Mexico last year. The firm also was banned from trading oil with Petroleos Mexicanos’ PMI unit amid allegations of corruption about two years ago.

Read More: Trafigura Resumes Business in Mexico After Smuggling Accusations

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Home Depot to pay $72.5 million to settle California wage class action

A Home Depot employee is seen outside a store in Los Angeles

Fri, June 23, 2023
By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - Home Depot has agreed to pay $72.5 million to end a long-running class-action lawsuit alleging the largest U.S. home improvement retailer underpaid workers in California.

The preliminary settlement was filed late Thursday in a San Francisco federal court, and requires a judge's approval.

Half of the settlement, after taking out legal fees and costs, goes to hourly employees who worked closing shifts and were required to wait off-the-clock after stores were locked.

Another 41% goes to employees who were not paid for time needed to collect and put on aprons, and 9% goes to employees who lost pay because Home Depot rounded their clock-in and clock-out times to the nearest quarter hour.

The settlement covers more than 272,000 people employed by Home Depot in California since March 8, 2012 and is "fair, reasonable and adequate," the plaintiffs' lawyers said.

Home Depot denied wrongdoing, but settled to avoid the burden, cost and uncertainty of litigation, court papers show.

The Atlanta-based retailer said on Friday that it was glad to settle, so it could focus on serving employees and customers.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit began in March 2016, and a trial had been scheduled for this year.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs plan to seek up to $24.2 million, or one-third of the settlement amount, for legal fees, plus up to $3.5 million for expenses.

The case is Utne v Home Depot USA Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 16-01854.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Workers: Local battery maker lays off most of its employees


Andy Knight, The Herald Bulletin, Anderson, Ind.
Wed, June 21, 2023 

June 21—ANDERSON — A locally based lithium-ion battery manufacturer laid off nearly all of its employees this week, including an undetermined number at its 73rd Street headquarters.

According to social media posts from several employees, EnerDel Inc. informed affected workers of the layoffs Monday, and a member of the company's leadership team confirmed the decision later in the day.

"Unfortunately, all my team members are laid off today," Bob Hong, who led the company's engineering department, wrote on LinkedIn. "They are very great battery engineers in different functions and they have to look for a new job. If you are hiring or you know someone is hiring, please reach out to me."

It was unclear Wednesday how many employees at the Anderson location were affected, but various media accounts placed the total number of U.S. EnerDel workers from 60 to 152.

Local business leaders expressed surprise and disappointment in the news, noting that the layoffs come as competition for government subsidies to assist in manufacturing batteries and other renewable energy sources is intensifying. Electric vehicle makers and battery producers increasingly are bringing overseas production back stateside.

"It's really disheartening to see a layoff of this scale in the community, but particularly in the green energy space," said Clayton Whitson, president and CEO of the Madison County Chamber of Commerce. "This is an industry that will continue to grow, and to see a green company facing challenges like this ... it's hard."

Early last year, EnerDel announced it was moving its headquarters to Anderson from Indianapolis following its acquisition by a board member. In July 2022, the company announced the opening of an advanced engineering technology center in Irvine, California, to be staffed by an additional 25 workers.

The company apparently has faced financial headwinds in recent months. According to the Indianapolis Business Journal, EnerDel CEO Steve Heir sent an email in May notifying employees that two potential significant investors in the business had backed out.

Whitson said the chamber and local economic development officials would be proactive in looking for ways to help the company restart its operations, at least in Anderson.

"It's hard for me to speculate without knowing the root causes of the situation they're in," Whitson said. "Certainly with green renewable energies and battery operations, things are competitive right now. Until we are more ready to embrace green energy, there are limited contracts to be had."

A message requesting additional information and comments left at the company's headquarters Wednesday was not returned.

Follow Andy Knight on Twitter @Andrew_J_Knight, or call 765-640-4809.

Junior doctors in England to strike for five days in July - union


Reuters
Fri, 23 June 2023 

Junior doctors strike, in London

LONDON (Reuters) -Junior doctors in England plan to strike for five days in July, a union representing them said on Friday, calling it the "longest single period of industrial action" in the history of the state-run NHS.

The walkouts will take place from July 13, the British Medical Association (BMA) said in a statement.

"Even now the Government can avert our action by coming to the table with a credible offer on pay restoration," the BMA said.

Hundreds of thousands of appointments have been cancelled so far this year as junior doctors - qualified physicians who make up nearly half of the medical workforce - have been in dispute with the government in demand of better pay.

"These five days will be hugely disruptive for patients and put pressure on other NHS staff, we remain ready to continue talking at any point if strikes are called off," the health ministry said in a statement.

Britain has been hit by strikes in many other sectors as well, from transport and education to emergency services, as record-breaking inflation levels have pushed workers to seek pay hikes to cope with a cost-of-living crisis.

Separately, the RCN union, which represents nurses, is balloting its members for further strike action after rejecting the government's 5% pay rise offer.

(Reporting by Sarah Young, writing by Muvija M; editing by Alistair Smout)

Junior doctors to go on longest single strike in NHS history

Blathnaid Corless
Fri, June 23, 2023 

Junior doctors will strike over pay again next month - Guy Smallman/Getty Images

Junior doctors have voted to stage the longest strike in NHS history next month.

A five-day walkout will take place between Thursday July 13 and Tuesday July 18 in what is believed to be the longest single period of industrial action in the history of the health service, according to the British Medical Association.

The walkout by junior doctors could come days before consultants strike on July 20 and 21 if their ballot, which closes at the end of this month, is successful and there is no “credible pay offer” from the Government.

During the proposed strikes for July, consultants will provide “Christmas Day cover”, meaning they will continue to provide all emergency services but many routine services will be stopped.

More than 645,000 appointments and operations in England have been affected by recent NHS strikes.

The BMA is asking for a 35 per cent pay rise for junior doctors to make up for what it says is 15 years of real-term salary cuts.

Dr Robert Laurenson and Dr Vivek Trivedi, the co-chairs of the BMA junior doctors committee, said: “The NHS is one of this country’s proudest achievements, and it is shameful that we have a Government seemingly content to let it decline to the point of collapse with decades of real-terms pay cuts to doctors driving them away.

“With the 75th birthday of the NHS just days away, neglect of its workforce has left us with 7.4 million people on waiting lists for surgery and procedures, 8,500 unfilled doctors’ posts in hospitals, and doctors who can barely walk down the road without a foreign government tempting them to leave an NHS where they are paid £14 per hour for a country which will pay them properly.

“It has been almost a week since the last round of strikes finished, but not once have we heard from Rishi Sunak or Steve Barclay in terms of reopening negotiations since their collapse of our talks and cancelling all scheduled meetings a month ago.

“What better indication of how committed they are to ending this dispute could we have? As their refusal to even discuss pay restoration leads to continued disruption to the health service, more than four-fifths of junior doctors report finding their patients supportive – they understand the value of a fully staffed and resourced NHS.

“We are announcing the longest single walkout by doctors in the NHS’s history – but this is not a record that needs to go into the history books. Even now the Government can avert our action by coming to the table with a credible offer on pay restoration.

“Restoring pay can stem the flow of Australian job adverts in doctors’ social media feeds, and lead to a future 75 years of doctors being paid fairly, in a rebuilt workforce and NHS that this country can continue to be proud of.”

An advertisement trying to tempt junior doctors to live and work in Australia

Downing Street said the planned strike action was concerning.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “It puts patient safety and our efforts to cut waiting lists at risk. It is obviously extremely disappointing.

“In the meeting the Government had with junior doctors, we made a fair and reasonable opening offer.

“We were discussing both pay and non-pay issues. But they chose to end the talks by announcing new strike dates.

“Obviously if they cancel the damaging and disruptive strikes and show willingness to move away from their starting positions and find a way forward, then we will be able to proceed with those discussions.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “It is hugely disappointing the BMA Junior Doctors Committee has declared further strike action in July. These five days will be hugely disruptive for patients and put pressure on other NHS staff.

“The government presented an opening offer and there were active discussions ongoing about a range of pay and non-pay measures to improve the working lives of junior doctors. However, the Junior Doctors Committee turned their back on negotiations by announcing further strikes.

“The government has been clear that strikes must be paused while talks take place, and we remain ready to continue talking at any point if strikes are called off and the Junior Doctors Committee show willingness to move significantly from their unreasonable pay demands.”

‘Ensure patient safety is maintained’

Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said the announcement of the five-day strike was “hugely disappointing” and would have an impact on patient care.

“Leaders will be anxious about again having to find staff to cover another walkout, this time across five days, but will pull out all the stops to ensure patient safety is maintained,” he said.

“Leaders will be hopeful that the goodwill of consultants and other colleagues to provide cover has not dwindled, but will be increasingly concerned about the financial cost of these walkouts. One trust estimated the cost of April’s walkout to be around £500,000, so the cost of industrial action is stacking up.

“That’s to say nothing on how it affects patients, many of whom will face the prospect of having an operation of appointment cancelled or delayed.

“This is not only a worry to them but has potential health implications – a postponed operation can lead to complications further down the line, often resulting in patients seeking help from primary or acute care to help manage an issue that was wholly avoidable. Leaders will make every effort to keep disruption to a minimum.”

Mr Taylor said that “unfortunately, our previous warnings that repeated industrial action must not become business as usual is starting to be the harsh reality leaders and the NHS must face”, calling on the parties involved “to open a proper dialogue again and find solutions to this standoff as soon as possible”.

UK
Train strikes: RMT union announces three days of walkouts in July

Tom Espiner - Business reporter, BBC News
Fri, June 23, 2023 

RMT picket line

Thousands of rail workers will strike on three days in July as part of a long-running dispute about pay and conditions.

Strikes at 14 rail firms have been called on 20, 22 and 29 July, the RMT union said.

It said negotiations with rail firms and the government had stalled.

But train operators said the action was "totally unnecessary" and urged the union to put the latest pay offer to its members.

Previous strikes in the dispute have caused widespread disruption.

Unions are pushing for more pay as the cost of living rises rapidly, but rail firms have said they will not pay more without concessions on conditions.


The RMT said 20,000 of its members, including guards, train managers and station staff, would walk out after train operators did not make a new offer.

Do train strikes still have any impact?

Train strikes: When are they and why are they taking place?

Its general secretary, Mick Lynch, said that train operators and the government had not "made any attempt whatsoever to arrange any meetings or put forward a decent offer that can help us reach a negotiated solution".

"The government continues to shackle the companies and will not allow them to put forward a package that can settle this dispute," he added.

The latest strike dates coincide with sporting events including the fourth and fifth Ashes Tests and the Open golf championship.
Pay push

Unions say any pay offer should reflect the rising cost of living. Inflation - the pace of general price rises - is at 8.7%.

The latest pay offer from the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) which represents train operators, was a backdated pay rise of 5% for 2022.

Unions would then have to agree to reforms before members could get a second year's pay rise of 4%, negotiated with individual operators.

The BBC understands that rail operators are willing to negotiate with the RMT, but want the union to put the latest pay offer to its members before taking further action.

The RDG said more strikes were "totally unnecessary", and that all the RMT had achieved was losing its members more money than they would have received from pay offers.

"We have now made three offers that the RMT executive have blocked without a convincing explanation," a spokesperson said.

A senior rail source said union members had lost £2,000 of pay through strike action so far.

"Negotiation has got us nothing. We have compromised on pay, job protections and issues like driver-only trains," the source said.

"Nothing is ever enough, Every one of our offers has been rejected - not even by our staff who have not cast a single vote. No more ransom demands, the industry must change to survive," the source added.

The Department for Transport said the strikes were "targeting two iconic international sporting events" and would disrupt families at the beginning of the school holidays in England and Wales.

"After a year of industrial action, passengers and rail workers alike are growing tired of union bosses playing politics with their lives," a spokesperson said.

The government has helped train operators put forward "fair and reasonable pay offers that would see generous increases for rail workers," the spokesperson said. "Union leaders should do the right thing and give their members a chance to vote on these pay offers."

The strikes announcement comes on the day that Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey said wage rises "cannot continue" at the rate they have been if inflation is to come down, reiterating Bank calls for restraint from workers.

The union's industrial action began a year ago, and last month members voted for another six months of action.

Industry group UK Hospitality said the rail strikes were a "hammer blow" for firms including pubs, bars and restaurants.

"Strike disruption over the past year has already cost the hospitality sector £3.25bn in lost sales and there is no doubt that figure will increase as a result of these strike days," said the group's chief executive Kate Nicholls.

German rail union threatens open-ended strikes over pay dispute


 Numerous travelers wait for their train, in Hamburg, Germany, Central Station Friday, April 21, 2023. A German rail workers' union said Thursday, June 22, 2023 that it will hold a ballot of its members on all-out strike action after long-running pay talks with the main national railway operator broke down. 

(Bodo Marks/dpa via AP, File)

Associated Press
Thu, June 22, 2023 
BERLIN (AP) — A German rail workers' union said Thursday that it will ask its members to vote on all-out strike action after long-running salary talks with the main national railway operator broke down.

The EVG union has already staged hours-long or one-day “warning strikes,” a common tactic in German wage negotiations. But it's now threatening to move to longer walkouts as its negotiations with state-owned Deutsche Bahn have reached an impasse.

Union leader Martin Burkert said authorization for open-ended strikes will require three quarters of all votes cast in the ballot that will take four to five weeks to be completed. He said “warning strikes” would not be ruled out while voting is taking place. The announcement comes just as school summer vacations are starting in Germany.

Union leaders on Wednesday said the latest round of talks had failed. EVG has called for a pay increase of 12% and for the agreement to remain valid for 12 months rather than Deutsche Bahn’s proposed 27 months. It says that Deutsche Bahn is offering too little, too late.

The past few months have seen plenty of other tense salary negotiations in Europe’s biggest economy as inflation remains high. Germany’s annual inflation rate stood at 6.1% in May.

In April, German government officials and labor unions reached a pay deal for more than 2.5 million public-sector workers, ending a lengthy dispute after arbitrators were called in to propose a compromise.

During the rail pay dispute, Deutsche Bahn has accused EVG of trying to score points in a bitter long-held rivalry with the other main railway workers' union, the traditionally more aggressive GDL. The GDL is due to start negotiations for its members later this year.

Spirit Aero to continue contract talks with union as strike looms

Reuters
Fri, June 23, 2023 

Airplane fuselages bound for Boeing's 737 Max production facility sit in storage behind Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc headquarters, in Wichita

(Reuters) - Spirit AeroSystems Inc said it will meet with the U.S. machinists union on Saturday to continue negotiations for a new contract, after workers rejected a proposed four-year deal and announced a strike.

Shares of Spirit were up 4.8% in afternoon trade on Friday.

The company, a crucial supplier for aerospace heavyweights Boeing and Airbus, expects its Wichita production operations to remain suspended until an agreement is reached with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

The union did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The Wichita site makes the entire fuselage for Boeing's bestselling 737 MAX narrowbody jet and the forward sections for most of its other aircraft, as well as pylons for the Airbus A220.

A prolonged work stoppage at Spirit could impact the aircraft makers it supplies, eventually forcing them to slow or stop jetliner assembly at a time when both Airbus and Boeing are trying to ramp up production.

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

Spirit Aerosystems, major airlines supplier, suspends plant operations after labor contract rejected


Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Ks. The major supplier to the world’s biggest aircraft manufacturers is suspending operations at a critical plant in Kansas after union workers rejected a tentative contract, sending shares of Boeing and Airbus lower Thursday, June 22, 2023. 

(Mike Hutmacher/The Wichita Eagle via AP, File) 

MICHELLE CHAPMAN
Thu, June 22, 2023 

Spirit Aerosystems, a major supplier to the world's largest aircraft manufacturers, is suspending operations at a critical Kansas plant after union workers there rejected a proposed four-year contract and authorized a strike.

Approximately 6,000 members of the IAM District 70, Local 839 voted to reject Spirit Aerosystems' best and last offer after 13 years without a fully negotiated agreement, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said in a prepared statement.

Shares of Boeing Co. and Airbus slid about 2%, and shares of Spirit Aerosystems Holdings Inc. tumbled 10% at the opening bell.

The tentative deal that was rejected had included up to a compounded 34% average pay bump through general wages increases, cost-of-living adjustments, and a guaranteed annual bonus; a 14.7% increase in retirement benefits; increased paid time off; job security enhancements and made Sunday overtime voluntary.

A strike is scheduled to start on Saturday.

“Most of our members have concluded that the company’s offer is unacceptable,” the union said in a prepared statement. "IAM District 70 and Local 839 will regroup and begin planning the following steps to bring the company back to the table.”

The IAM is an industrial trade union that representing about 600,000 active and retired members in the aerospace, defense, airlines, railroad, transit, healthcare, automotive, and other industries.

Operations at the factory will be suspended starting Thursday, Spirit said. The company said union employees should not show up for work, but would be paid for their regularly scheduled hours. All scheduled overtime was canceled. Employees not represented by the IAM were instructed to show up for work as normal.

“We are disappointed that our employees represented by the IAM rejected our four-year contract offer and voted to strike. We believe that our fair and competitive offer recognizes the contributions of our employees and ensures we can successfully meet increasing demand for aircraft from our customers,” the Wichita, Kansas, company said in a prepared statement.

Aircraft manufacturers have wrestled with supply issues in recent years and a strike at Spirit Aerosystems at the Wichita plant could add to those headaches.

Spirit builds the fuselage for Boeing's 737 MAX narrowbody jet and substantial sections of aircraft bodies in other of its models. It builds components for Airbus aircraft as well

Spirit AeroSystems to halt work at Wichita plant as union votes to strike

Valerie Insinna, Abinaya V and Shivansh Tiwary
Wed, June 21, 2023 

 The headquarters of Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc, is seen in Wichita

PARIS (Reuters) -Spirit AeroSystems will suspend factory production on Thursday at its plant in Wichita, Kansas, the company said, after workers rejected a proposed four-year deal and announced a strike to begin on June 24.

Spirit is one of the most consequential suppliers for aerospace heavyweights Boeing and Airbus. The Wichita site makes the entire fuselage for Boeing's bestselling 737 MAX narrowbody jet and the forward sections for most of its other aircraft, as well as pylons for the Airbus A220.

Shares of Spirit tumbled about 9% in afternoon trade, while those of Boeing fell 2.4%. Paris-listed shares of Airbus shed 1.7%.

A prolonged work stoppage at Spirit could have ripple effects for the aircraft makers it supplies, eventually forcing them to slow or stop jetliner assembly at a time when both Airbus and Boeing are ramping up production.

"It's not a welcome development," said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with AeroDynamic Advisories.

"I think the general feeling is that (Spirit) had it under control with what appeared to be a reasonable agreement," he said. But after more than a decade of cost pressure on the aerospace industry, "labor feels like they have some power."

Spirit will suspend factory production prior to the expiration of its contract with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) on June 24, but will continue to pay employees, it said.

"Despite this setback, we are not distracted from the task at hand. We look forward to continued meetings with IAM leadership," Spirit said.

Although IAM and Spirit reached a tentative contract agreement last week, 79% of workers voted to reject the contract and 85% voted to strike, the union said on Thursday.

IAM added it would regroup and begin planning "the following steps to bring the company back to the table."

About 55% of Spirit's U.S. workers were covered by the agreement, which will expire this month. Spirit had 12,735 workers in its six U.S. facilities, of which 11,000 were located in Wichita.

Boeing said it continued to monitor the situation and support Spirit.

Stan Deal, the head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes business, encouraged employees to "stay focused on our task at hand, which is to continue to build and deliver the finest airplanes in the world," in an internal email seen by Reuters.


The planemaker has been working to boost output of its 737 MAX jets to 38 per month from the current level of 31, and 787 jets to five per month from the present level of four this year.

"(The upcoming strike) threatens Boeing’s pace of production on these programs," J.P.Morgan analyst Seth Seifman said in a note.

Boeing has more than 100 MAX planes in its inventory, so it could shift workers from production to modifying inventory jets to keep deliveries flowing in the event of a stop at its production facility in Renton, Washington.

Airbus, while not commenting on the work stoppage itself, said it conducted regular assessments with suppliers to mitigate potential risks to production.

The strike is yet another setback for Spirit, which has been grappling with a recent quality issue on 737 fuselages and is experiencing cash flow pressures.

In May, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said it would be difficult to make contingency plans for a strike at Spirit.

"Even if they tried to get ahead of it by virtue of their current production, that will be measured in weeks not in months, so we're supporting them in every way possible to get to a constructive answer," he said.

(Reporting by Valerie Insinna, Abinaya Vijayaraghavan, Shivansh Tiwary and Abhijith Ganapavaram; Editing by Jason Neely, Mark Potter and Pooja Desai)