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Slavery 21st Century
You thought it was over, think again
the corporations of today are just remodeled slave plantations of the past
september 2023
Slavery did not end it was merely outsourced,
reconfigured, and made politically correct
The Global Slavery Index
published on Thursday by Walk Free Foundation, describes modern slavery as a complex and often hidden crime that crosses borders, sectors and jurisdictions. The US number, the study estimates, is almost one hundredth of the estimated 40.3 million global total number of people it defines as being enslaved.
labor history - recommended reading
*THE SILK STRIKE OF 1913
*AMERICAN LABOR VIOLENCE: ITS CAUSES, CHARACTER, AND OUTCOME
headlines and issues
*ADVOCATES SUE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR FAILING TO BAN IMPORTS OF COCOA HARVESTED BY CHILDREN(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Workers Fighting Union-Busting May Have a New Legal Tool at Their Disposal
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*GEICO IS TRYING TO CRUSH WORKERS’ ATTEMPTS TO FORM AN INDEPENDENT UNION
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*MORE US EMPLOYERS ARE TRAPPING WORKERS IN A NEW FORM OF INDENTURED SERVITUDE
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CEO WHO GOT $940 MILLION RICHER IN PANDEMIC IS BEHIND STARBUCKS UNION-BUSTING
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*STARBUCKS CREATING ‘CULTURE OF FEAR’ AS IT FIRES DOZENS INVOLVED IN UNION EFFORTS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Judge Orders Starbucks to Reinstate 7 Fired Pro-Union Workers in Memphis
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*In a Year, Amazon Disciplined Workers 13,000 Times at Now-Unionized Warehouse
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TOP US CEOS MADE 254 TIMES MORE THAN MEDIAN WORKERS IN 2021, STUDY SHOWS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*STARBUCKS ANTI-UNION PUSH BACKFIRES
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Starbucks Asks Labor Board to Stop Ongoing Union Election in Mesa, Arizona
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WANT TO BE A CRIMINAL IN AMERICA? STEALING BILLIONS IS YOUR BEST BET TO GO SCOT-FREE
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘THIS HAS BEEN HAPPENING FOR A LONG TIME’: MODERN-DAY SLAVERY UNCOVERED IN SOUTH GEORGIA(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Anti-masker abuse, subpar healthcare, and a 5 cent raise: CVS workers say enough is enough(ARTICLE BELOW)
*AMERICAN CEOS MAKE 351 TIMES MORE THAN WORKERS. IN 1965 IT WAS 15 TO ONE
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*More Workers Are Saying That Minimum-Wage Jobs Just Aren’t Worth It Anymore
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*AMAZON PRESSURED ALABAMA WORKERS TO VOTE AGAINST UNIONIZATION, LABOR BOARD FINDS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*A Supreme Court ruling that's right out of the 19th century
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CEOS MADE 299 TIMES THE SALARY OF WHAT THE MEDIAN EMPLOYEE RECEIVED: ANALYSIS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*New York's 'essential' food delivery workers demand rights
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Overworked, underpaid: workers rail against hotel chains’ cost-cutting
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*ROBERT REICH: BLAME CHIPOTLE, NOT WORKERS, FOR THE PRICE OF YOUR BURRITO
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Only 3 Percent of Jobs on Tennessee Government Website Pay Over $20,000
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*THE U.S. IS COMPLICIT IN THE GLOBAL WAR ON WORKERS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Striking coalminers in Alabama energize support across the south
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Kroger, Blasted for Ending Hazard Pay, Gave CEO $22 Million
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*McDonald's Raises Pay for U.S. Restaurant Workers
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*THE US RESTAURANT INDUSTRY IS LACKING IN WAGES, NOT WORKERS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*How Our Postal Service Helped Deliver Win To Amazon In Defeat Of Union
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CALIFORNIA WORKERS PAID AS LITTLE AS $2 AN HOUR -- AND IT'S TOTALLY LEGAL
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*MEDIAN WORKER MAKES $3,250 LESS PER YEAR THAN IN 1979 DUE TO DECLINE IN UNIONS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*At a Major Education Company, Freelancers Must Now Pay a Fee In Order to Get Paid
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*AMAZON RETALIATED AGAINST CHICAGO WORKERS FOLLOWING SPRING COVID-19 PROTESTS, NLRB FINDS(ARTICLE BELOW)
*14-HOUR DAYS AND NO BATHROOM BREAKS: AMAZON'S OVERWORKED DELIVERY DRIVERS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*HIKING THE MINIMUM WAGE TO $15 IS KEY — BUT IT’S HARDLY A LIVING WAGE
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*WHY IT'S TIME TO MAKE LARGE CORPORATIONS PAY LIVING WAGES
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*THE 1.5 MILLION CHILD SLAVES BEHIND YOUR CHOCOLATE BAR
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*How corporations try to divide and exploit America's workers
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*GOVERNMENT STUDY SHOWS TAXPAYERS ARE SUBSIDIZING “STARVATION WAGES” AT MCDONALD'S, WALMART(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Robert Reich: Here are the 5 biggest corporate lies about unions
(ARTICLE BELOW)
funnies(at the end)Whole Foods staff to protest working conditions as coronavirus cases rise
SLAVERY 21ST CENTURY!!!
Advocates sue federal government for failing to ban imports of cocoa harvested by children
Child welfare advocates have filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to force the Biden administration to block imports of cocoa harvested by children in West Africa that ends up in America’s most popular chocolate desserts and candies
MARTHA MENDOZA Associated Press
August 15, 2023, 5:25 AM
WASHINGTON -- Child welfare advocates filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday asking a judge to force the Biden administration to block imports of cocoa harvested by children in West Africa that can end up in America's most popular chocolate desserts and candies.
The lawsuit, brought by International Rights Advocates, seeks to have the federal government enforce a 1930s era federal law that requires the government to ban products created by child labor from entering the U.S.
The nonprofit group says it filed the suit because Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security have ignored extensive evidence documenting children cultivating cocoa destined for well-known U.S. candy makers, including Hershey, Mars, Nestle and Cargill.
The major chocolate companies pledged to end their reliance on child labor to harvest their cocoa by 2005. Now they say they will eliminate the worst forms of child labor in their supply chains by 2025.
“They will never stop until they are forced to," said Terry Collingsworth, International Rights Advocates' executive director. He added that the U.S. government has "the power to end this incredible abuse of African children by enforcing the law.”
Spokespeople for CBP declined to comment on the suit, which was filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade. When asked more generally about cocoa produced by child labor, the federal agency said it was “unable to disclose additional information or plans regarding forced labor enforcement activities due to protections of law enforcement sensitive and business confidential information.”
Cocoa cultivation by children in Cote d’Ivoire, also known as the Ivory Coast, as well as neighboring Ghana, is not a new phenomenon. Human rights leaders, academics, news organizations and even federal agencies have spent the last two decades exposing the plight of children working on cocoa plantations in the West African nations, which produce about 70% of the world's cocoa supply.
A 2019 study by the University of Chicago, commissioned by the U.S. government, found 790,000 children, some as young as 5, were working on Ivory Coast cocoa plantations. The situation was similar in neighboring Ghana, researchers found.
The U.S. government has long recognized that child labor is a major problem in the Ivory Coast. The Department of Labor reported in 2021 that “children in Côte d’Ivoire are subjected to the worst forms of child labor, including in the harvesting of cocoa and coffee.”
The State Department in a recent report said that agriculture companies in the Ivory Coast rely on child labor to produce a range of products, including cocoa. The department said this year that human traffickers “exploit Ivoirian boys and boys from West African countries, especially Burkina Faso, in forced labor in agriculture, especially cocoa production."
To try to force companies to abandon cocoa produced by child labor, International Rights Advocates has sued some of the world’s large chocolate companies over the use of child labor in harvesting cocoa beans. It lost a case before the Supreme Court in 2021. Several others are pending.
Pressured by lawmakers and advocates, major chocolate makers in 2001 agreed to stop purchasing cocoa produced by child labor. That goal, experts and industry officials say, has not been met.
“These companies kept saying, ‘We can’t trace it back.’ That’s BS," said former Sen. Tom Harkin, who led a push for legislation to reform the industry, but ended up agreeing to a protocol that allows corporations to regulate themselves. “They just won’t do it because it will cost them money.”
Harkin said Americans don’t realize the treats they hand their children originate with child abuse.
“It’s not just the chocolate you eat, it’s the chocolate syrup you put on your ice cream, the cocoa you drink, the chocolate chip cookies you bake," he said.
The World Cocoa Foundation, which represents major cocoa companies, said it is committed to “improving livelihoods of cocoa farmers and their communities.”
A Hershey spokesperson said the company “does not tolerate child labor within our supply chain.” Cargill, Nestle and Mars did not respond to requests for comment. Their websites all describe their work to end child labor in cocoa plantations.
Ivory Coast officials have said they are taking steps to eradicate child labor but blocking imports of the nation's cocoa would devastate the nation's economy.
“We don’t want to un-employ the whole country,” said Collingsworth, the labor advocate who brought Tuesday's lawsuit. “We just want children replaced by adults in cocoa plantations.”
Collingsworth was in the Ivory Coast investigating working conditions when he noticed children chopping through brush and harvesting cocoa. He pulled out a phone and took video and photographs of the boys and girls at work. He also stopped by a nearby processing facility and took a photos of burlap sacks with labels of U.S. companies.
International Rights Advocates decided to petition the CBP to block imports of the cocoa, filing a 24-page petition in 2020 asking the agency take such action. The petition contained what it said was photographic and other evidence detailing how the companies were violating the law.
Collingsworth said his group also provided CBP with interviews with children as young as 12 who said their wages were being withheld, and that they had been tricked by recruiters into working long hours on a false promise they would be given land of their own.
CBP failed to take any action on the petition, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit, brought by International Rights Advocates, seeks to have the federal government enforce a 1930s era federal law that requires the government to ban products created by child labor from entering the U.S.
The nonprofit group says it filed the suit because Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security have ignored extensive evidence documenting children cultivating cocoa destined for well-known U.S. candy makers, including Hershey, Mars, Nestle and Cargill.
The major chocolate companies pledged to end their reliance on child labor to harvest their cocoa by 2005. Now they say they will eliminate the worst forms of child labor in their supply chains by 2025.
“They will never stop until they are forced to," said Terry Collingsworth, International Rights Advocates' executive director. He added that the U.S. government has "the power to end this incredible abuse of African children by enforcing the law.”
Spokespeople for CBP declined to comment on the suit, which was filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade. When asked more generally about cocoa produced by child labor, the federal agency said it was “unable to disclose additional information or plans regarding forced labor enforcement activities due to protections of law enforcement sensitive and business confidential information.”
Cocoa cultivation by children in Cote d’Ivoire, also known as the Ivory Coast, as well as neighboring Ghana, is not a new phenomenon. Human rights leaders, academics, news organizations and even federal agencies have spent the last two decades exposing the plight of children working on cocoa plantations in the West African nations, which produce about 70% of the world's cocoa supply.
A 2019 study by the University of Chicago, commissioned by the U.S. government, found 790,000 children, some as young as 5, were working on Ivory Coast cocoa plantations. The situation was similar in neighboring Ghana, researchers found.
The U.S. government has long recognized that child labor is a major problem in the Ivory Coast. The Department of Labor reported in 2021 that “children in Côte d’Ivoire are subjected to the worst forms of child labor, including in the harvesting of cocoa and coffee.”
The State Department in a recent report said that agriculture companies in the Ivory Coast rely on child labor to produce a range of products, including cocoa. The department said this year that human traffickers “exploit Ivoirian boys and boys from West African countries, especially Burkina Faso, in forced labor in agriculture, especially cocoa production."
To try to force companies to abandon cocoa produced by child labor, International Rights Advocates has sued some of the world’s large chocolate companies over the use of child labor in harvesting cocoa beans. It lost a case before the Supreme Court in 2021. Several others are pending.
Pressured by lawmakers and advocates, major chocolate makers in 2001 agreed to stop purchasing cocoa produced by child labor. That goal, experts and industry officials say, has not been met.
“These companies kept saying, ‘We can’t trace it back.’ That’s BS," said former Sen. Tom Harkin, who led a push for legislation to reform the industry, but ended up agreeing to a protocol that allows corporations to regulate themselves. “They just won’t do it because it will cost them money.”
Harkin said Americans don’t realize the treats they hand their children originate with child abuse.
“It’s not just the chocolate you eat, it’s the chocolate syrup you put on your ice cream, the cocoa you drink, the chocolate chip cookies you bake," he said.
The World Cocoa Foundation, which represents major cocoa companies, said it is committed to “improving livelihoods of cocoa farmers and their communities.”
A Hershey spokesperson said the company “does not tolerate child labor within our supply chain.” Cargill, Nestle and Mars did not respond to requests for comment. Their websites all describe their work to end child labor in cocoa plantations.
Ivory Coast officials have said they are taking steps to eradicate child labor but blocking imports of the nation's cocoa would devastate the nation's economy.
“We don’t want to un-employ the whole country,” said Collingsworth, the labor advocate who brought Tuesday's lawsuit. “We just want children replaced by adults in cocoa plantations.”
Collingsworth was in the Ivory Coast investigating working conditions when he noticed children chopping through brush and harvesting cocoa. He pulled out a phone and took video and photographs of the boys and girls at work. He also stopped by a nearby processing facility and took a photos of burlap sacks with labels of U.S. companies.
International Rights Advocates decided to petition the CBP to block imports of the cocoa, filing a 24-page petition in 2020 asking the agency take such action. The petition contained what it said was photographic and other evidence detailing how the companies were violating the law.
Collingsworth said his group also provided CBP with interviews with children as young as 12 who said their wages were being withheld, and that they had been tricked by recruiters into working long hours on a false promise they would be given land of their own.
CBP failed to take any action on the petition, the lawsuit alleges.
union busting!!!
Workers Fighting Union-Busting May Have a New Legal Tool at Their Disposal
A class-action lawsuit against a California-based grocery retailer could set a new precedent against union-busters.
By Sam Knight , TRUTHOUT
Published April 23, 2023
A company accused of lying about retirement benefits to stop workers from organizing can be sued in a class-action lawsuit, a federal judge ruled.
The decision came on April 7 after the defendant, the California-based grocery retailer Save Mart Supermarkets, asked the judge to dismiss the case, which experts are calling a creative use of labor law against union-busting.
The suit hinges on promises made by managers about retirement benefits to undercut the appeal of union membership to employees, a common tactic in campaigns against labor organizing. A ruling against Save Mart could haunt companies that have used similar tactics for decades.
“Unions need to address large companies’ anti-union tactics any way they can, especially given how weak our labor laws have become,” said Naomi Soldon, partner of the union-side labor law firm Soldon McCoy, which isn’t representing anyone in the dispute. Soldon told Truthout that the case takes a “novel approach” to fighting union-busters, and a decision in favor of the workers “should help organizing drives, in general, as it shows employees that they have rights,” which unions can help enforce.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick said the lawsuit against Save Mart may proceed based on allegations of “two misrepresentations” by the company; one stems from promises of nonunion retirement benefits “as good or better than those of their union counterparts,” the other pertains to managers having told employees to retire earlier than they should have to maximize benefits and income.
The benefits offers were made by Save Mart as part of a strategy to undermine organizers with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), lawyers for the plaintiffs allege.
Save Mart operates more than 200 grocery stores with more than 14,000 workers in California and Nevada under different retail brand names, including Lucky, FoodMaxx, Lucky California and Save Mart itself. The company was listed by Forbes last year as the 109th- largest private employer in the U.S. with some $5 billion in revenue. UFCW local chapters in California represent about 11,500 Save Mart workers.
For years, Save Mart did provide similar retirement benefits to nonunion workers, in dollar amounts. But the terms of benefits to union workers were binding, as per the collective bargaining agreement governing them, while nonunion retirees were compensated at the discretion of management.
In April 2022, shortly after Save Mart’s longtime owners sold the company to a private equity firm, Kingswood Capital Management LP, management took benefits away from nonunion retirees, many of whom had worked for Save Mart for decades. Thus emerged the class- action suit, which features four lead plaintiffs who spent a total of 146 years working for Save Mart companies.
“Put simply, Save Mart made false assurances about [its nonunion retirement plan] benefits as a means of suppressing union enrollment among Save Mart employees,” lawyers for the plaintiffs alleged. They estimated that their clients represent a class that could consist of thousands of workers who are owed “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The plaintiffs’ complaint outlined how Save Mart, deceptively, touted the quality of its benefits as part of a relentless union-busting strategy orchestrated at the highest level of the corporate hierarchy. When the company opened a new store, for example, executives and high-ranking human resources employees would descend on the staff with generous promises to diminish the appeal of organizing, the filing alleged.
“In these meetings, the HR representative(s) and company executive were trained to communicate that employees should not pay dues to join the union, since the non-union benefits — including retirement benefits — would always be as good as or better than the benefits enjoyed by union employees,” the complaint stated.
Claims about benefits were also invoked by managers at these meetings to counter arguments made by “employees who were union members at their prior location [and] expressed concern about losing their union benefits,” according to the plaintiffs. Similar meetings were held at any store playing host to an organizing drive, if executives or HR got wind of the campaign.
“Internally, these meetings were referred to as ‘the roadshow’ or ‘kumbaya’ meetings because ‘the purpose was to foster harmony amongst the employees by reassuring them about their benefits and quelling any desires to give up those benefits’ by unionizing,” the complaint said. “The message worked: many Save Mart stores remained non-union.”
In a twist of irony, the complaint drew heavily on the testimony of HR executives who were, for years, foot soldiers in Save Mart’s union-busting campaigns. They themselves were “shocked” by the withdrawal of benefits after the Kingswood takeover, plaintiffs’ lawyers said, because they “had been communicating to employees for years that the Plan’s medical benefits were guaranteed for life” and “had themselves relied upon this lifetime guarantee” in deciding to give years of their life to Save Mart.
Meanwhile, the union employees that HR spent years attempting to curtail, didn’t have to consider the possibility of losing their benefits because they refused to take their former bosses’ word for it.
“Our members can rest assured they have the benefit of solid successor language which guarantees they will continue to enjoy the benefits of their Union memberships and labor contracts,” UFCW Local 8-Golden State said in a statement reacting to news of the takeover.
Most legal battles against union busters are waged by workers under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the law that grants legal protections to workplace organizing. In recent months, for example, the law has been used by Starbucks workers to win their jobs back after they were fired for supporting union activity.
Worker advocates, however, have been attempting to strengthen the law for decades, arguing that it could do much more to punish tyrannical union-busting bosses. Democrats attempted to pass a major reform bill in 2021, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, but fell a few Senate votes shy of sending the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk.
One way the bill would have strengthened the NLRA: It would have allowed workers to sue companies for monetary damages if the firms violate their rights under the law. The Save Mart class action is being brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974, which established federal standards for employer-provided retirement and health care plans.
Eric Fink, associate professor of Elon University School of Law, echoed Soldon’s analysis, saying that there’s a high threshold under the NLRA for securing charges against union-busting managers who make deceptive claims about benefits, and the remedies are weak.
“Even if the bait-and-switch in this case could be the basis for an unfair labor practice charge, it would require proof that the employer was motivated by anti-union animus, which would be difficult,” he noted.
“More significantly, in contrast to the limited remedies available for [unfair labor practices], the potential remedies in an ERISA suit are substantial,” Fink added. “If this suit is successful, and if other employers anticipate the possibility of facing similar suits, the deterrent effect could be much greater than has been the case with [unfair labor practice] charges (which are not much of a deterrent at all).”
Bosses violate workers’ rights under the NLRA in 41.5 percent of union organizing campaigns, according to a study published in 2019 by the Economic Policy Institute.
The decision came on April 7 after the defendant, the California-based grocery retailer Save Mart Supermarkets, asked the judge to dismiss the case, which experts are calling a creative use of labor law against union-busting.
The suit hinges on promises made by managers about retirement benefits to undercut the appeal of union membership to employees, a common tactic in campaigns against labor organizing. A ruling against Save Mart could haunt companies that have used similar tactics for decades.
“Unions need to address large companies’ anti-union tactics any way they can, especially given how weak our labor laws have become,” said Naomi Soldon, partner of the union-side labor law firm Soldon McCoy, which isn’t representing anyone in the dispute. Soldon told Truthout that the case takes a “novel approach” to fighting union-busters, and a decision in favor of the workers “should help organizing drives, in general, as it shows employees that they have rights,” which unions can help enforce.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick said the lawsuit against Save Mart may proceed based on allegations of “two misrepresentations” by the company; one stems from promises of nonunion retirement benefits “as good or better than those of their union counterparts,” the other pertains to managers having told employees to retire earlier than they should have to maximize benefits and income.
The benefits offers were made by Save Mart as part of a strategy to undermine organizers with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), lawyers for the plaintiffs allege.
Save Mart operates more than 200 grocery stores with more than 14,000 workers in California and Nevada under different retail brand names, including Lucky, FoodMaxx, Lucky California and Save Mart itself. The company was listed by Forbes last year as the 109th- largest private employer in the U.S. with some $5 billion in revenue. UFCW local chapters in California represent about 11,500 Save Mart workers.
For years, Save Mart did provide similar retirement benefits to nonunion workers, in dollar amounts. But the terms of benefits to union workers were binding, as per the collective bargaining agreement governing them, while nonunion retirees were compensated at the discretion of management.
In April 2022, shortly after Save Mart’s longtime owners sold the company to a private equity firm, Kingswood Capital Management LP, management took benefits away from nonunion retirees, many of whom had worked for Save Mart for decades. Thus emerged the class- action suit, which features four lead plaintiffs who spent a total of 146 years working for Save Mart companies.
“Put simply, Save Mart made false assurances about [its nonunion retirement plan] benefits as a means of suppressing union enrollment among Save Mart employees,” lawyers for the plaintiffs alleged. They estimated that their clients represent a class that could consist of thousands of workers who are owed “hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The plaintiffs’ complaint outlined how Save Mart, deceptively, touted the quality of its benefits as part of a relentless union-busting strategy orchestrated at the highest level of the corporate hierarchy. When the company opened a new store, for example, executives and high-ranking human resources employees would descend on the staff with generous promises to diminish the appeal of organizing, the filing alleged.
“In these meetings, the HR representative(s) and company executive were trained to communicate that employees should not pay dues to join the union, since the non-union benefits — including retirement benefits — would always be as good as or better than the benefits enjoyed by union employees,” the complaint stated.
Claims about benefits were also invoked by managers at these meetings to counter arguments made by “employees who were union members at their prior location [and] expressed concern about losing their union benefits,” according to the plaintiffs. Similar meetings were held at any store playing host to an organizing drive, if executives or HR got wind of the campaign.
“Internally, these meetings were referred to as ‘the roadshow’ or ‘kumbaya’ meetings because ‘the purpose was to foster harmony amongst the employees by reassuring them about their benefits and quelling any desires to give up those benefits’ by unionizing,” the complaint said. “The message worked: many Save Mart stores remained non-union.”
In a twist of irony, the complaint drew heavily on the testimony of HR executives who were, for years, foot soldiers in Save Mart’s union-busting campaigns. They themselves were “shocked” by the withdrawal of benefits after the Kingswood takeover, plaintiffs’ lawyers said, because they “had been communicating to employees for years that the Plan’s medical benefits were guaranteed for life” and “had themselves relied upon this lifetime guarantee” in deciding to give years of their life to Save Mart.
Meanwhile, the union employees that HR spent years attempting to curtail, didn’t have to consider the possibility of losing their benefits because they refused to take their former bosses’ word for it.
“Our members can rest assured they have the benefit of solid successor language which guarantees they will continue to enjoy the benefits of their Union memberships and labor contracts,” UFCW Local 8-Golden State said in a statement reacting to news of the takeover.
Most legal battles against union busters are waged by workers under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the law that grants legal protections to workplace organizing. In recent months, for example, the law has been used by Starbucks workers to win their jobs back after they were fired for supporting union activity.
Worker advocates, however, have been attempting to strengthen the law for decades, arguing that it could do much more to punish tyrannical union-busting bosses. Democrats attempted to pass a major reform bill in 2021, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, but fell a few Senate votes shy of sending the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk.
One way the bill would have strengthened the NLRA: It would have allowed workers to sue companies for monetary damages if the firms violate their rights under the law. The Save Mart class action is being brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974, which established federal standards for employer-provided retirement and health care plans.
Eric Fink, associate professor of Elon University School of Law, echoed Soldon’s analysis, saying that there’s a high threshold under the NLRA for securing charges against union-busting managers who make deceptive claims about benefits, and the remedies are weak.
“Even if the bait-and-switch in this case could be the basis for an unfair labor practice charge, it would require proof that the employer was motivated by anti-union animus, which would be difficult,” he noted.
“More significantly, in contrast to the limited remedies available for [unfair labor practices], the potential remedies in an ERISA suit are substantial,” Fink added. “If this suit is successful, and if other employers anticipate the possibility of facing similar suits, the deterrent effect could be much greater than has been the case with [unfair labor practice] charges (which are not much of a deterrent at all).”
Bosses violate workers’ rights under the NLRA in 41.5 percent of union organizing campaigns, according to a study published in 2019 by the Economic Policy Institute.
slavery 21st century!!
GEICO Is Trying to Crush Workers’ Attempts to Form an Independent Union
BY Jonah Furman, Labor Notes - truthout
PUBLISHED October 1, 2022
GEICO insurance sales rep Lila Balali first started thinking about a union early in the pandemic. “I didn’t really know what a union was,” she says, “just that it was something for the employee.”
She and her co-workers had been abruptly sent to work from home, where she set up a cramped workspace. “We were taking calls on our cell phones, 40 hours a week, our phone to our ear,” she recalls. “You couldn’t get reimbursed or provided a headset.
“A billion-dollar company — a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, a Warren Buffet company — was having us go on our cell phones. They passed the cost of business on to us. They didn’t want to spend $1,000 on each associate, and we couldn’t stop them.”
This year, she and her co-workers in Buffalo launched GEICO United, an effort to form an independent union at the insurance giant. GEICO has 2,600 employees in Buffalo, making it one of the area’s largest employers. The union would be the first at the company, although more than 50,000 workers at other Berkshire Hathaway companies are unionized, including rail workers at BNSF.
“The System Is Flawed”
The pandemic did more than send GEICO workers home. It also severely hit GEICO’s bottom line; the company had two of its worst quarters ever in late 2021 and early 2022, a product of the surging values of used cars and the increased cost of repairs. This year, citing these factors GEICO stopped selling insurance over the phone in 18 states and closed 38 offices in California.
For workers like Balali, who has worked at GEICO since 2014, lower sales volume has meant no more bonuses, which are based on sales performance. In fact, the company has reassigned about 30 percent of the sales department nationally to other functions. GEICO has also laid off hundreds of workers in other departments.
The pay and treatment at GEICO can be uneven. Department heads are given a pot of money to distribute raises to the workers they supervise, and women and people of color tend to get left behind.
Sometimes there is outright racism. One supervisor Balali had “would walk around and say ‘What’s up, ISIS?’ because I’m Middle Eastern.”
Inspiration Close to Home
At first, thinking about a union was the extent of it. Then the Amazon Labor Union won in Staten Island, and Balali heard about Chris Smalls, an Amazon worker who took on the e-commerce giant and won.
“I read everything I could find online about [Smalls],” says Balali “He was terminated. Just a regular person, an average person. At such a large facility… Chris Smalls showed you can organize a location of 8,000 employees without being an established union.”
Balali had another important source of inspiration. Working from home in Buffalo, she would head down her street, Elmwood Avenue, to Starbucks. There she met a barista named Jaz Brisack, a leader in the Starbucks Workers United effort, who helped win the first-ever Starbucks union at the Elmwood store last December.
Balali started researching. She read Confessions of a Union Buster, Secrets of a Successful Organizer, books by Jane McAlevey, even union constitutions. She watched union movies like Hoffa and Norma Rae. “I just started reading whatever I could find,” she said. “I was obsessed.”
And she started talking to her co-workers. “The sales department is small. I just started reaching out to my friends. They said ‘Yeah, I’m in.’” A group of seven started meeting for breakfast and coffee.
Going Door to Door
Since their job was fully remote, Balali and her core group didn’t have the option of doing union outreach in the break room or in the hallways. “All of our co-workers, who we counted as friends, we haven’t seen in two and a half years,” she said. “New hires? We don’t know who they are. We don’t even talk to them on the phone.”
The GEICO United organizers needed to find a way to reach their 2,600 co-workers in Buffalo.
In New York state, workers in the insurance industry have to be registered as “insurance producers.” Their home addresses are publicly available in a state-run database. So over a period of months, Balali and her co-workers compiled a list of the addresses of GEICO employees in the greater Buffalo area.
Though Balali sells insurance, she doesn’t make cold calls; the sales she handles are initiated by customers who are in the market for an insurance policy. “I was so scared for the first door I knocked on,” she said
“This lady comes out poker-faced. I couldn’t read her, didn’t know her. That first weekend, we had a flyer we made that looked horrible. It was so ugly. I’m standing there, the woman opens the door, I’m looking at the flyer like, ‘Why did I write so much? This is embarrassing.’
“I’m like, ‘We’re trying to make a union.’ She’s shocked. She’s like, ‘I’ll hear your pitch.’ I start laughing, like, ‘We don’t even have a pitch. We’re just employees.’ That softens her up.
“So we’re talking for a while in front of her door. She pauses. It’s a long pause, back to the poker face. I’m like ‘Oh, shit.’
“She calls her husband out. He’s a GEICO employee too. And they both signed right away. They donated. And they’re like, ‘We’re going to get our friends on board.’
“In that first experience we thought, ‘If we want this, we can do this.’ Then we go to the next door and he’s like, ‘I already signed online.’”
Backlash Begins
Balali and her core group collected 200 signatures in a month — some through their online authorization card, others from their expanding canvassing operation. In those early days, Balali estimates, about 80 percent of people would open their doors, and the vast majority would sign a card.
And then, Balali recalls, “the email comes out.”
On August 12, GEICO sent out an email warning its Buffalo employees that union representatives were visiting workers’ homes. The company wrote that it had not “authorized” such visits, and that “you have every right to contact the police.”
In a follow-up email a week later, the company pointed to Starbucks as an example of a union drive that had achieved no benefits for its members. The email touted the raises and benefits that Starbucks gave only at its non-union stores, a practice for which the National Labor Relations Board has since filed a formal complaint against Starbucks.
GEICO United enlisted the help of pro bono lawyers to file unfair labor practice charges. But the damage was done.
Most people stopped opening their doors when organizers would go canvassing. One of the core organizers, a Black worker who has been at the company for a decade and makes less than $20 an hour, backed out for fear of reprisals.
For all these setbacks, though, Balali says the union is still growing, if slowly. More and more of the signatures are coming through the online card — which workers are finding by social media and word of mouth. Sometimes it is management, probing for details, that inadvertently alerts employees to the effort.
She and her co-workers had been abruptly sent to work from home, where she set up a cramped workspace. “We were taking calls on our cell phones, 40 hours a week, our phone to our ear,” she recalls. “You couldn’t get reimbursed or provided a headset.
“A billion-dollar company — a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, a Warren Buffet company — was having us go on our cell phones. They passed the cost of business on to us. They didn’t want to spend $1,000 on each associate, and we couldn’t stop them.”
This year, she and her co-workers in Buffalo launched GEICO United, an effort to form an independent union at the insurance giant. GEICO has 2,600 employees in Buffalo, making it one of the area’s largest employers. The union would be the first at the company, although more than 50,000 workers at other Berkshire Hathaway companies are unionized, including rail workers at BNSF.
“The System Is Flawed”
The pandemic did more than send GEICO workers home. It also severely hit GEICO’s bottom line; the company had two of its worst quarters ever in late 2021 and early 2022, a product of the surging values of used cars and the increased cost of repairs. This year, citing these factors GEICO stopped selling insurance over the phone in 18 states and closed 38 offices in California.
For workers like Balali, who has worked at GEICO since 2014, lower sales volume has meant no more bonuses, which are based on sales performance. In fact, the company has reassigned about 30 percent of the sales department nationally to other functions. GEICO has also laid off hundreds of workers in other departments.
The pay and treatment at GEICO can be uneven. Department heads are given a pot of money to distribute raises to the workers they supervise, and women and people of color tend to get left behind.
Sometimes there is outright racism. One supervisor Balali had “would walk around and say ‘What’s up, ISIS?’ because I’m Middle Eastern.”
Inspiration Close to Home
At first, thinking about a union was the extent of it. Then the Amazon Labor Union won in Staten Island, and Balali heard about Chris Smalls, an Amazon worker who took on the e-commerce giant and won.
“I read everything I could find online about [Smalls],” says Balali “He was terminated. Just a regular person, an average person. At such a large facility… Chris Smalls showed you can organize a location of 8,000 employees without being an established union.”
Balali had another important source of inspiration. Working from home in Buffalo, she would head down her street, Elmwood Avenue, to Starbucks. There she met a barista named Jaz Brisack, a leader in the Starbucks Workers United effort, who helped win the first-ever Starbucks union at the Elmwood store last December.
Balali started researching. She read Confessions of a Union Buster, Secrets of a Successful Organizer, books by Jane McAlevey, even union constitutions. She watched union movies like Hoffa and Norma Rae. “I just started reading whatever I could find,” she said. “I was obsessed.”
And she started talking to her co-workers. “The sales department is small. I just started reaching out to my friends. They said ‘Yeah, I’m in.’” A group of seven started meeting for breakfast and coffee.
Going Door to Door
Since their job was fully remote, Balali and her core group didn’t have the option of doing union outreach in the break room or in the hallways. “All of our co-workers, who we counted as friends, we haven’t seen in two and a half years,” she said. “New hires? We don’t know who they are. We don’t even talk to them on the phone.”
The GEICO United organizers needed to find a way to reach their 2,600 co-workers in Buffalo.
In New York state, workers in the insurance industry have to be registered as “insurance producers.” Their home addresses are publicly available in a state-run database. So over a period of months, Balali and her co-workers compiled a list of the addresses of GEICO employees in the greater Buffalo area.
Though Balali sells insurance, she doesn’t make cold calls; the sales she handles are initiated by customers who are in the market for an insurance policy. “I was so scared for the first door I knocked on,” she said
“This lady comes out poker-faced. I couldn’t read her, didn’t know her. That first weekend, we had a flyer we made that looked horrible. It was so ugly. I’m standing there, the woman opens the door, I’m looking at the flyer like, ‘Why did I write so much? This is embarrassing.’
“I’m like, ‘We’re trying to make a union.’ She’s shocked. She’s like, ‘I’ll hear your pitch.’ I start laughing, like, ‘We don’t even have a pitch. We’re just employees.’ That softens her up.
“So we’re talking for a while in front of her door. She pauses. It’s a long pause, back to the poker face. I’m like ‘Oh, shit.’
“She calls her husband out. He’s a GEICO employee too. And they both signed right away. They donated. And they’re like, ‘We’re going to get our friends on board.’
“In that first experience we thought, ‘If we want this, we can do this.’ Then we go to the next door and he’s like, ‘I already signed online.’”
Backlash Begins
Balali and her core group collected 200 signatures in a month — some through their online authorization card, others from their expanding canvassing operation. In those early days, Balali estimates, about 80 percent of people would open their doors, and the vast majority would sign a card.
And then, Balali recalls, “the email comes out.”
On August 12, GEICO sent out an email warning its Buffalo employees that union representatives were visiting workers’ homes. The company wrote that it had not “authorized” such visits, and that “you have every right to contact the police.”
In a follow-up email a week later, the company pointed to Starbucks as an example of a union drive that had achieved no benefits for its members. The email touted the raises and benefits that Starbucks gave only at its non-union stores, a practice for which the National Labor Relations Board has since filed a formal complaint against Starbucks.
GEICO United enlisted the help of pro bono lawyers to file unfair labor practice charges. But the damage was done.
Most people stopped opening their doors when organizers would go canvassing. One of the core organizers, a Black worker who has been at the company for a decade and makes less than $20 an hour, backed out for fear of reprisals.
For all these setbacks, though, Balali says the union is still growing, if slowly. More and more of the signatures are coming through the online card — which workers are finding by social media and word of mouth. Sometimes it is management, probing for details, that inadvertently alerts employees to the effort.
slavery 21st century!!!
More US Employers Are Trapping Workers in a New Form of Indentured Servitude
BY Sam Knight, Truthout
PUBLISHED September 19, 2022
Bosses in industries such as retail, health care and logistics are reverting to an old tactic and trapping people in miserable jobs by threatening to saddle them with debt if they quit. Workers across the United States in fields ranging from nursing to trucking have been discouraged from leaving jobs they hate or can’t afford to keep because employers vow to charge them for training costs if they quit before an arbitrary deadline.
The threats are backed by so-called Training Repayment Agreement Provisions (TRAPs) in employment contracts. The practice has been likened by critics to indentured servitude and peonage — formerly common types of debt bondage in which a borrower was bound to perform labor for a creditor.
TRAPs have recently come under fire from policymakers because of class action litigation against the pet store chain PetSmart, and reporting on the restrictive covenants from a watchdog group called the Student Borrower Protection Center. Earlier this month, the Senate Banking Committee held hearings examining the agreements and other forms of employer-driven debt. In June, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also launched an investigation of employment arrangements that led to workers owing money to their bosses.
Two workers who are being threatened with thousands of dollars in bills through the enforcement of TRAPs appeared before the banking committee on September 7. BreAnn Scally, the lead plaintiff in the class action against PetSmart, told lawmakers about how she was left owing $5,500 to the company for a dog “Grooming Academy” that was initially advertised as free. Registered nurse Cassie Pennings testified about being stuck with $7,500, “more than six months’ rent,” after leaving one hospital job because she was appalled by staffing ratios during the COVID-19 pandemic and didn’t want to be complicit in neglecting patients.
Although the pair came from different industries, they both detailed callous indifference from their ex-managers in response to their grievances. “Despite being one of the most profitable health care systems in the nation, my former employer responded to cries for help from the front line with breakfast burritos and free water bottles,” Pennings said. Scally recalled how one manager told her she could work her way out of debt simply by “upselling” or convincing customers to buy more pet grooming products and services. She said that she upsold $6,000 worth of products but was still charged the full amount for the debt, months after she left the job.
The dollar value attached by each company to the cost of training appeared to have been pulled from thin air. “I thought I was going to get important and valuable training, but it wasn’t anything like that,” Scally said. “I didn’t get any kind of license or accreditation or anything, and my actual training was only a few weeks.” Pennings also told lawmakers that she doubted the $7,500 price tag placed on the cost of her training regimen.
At a second hearing on September 13, one of Scally’s lawyers, David Seligman, told the Senate Banking Committee that TRAPs are used by managers to leave workers “stuck with low pay, dangerous conditions, abusive treatment, or work that does not allow them to advance professionally.” The chair of the committee, Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, was unimpressed with the managerial tactic.
“Last I checked, indentured servitude was illegal in the United States. But it looks like some enterprising companies are rebranding it, with these new employment contracts,” Senator Brown said. His office told Truthout that the lawmaker is currently “considering legislation” that would rein in the use of TRAPs by employers, and said he “will work with the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] to ensure that consumers are protected from predatory consumer products like TRAPs.”
Indentured servitude was pioneered during the British colonial period to finance the travel of European migrant laborers to North America. Wealthy individuals who paid for the travel were allowed for years to closely control and abuse those who made the voyage. Although the United States technically banned indentured servitude with the abolition of chattel slavery and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, U.S. railroad companies effectively brought Chinese workers over as indentured servants in the postbellum 19th century for five-year contracts with terms that brought the workers “low wages and … substandard living conditions.”
“The law does not permit employers or others to provide a work opportunity in exchange for a worker’s promise to indenture themselves to their employer through debt,” Seligman said. “These sorts of work arrangements harken back to nineteenth century peonage used to subjugate former slaves, and they are precisely the kind of exploitation that our anti-trafficking and peonage laws were designed to prohibit.” Peonage was imposed on former slaves in the southern United States during Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era through sharecropping arrangements and fines levied by racist law enforcement.
Although critics question the legality of TRAPs, a legal analysis published last year found that courts generally uphold the agreements in challenges brought under anti-kickback provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the law establishing a federal minimum wage. However, the author of the study, Loyola Marymount associate law professor Jonathan F. Harris, said another type of legal challenge might prove more successful: courts could refuse to enforce TRAP contract language under the so-called unconscionability doctrine, a legal principle that allows judges to void agreements containing unreasonable terms dictated by a party “with superior bargaining power.” In 2000, the study noted, a federal judge in Manhattan nullified one employment agreement in the financial services industry, ruling that the language of the contract “approaches indentured servitude.”
TRAPs have been commonly used by employers since the 1990s, but they were almost exclusively reserved then for highly specialized workers such as engineers or airline pilots. As markets became increasingly concentrated and union power was diminished by policymakers into the 21st century, bosses used their growing dominance to impose TRAPs on rank-and-file workers, such as “truckers, nurses, mechanics, electricians, salespeople, paramedics, flight attendants, bank workers, repairmen, and social workers,” as Harris’s study detailed. “While such jobs used to be middle class and highly unionized, many workers in these sectors now struggle financially, and unionization levels have dropped,” according to Harris.
In his study, Harris noted that there has been little evidence-based analysis of the agreements and their impact on labor markets but said the use of them is on the rise, and that the vast majority never see any kind of legal scrutiny. “For every [TRAP] that is the subject of a court opinion, tens of thousands remain unchallenged,” he noted. What empirical analysis has been done has shown bosses primarily using TRAPs for “employee immobility” — to obstruct workers from leaving jobs. Harris also found anecdotal evidence from the nursing sector, which showed the restrictive agreements mostly wielded by employers “unable or unwilling to compete on wages and other benefits.”
Payday advances were another type of employer-driven debt examined by the Senate Banking Committee. Seligman highlighted the case of Marriott workers in Philadelphia who became dependent on short-term loans from the company credit union because “scheduling practices made it difficult for them to earn consistent income without getting a second job.” Franchising agreements that misclassify workers as independent contractors can also leave low-wage earners heavily in debt to bosses because of franchising fees, he told the committee.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau investigation into employer-driven debt will be examining franchising agreements among other job arrangements that “involve deferred payment to the employer or an associated entity for employer mandated training, equipment, and other expenses.” The agency will also be looking at TRAPs, though it described the arrangements as “Training Repayment Agreements.” There’s also an ongoing bureau investigation of payday advances (so-called “earned wage access” products) which was launched in February.
Whatever the terms used and however the debt originated, employer-driven loans have not proliferated because workers “lack access to credit,” as Seligman told the banking committee, but because workers aren’t paid enough. “And far too many employers seek to shift onto their workers their own costs while undermining their workers’ bargaining power by making it costly for them to seek out jobs where they might be treated better or paid more,” he added.
The threats are backed by so-called Training Repayment Agreement Provisions (TRAPs) in employment contracts. The practice has been likened by critics to indentured servitude and peonage — formerly common types of debt bondage in which a borrower was bound to perform labor for a creditor.
TRAPs have recently come under fire from policymakers because of class action litigation against the pet store chain PetSmart, and reporting on the restrictive covenants from a watchdog group called the Student Borrower Protection Center. Earlier this month, the Senate Banking Committee held hearings examining the agreements and other forms of employer-driven debt. In June, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also launched an investigation of employment arrangements that led to workers owing money to their bosses.
Two workers who are being threatened with thousands of dollars in bills through the enforcement of TRAPs appeared before the banking committee on September 7. BreAnn Scally, the lead plaintiff in the class action against PetSmart, told lawmakers about how she was left owing $5,500 to the company for a dog “Grooming Academy” that was initially advertised as free. Registered nurse Cassie Pennings testified about being stuck with $7,500, “more than six months’ rent,” after leaving one hospital job because she was appalled by staffing ratios during the COVID-19 pandemic and didn’t want to be complicit in neglecting patients.
Although the pair came from different industries, they both detailed callous indifference from their ex-managers in response to their grievances. “Despite being one of the most profitable health care systems in the nation, my former employer responded to cries for help from the front line with breakfast burritos and free water bottles,” Pennings said. Scally recalled how one manager told her she could work her way out of debt simply by “upselling” or convincing customers to buy more pet grooming products and services. She said that she upsold $6,000 worth of products but was still charged the full amount for the debt, months after she left the job.
The dollar value attached by each company to the cost of training appeared to have been pulled from thin air. “I thought I was going to get important and valuable training, but it wasn’t anything like that,” Scally said. “I didn’t get any kind of license or accreditation or anything, and my actual training was only a few weeks.” Pennings also told lawmakers that she doubted the $7,500 price tag placed on the cost of her training regimen.
At a second hearing on September 13, one of Scally’s lawyers, David Seligman, told the Senate Banking Committee that TRAPs are used by managers to leave workers “stuck with low pay, dangerous conditions, abusive treatment, or work that does not allow them to advance professionally.” The chair of the committee, Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, was unimpressed with the managerial tactic.
“Last I checked, indentured servitude was illegal in the United States. But it looks like some enterprising companies are rebranding it, with these new employment contracts,” Senator Brown said. His office told Truthout that the lawmaker is currently “considering legislation” that would rein in the use of TRAPs by employers, and said he “will work with the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] to ensure that consumers are protected from predatory consumer products like TRAPs.”
Indentured servitude was pioneered during the British colonial period to finance the travel of European migrant laborers to North America. Wealthy individuals who paid for the travel were allowed for years to closely control and abuse those who made the voyage. Although the United States technically banned indentured servitude with the abolition of chattel slavery and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, U.S. railroad companies effectively brought Chinese workers over as indentured servants in the postbellum 19th century for five-year contracts with terms that brought the workers “low wages and … substandard living conditions.”
“The law does not permit employers or others to provide a work opportunity in exchange for a worker’s promise to indenture themselves to their employer through debt,” Seligman said. “These sorts of work arrangements harken back to nineteenth century peonage used to subjugate former slaves, and they are precisely the kind of exploitation that our anti-trafficking and peonage laws were designed to prohibit.” Peonage was imposed on former slaves in the southern United States during Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era through sharecropping arrangements and fines levied by racist law enforcement.
Although critics question the legality of TRAPs, a legal analysis published last year found that courts generally uphold the agreements in challenges brought under anti-kickback provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the law establishing a federal minimum wage. However, the author of the study, Loyola Marymount associate law professor Jonathan F. Harris, said another type of legal challenge might prove more successful: courts could refuse to enforce TRAP contract language under the so-called unconscionability doctrine, a legal principle that allows judges to void agreements containing unreasonable terms dictated by a party “with superior bargaining power.” In 2000, the study noted, a federal judge in Manhattan nullified one employment agreement in the financial services industry, ruling that the language of the contract “approaches indentured servitude.”
TRAPs have been commonly used by employers since the 1990s, but they were almost exclusively reserved then for highly specialized workers such as engineers or airline pilots. As markets became increasingly concentrated and union power was diminished by policymakers into the 21st century, bosses used their growing dominance to impose TRAPs on rank-and-file workers, such as “truckers, nurses, mechanics, electricians, salespeople, paramedics, flight attendants, bank workers, repairmen, and social workers,” as Harris’s study detailed. “While such jobs used to be middle class and highly unionized, many workers in these sectors now struggle financially, and unionization levels have dropped,” according to Harris.
In his study, Harris noted that there has been little evidence-based analysis of the agreements and their impact on labor markets but said the use of them is on the rise, and that the vast majority never see any kind of legal scrutiny. “For every [TRAP] that is the subject of a court opinion, tens of thousands remain unchallenged,” he noted. What empirical analysis has been done has shown bosses primarily using TRAPs for “employee immobility” — to obstruct workers from leaving jobs. Harris also found anecdotal evidence from the nursing sector, which showed the restrictive agreements mostly wielded by employers “unable or unwilling to compete on wages and other benefits.”
Payday advances were another type of employer-driven debt examined by the Senate Banking Committee. Seligman highlighted the case of Marriott workers in Philadelphia who became dependent on short-term loans from the company credit union because “scheduling practices made it difficult for them to earn consistent income without getting a second job.” Franchising agreements that misclassify workers as independent contractors can also leave low-wage earners heavily in debt to bosses because of franchising fees, he told the committee.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau investigation into employer-driven debt will be examining franchising agreements among other job arrangements that “involve deferred payment to the employer or an associated entity for employer mandated training, equipment, and other expenses.” The agency will also be looking at TRAPs, though it described the arrangements as “Training Repayment Agreements.” There’s also an ongoing bureau investigation of payday advances (so-called “earned wage access” products) which was launched in February.
Whatever the terms used and however the debt originated, employer-driven loans have not proliferated because workers “lack access to credit,” as Seligman told the banking committee, but because workers aren’t paid enough. “And far too many employers seek to shift onto their workers their own costs while undermining their workers’ bargaining power by making it costly for them to seek out jobs where they might be treated better or paid more,” he added.
CEO Who Got $940 Million Richer in Pandemic Is Behind Starbucks Union-Busting
BY Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
PUBLISHED August 31, 2022
An analysis released Wednesday shows that the multi-billionaire chief executive spearheading Starbucks’ aggressive and unlawful union-busting campaign has gotten $940 million richer during the coronavirus pandemic as employees at the coffee chain have struggled to get by on low wages.
Compiled by the progressive group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), “Billion-Dollar Union Busters: How Starbucks and Its Rich CEO Are Stifling Worker Organizing” was published as the nationwide unionization drive at the coffee chain continues to grow in the face of increasingly brazen opposition from management, with more than 200 locations voting to join Workers United since December 2021.
“Starbucks and its billionaire CEO, Howard Schultz, can well-afford to improve employees’ pay and working conditions through unionization,” reads the new report. “Schultz’s personal fortune increased by nearly $1 billion during the Covid pandemic, leaping to nearly $4 billion today. Over the last decade his wealth has increased by about $640,000 a day on average, or more money in a single day than most of his store employees are likely to make from Starbucks in a lifetime.”
Schultz retook the helm at Starbucks in an interim capacity earlier this year as the unionization push spread rapidly to coffee shops across the country. Given his long history of union-busting, Schultz’s return was widely viewed as part of the corporation’s attempt to crush organizing momentum.
While recent data shows the union drive slowed slightly last month, the number of stores filing for union elections and winning is still rising at a striking pace, an indication that Starbucks’ aggressive anti-union tactics — from firing organizers to denying unionized workers wage and benefit improvements — have thus far been largely unsuccessful.
“As of early August 2022, Starbucks had racked up 276 unfair labor practice charges,” ATF notes in its report, which comes just ahead of Labor Day.
Zachary Tashman, a research and policy associate at ATF and the new report’s lead author, said in a statement Wednesday that “the ruthless union-busting strategy used by Starbucks and its billionaire CEO is a perfect example of how far wealthy corporations are willing to go to keep their profits concentrated in just a few hands.”
The report points out that Starbucks netted $4.1 billion in pre-tax profits in 2021, up 457% from the previous year, when the coronavirus pandemic took a significant toll on operations.
“Starbucks can certainly afford to pay its workers more and offer them better benefits,” the report continues. “Kevin Johnson, the CEO of Starbucks until March of this year, was rewarded with $20.4 million in compensation in 2021, a bump of nearly $5.8 million (39.3%) from 2020.”
Though Schultz rejoined the company as interim CEO with a salary of $1, he brought in huge pay packages during his two previous stints as Starbucks’ chief executive and remains a major shareholder, buying $10 million of the corporation’s stock earlier this year.
“His booming fortune has not made Schultz generous with his employees,” ATF states in its report. “His personal pandemic wealth gains of $940 million alone could pay for a $3,847 bonus for every Starbucks worker. But instead Schultz has tried to divide Starbucks workers by offering a 5% to 7% wage increase only to stores that refuse to unionize, a likely violation of federal labor laws.”
Starbucks has also benefited from the 2017 GOP tax law, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. ATF observes that “in the four years since enactment of the Trump tax cuts, Starbucks’ effective federal income tax rate fell from 28.1% to 18.2% compared to the 2014-17 period.”
“In two of the post-Trump-GOP tax cut years, 2018 and 2020, Starbucks only paid an effective federal tax rate of 5.8% and 3.3%, respectively,” the report reads.
To help combat Starbucks’ union-busting, ATF urges Congress to hike the corporate tax rate to at least 28% and pass the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act, recently introduced legislation that would “classify corporate interference in worker organization campaigns as political speech under the tax code, thereby revoking its tax deductibility.”
Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.), a lead sponsor of the bill, said Wednesday that “there would be no Starbucks without the thousands of employees who show up to work, including during the pandemic.”
“But our tax code favors corporate bosses at the expense of working people,” Norcross added. “Wealthy CEOs shouldn’t be rewarded with American tax dollars for crushing their employees. We need to pass bills like the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act to level the playing field for workers.”
RELATED: Tesla Violated Workers’ Rights By Banning Pro-Union Shirts, Labor Board Rules
Compiled by the progressive group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), “Billion-Dollar Union Busters: How Starbucks and Its Rich CEO Are Stifling Worker Organizing” was published as the nationwide unionization drive at the coffee chain continues to grow in the face of increasingly brazen opposition from management, with more than 200 locations voting to join Workers United since December 2021.
“Starbucks and its billionaire CEO, Howard Schultz, can well-afford to improve employees’ pay and working conditions through unionization,” reads the new report. “Schultz’s personal fortune increased by nearly $1 billion during the Covid pandemic, leaping to nearly $4 billion today. Over the last decade his wealth has increased by about $640,000 a day on average, or more money in a single day than most of his store employees are likely to make from Starbucks in a lifetime.”
Schultz retook the helm at Starbucks in an interim capacity earlier this year as the unionization push spread rapidly to coffee shops across the country. Given his long history of union-busting, Schultz’s return was widely viewed as part of the corporation’s attempt to crush organizing momentum.
While recent data shows the union drive slowed slightly last month, the number of stores filing for union elections and winning is still rising at a striking pace, an indication that Starbucks’ aggressive anti-union tactics — from firing organizers to denying unionized workers wage and benefit improvements — have thus far been largely unsuccessful.
“As of early August 2022, Starbucks had racked up 276 unfair labor practice charges,” ATF notes in its report, which comes just ahead of Labor Day.
Zachary Tashman, a research and policy associate at ATF and the new report’s lead author, said in a statement Wednesday that “the ruthless union-busting strategy used by Starbucks and its billionaire CEO is a perfect example of how far wealthy corporations are willing to go to keep their profits concentrated in just a few hands.”
The report points out that Starbucks netted $4.1 billion in pre-tax profits in 2021, up 457% from the previous year, when the coronavirus pandemic took a significant toll on operations.
“Starbucks can certainly afford to pay its workers more and offer them better benefits,” the report continues. “Kevin Johnson, the CEO of Starbucks until March of this year, was rewarded with $20.4 million in compensation in 2021, a bump of nearly $5.8 million (39.3%) from 2020.”
Though Schultz rejoined the company as interim CEO with a salary of $1, he brought in huge pay packages during his two previous stints as Starbucks’ chief executive and remains a major shareholder, buying $10 million of the corporation’s stock earlier this year.
“His booming fortune has not made Schultz generous with his employees,” ATF states in its report. “His personal pandemic wealth gains of $940 million alone could pay for a $3,847 bonus for every Starbucks worker. But instead Schultz has tried to divide Starbucks workers by offering a 5% to 7% wage increase only to stores that refuse to unionize, a likely violation of federal labor laws.”
Starbucks has also benefited from the 2017 GOP tax law, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. ATF observes that “in the four years since enactment of the Trump tax cuts, Starbucks’ effective federal income tax rate fell from 28.1% to 18.2% compared to the 2014-17 period.”
“In two of the post-Trump-GOP tax cut years, 2018 and 2020, Starbucks only paid an effective federal tax rate of 5.8% and 3.3%, respectively,” the report reads.
To help combat Starbucks’ union-busting, ATF urges Congress to hike the corporate tax rate to at least 28% and pass the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act, recently introduced legislation that would “classify corporate interference in worker organization campaigns as political speech under the tax code, thereby revoking its tax deductibility.”
Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.), a lead sponsor of the bill, said Wednesday that “there would be no Starbucks without the thousands of employees who show up to work, including during the pandemic.”
“But our tax code favors corporate bosses at the expense of working people,” Norcross added. “Wealthy CEOs shouldn’t be rewarded with American tax dollars for crushing their employees. We need to pass bills like the No Tax Breaks for Union Busting Act to level the playing field for workers.”
RELATED: Tesla Violated Workers’ Rights By Banning Pro-Union Shirts, Labor Board Rules
slavery 21st century!!
Starbucks creating ‘culture of fear’ as it fires dozens involved in union efforts
More than 85 workers heavily involved in organizing at coffee chain dismissed in recent months, says Starbucks Workers United
Michael Sainato - the guardian
Thu 25 Aug 2022 05.00 EDT
More than 85 workers at Starbucks who were heavily involved in union organizing efforts at giant coffee chain have been fired over the past several months, according to the workers group Starbucks Workers United.
Workers have filed numerous unfair labor practice charges over the firings and a federal judge recently ordered the reinstatement of seven workers in Memphis, Tennessee, who were fired in February, a ruling Starbucks has said it disagrees with and intends to appeal.
The National Labor Relations Board has issued 21 official complaints against Starbucks, encompassing 81 charges and 548 allegations of labor law violations that are currently under review.
Starbucks has accused the NLRB of favoring the union campaign and called for union elections to be temporarily suspended. The company has vehemently opposed unionization efforts as more than 220 stores have won union elections since December.
Starbucks Workers United have called for Starbucks executives to testify before Congress on the company’s response to the union campaign.
Meanwhile, fired workers have described their treatment. Jaysin Saxton, who worked at Starbucks in Augusta, Georgia, for over three years, was fired on 16 August. His store began organizing in January, publicly announced in March, and won their union election overwhelmingly at the end of April.
Saxton said that a couple of months ago after a new manager was brought into the store, workers started receiving intense scrutiny and disciplinary measures.
“That’s when everything went downhill. They started writing people up a lot, ranging from documented coachings and final written warnings so workers couldn’t transfer or be promoted,” said Saxton. “They surveil us. It’s insane. They just created this intense culture of fear in the store and are trying to push us all out.”
In July, Saxton led a march on the boss to present a list of demands from the workers, a protest that managers shut down. Saxton said he was fired over claims he was disruptive during the protest.
“I expressed to my district manager that I was being treated as the stereotypical angry black man,” said Saxton over how he was treated by managers for trying to address issues and grievances workers were experiencing in the store.
About a month later, Saxton received a call from his manager telling him he was being terminated, though he said he hadn’t received any write-up or discipline from the protest before the call. He immediately filed the paperwork to submit an unfair labor practice charge allegation over his firing.
More than 80 strikes have been held by workers at Starbucks over unfair labor practice claims, firings of union leaders, withholding of benefits for unionized stores and delays in first contract negotiations. The union created a strike fund to help support workers on strike and several GoFundMe campaigns have been created to financially support union leaders who have faced termination.
Joselyn Chuquillanqui, 28, and a shift supervisor for seven years at Starbucks in Great Neck Plaza, New York, was fired in July for what she said was excessive write-ups for being late. She said after her store came up short by one vote in their union election in May, she had been pushed out by management.
“I was getting written up for being late by under five minutes,” said Chuqillanqui. “They tried to vilify me, implying I was getting paid by the union.”
Her co-workers and community supporters recently held a rally outside the Starbucks store in support of her and demanding her reinstatement, where dozens of supporters chanted “rehire Joselyn”. The union intends to file an unfair labor practice complaint over her firing.
Starbucks has denied all allegations of retaliation. A spokesperson said in an email: “These individuals are no longer with Starbucks for store policy violations. A partner’s interest in a union does not exempt them from the standards we have always held. We will continue enforcing our policies consistently for all partners.”
RELATED: Starbucks CEO may be forced to read workers their labor rights after company illegally blocked raises for union workers: report
Workers have filed numerous unfair labor practice charges over the firings and a federal judge recently ordered the reinstatement of seven workers in Memphis, Tennessee, who were fired in February, a ruling Starbucks has said it disagrees with and intends to appeal.
The National Labor Relations Board has issued 21 official complaints against Starbucks, encompassing 81 charges and 548 allegations of labor law violations that are currently under review.
Starbucks has accused the NLRB of favoring the union campaign and called for union elections to be temporarily suspended. The company has vehemently opposed unionization efforts as more than 220 stores have won union elections since December.
Starbucks Workers United have called for Starbucks executives to testify before Congress on the company’s response to the union campaign.
Meanwhile, fired workers have described their treatment. Jaysin Saxton, who worked at Starbucks in Augusta, Georgia, for over three years, was fired on 16 August. His store began organizing in January, publicly announced in March, and won their union election overwhelmingly at the end of April.
Saxton said that a couple of months ago after a new manager was brought into the store, workers started receiving intense scrutiny and disciplinary measures.
“That’s when everything went downhill. They started writing people up a lot, ranging from documented coachings and final written warnings so workers couldn’t transfer or be promoted,” said Saxton. “They surveil us. It’s insane. They just created this intense culture of fear in the store and are trying to push us all out.”
In July, Saxton led a march on the boss to present a list of demands from the workers, a protest that managers shut down. Saxton said he was fired over claims he was disruptive during the protest.
“I expressed to my district manager that I was being treated as the stereotypical angry black man,” said Saxton over how he was treated by managers for trying to address issues and grievances workers were experiencing in the store.
About a month later, Saxton received a call from his manager telling him he was being terminated, though he said he hadn’t received any write-up or discipline from the protest before the call. He immediately filed the paperwork to submit an unfair labor practice charge allegation over his firing.
More than 80 strikes have been held by workers at Starbucks over unfair labor practice claims, firings of union leaders, withholding of benefits for unionized stores and delays in first contract negotiations. The union created a strike fund to help support workers on strike and several GoFundMe campaigns have been created to financially support union leaders who have faced termination.
Joselyn Chuquillanqui, 28, and a shift supervisor for seven years at Starbucks in Great Neck Plaza, New York, was fired in July for what she said was excessive write-ups for being late. She said after her store came up short by one vote in their union election in May, she had been pushed out by management.
“I was getting written up for being late by under five minutes,” said Chuqillanqui. “They tried to vilify me, implying I was getting paid by the union.”
Her co-workers and community supporters recently held a rally outside the Starbucks store in support of her and demanding her reinstatement, where dozens of supporters chanted “rehire Joselyn”. The union intends to file an unfair labor practice complaint over her firing.
Starbucks has denied all allegations of retaliation. A spokesperson said in an email: “These individuals are no longer with Starbucks for store policy violations. A partner’s interest in a union does not exempt them from the standards we have always held. We will continue enforcing our policies consistently for all partners.”
RELATED: Starbucks CEO may be forced to read workers their labor rights after company illegally blocked raises for union workers: report
Judge Orders Starbucks to Reinstate 7 Fired Pro-Union Workers in Memphis
BY Sharon Zhang, Truthout
PUBLISHED August 19, 2022
A U.S. district judge ruled on Thursday that Starbucks must reinstate seven union organizers that the company fired in Memphis, Tennessee, in February after the judge found “reasonable cause” in allegations from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that the company had engaged in unlawful union busting.
District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman ruled that Starbucks had fired the workers for pro-union activities that are protected by federal labor law and that it otherwise took actions to interfere with the union campaign at the store.
Lipman gave the company five days to reinstate the workers, though the company is planning to appeal the ruling.
Along with the reinstatement, Lipman ordered the company to expunge disciplinary action taken against one of the fired employees and post copies of the court order at the Memphis store for employees to see.
The ruling is a major win for Starbucks Workers United, which had rallied behind the “Memphis Seven” after their firing, calling it the company’s “most blatant act of union busting yet.” An injunction is one of the strictest forms of relief that the NLRB can seek against a union-busting company.
“I’m so happy with this outcome,” Florentino Escobar, one of the fired workers, told The Washington Post. “This is one more step to make Starbucks a better place.”
When the workers were fired in February, the company cited a number of store policies that the workers had supposedly broken. The terminations generated outrage among the union and pro-union workers, who said that in most cases, the company cited policies that didn’t exist or that were never previously enforced.
The company had claimed that, in firing the workers that made up nearly the entire organizing committee at the store, it was only enforcing its employee policies, an argument in which the judge did not find merit. The company also argued in a court filing that the injunction wasn’t needed because the terminations “emboldened union organizing activities in Memphis and throughout the nation.”
In a statement released after the ruling came down, the company said that it “strongly disagree[s]” with the decision.
NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo hailed the ruling, calling it a “a crucial step in ensuring that these workers, and all Starbucks workers, can freely exercise their right to join together to improve their working conditions and form a union.”
“Starbucks, and other employers, should take note that the NLRB will continue to vigorously protect workers’ right to organize without interference from their employer,” she went on.
Since firing the Memphis workers, Starbucks has fired roughly 70 more employees in its fierce anti-union campaign. Workers have waged strikes against the company’s efforts to fire pro-union workers, close unionized stores, and interfere with elections, but the company’s union-busting efforts show no sign of stopping.
Earlier this week, Starbucks sent a letter to the NLRB asking it to temporarily suspend all union elections within the company. Labor experts say that the move is an attempt to delay union elections to give the company more time to convince workers to vote against unionizing and potentially throw the legitimacy of the NLRB itself into question.
The NLRB is currently prosecuting Starbucks over the board’s findings that the company had broken the law over 200 times in its effort to halt the union effort in Buffalo, where the union movement began.
District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman ruled that Starbucks had fired the workers for pro-union activities that are protected by federal labor law and that it otherwise took actions to interfere with the union campaign at the store.
Lipman gave the company five days to reinstate the workers, though the company is planning to appeal the ruling.
Along with the reinstatement, Lipman ordered the company to expunge disciplinary action taken against one of the fired employees and post copies of the court order at the Memphis store for employees to see.
The ruling is a major win for Starbucks Workers United, which had rallied behind the “Memphis Seven” after their firing, calling it the company’s “most blatant act of union busting yet.” An injunction is one of the strictest forms of relief that the NLRB can seek against a union-busting company.
“I’m so happy with this outcome,” Florentino Escobar, one of the fired workers, told The Washington Post. “This is one more step to make Starbucks a better place.”
When the workers were fired in February, the company cited a number of store policies that the workers had supposedly broken. The terminations generated outrage among the union and pro-union workers, who said that in most cases, the company cited policies that didn’t exist or that were never previously enforced.
The company had claimed that, in firing the workers that made up nearly the entire organizing committee at the store, it was only enforcing its employee policies, an argument in which the judge did not find merit. The company also argued in a court filing that the injunction wasn’t needed because the terminations “emboldened union organizing activities in Memphis and throughout the nation.”
In a statement released after the ruling came down, the company said that it “strongly disagree[s]” with the decision.
NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo hailed the ruling, calling it a “a crucial step in ensuring that these workers, and all Starbucks workers, can freely exercise their right to join together to improve their working conditions and form a union.”
“Starbucks, and other employers, should take note that the NLRB will continue to vigorously protect workers’ right to organize without interference from their employer,” she went on.
Since firing the Memphis workers, Starbucks has fired roughly 70 more employees in its fierce anti-union campaign. Workers have waged strikes against the company’s efforts to fire pro-union workers, close unionized stores, and interfere with elections, but the company’s union-busting efforts show no sign of stopping.
Earlier this week, Starbucks sent a letter to the NLRB asking it to temporarily suspend all union elections within the company. Labor experts say that the move is an attempt to delay union elections to give the company more time to convince workers to vote against unionizing and potentially throw the legitimacy of the NLRB itself into question.
The NLRB is currently prosecuting Starbucks over the board’s findings that the company had broken the law over 200 times in its effort to halt the union effort in Buffalo, where the union movement began.
In a Year, Amazon Disciplined Workers 13,000 Times at Now-Unionized Warehouse
BY Sharon Zhang, Truthout
PUBLISHED July 13, 2022
Over the course of just one year ending at the beginning of the pandemic, Amazon issued thousands of disciplinary notes against workers for what seem like nearly inconsequential mistakes in a warehouse that’s now the only unionized Amazon warehouse in the U.S., new reporting finds.
Reuters reports that, in the year ending in April 2020, the company issued 13,000 “disciplines” in the Staten Island, New York JFK8 warehouse. This adds up to an average of about 2.5 disciplines for every one of the roughly 5,300 workers employed then at the warehouse, which voted earlier this year to unionize with Amazon Labor Union (ALU).
The disciplines, which were issued over things like meeting 94 percent of the company’s punishing productivity quotas instead of 100 percent, reveal just how closely Amazon monitors and tracks its workers’ movements – and how quickly the company will threaten its employees with termination if they make small errors just a handful of times.
Other reasons that the company disciplined workers, according to court documents, are also seemingly trivial. Amazon cited one worker for being off task for six minutes during an overnight shift in New Jersey; another worker for exceeding their break time by four minutes, despite Amazon’s supposed five minute grace period for breaks.
Meanwhile, in New York City, another worker was issued a violation notice for erring four times in one week in 2019 while picking items for order fulfillment, despite the fact that the same worker picked over 15,800 products correctly during that time.
The company claims that the majority of the supposed feedback relates to attendance, like when an employee takes a break that exceeds limits. It says that its productivity goals are “fair,” though labor advocates have said that Amazon’s quotas often lead to injury or even death, playing a role in the company’s warehouses being one of the most dangerous places in the industry to work.
These supposed violations were documented in internal company records that were released as part of the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) legal actions against Amazon, which includes the board’s complaint over former JFK8 employee Gerald Bryson’s termination in 2020. At one point in 2018, Bryson had supposedly made 22 errors while counting thousands of products, and was disciplined by a manager. Five more infractions like this in a year and he would be fired, the disciplinary note said.
“You’re sitting there worried about whether you’re going to have a job tomorrow because your rate is not where it’s supposed to be,” Bryson told Reuters. “It was horrible.” He was disciplined multiple times over the course of a month, even as he sped up his pace at the behest of management and the work began to wear down his body.
Bryson was involved with labor organizing efforts in the warehouse at the time and was fired after he helped lead a walkout by JFK8 workers in April 2020. After finding that Amazon illegally fired Bryson, the NLRB ordered the company to reinstate him and pay him lost wages in April.
In a separate lawsuit concerning the JFK8 warehouse, the NLRB has also been seeking to stop the company’s “flagrant unfair labor practices,” as the board refers to them.
Other warehouses also saw similar numbers of disciplinary notices in a similar period of time, court papers show. In Robbinsville, New Jersey, the roughly 4,200 workers were issued over 15,000 notices in the year ending in April 2020, or about 3.5 notices per employee. Another warehouse in North Haven, Connecticut, issued more than 5,000 disciplinary notes to its roughly 4,800 employees in the same time period.
Reuters reports that, in the year ending in April 2020, the company issued 13,000 “disciplines” in the Staten Island, New York JFK8 warehouse. This adds up to an average of about 2.5 disciplines for every one of the roughly 5,300 workers employed then at the warehouse, which voted earlier this year to unionize with Amazon Labor Union (ALU).
The disciplines, which were issued over things like meeting 94 percent of the company’s punishing productivity quotas instead of 100 percent, reveal just how closely Amazon monitors and tracks its workers’ movements – and how quickly the company will threaten its employees with termination if they make small errors just a handful of times.
Other reasons that the company disciplined workers, according to court documents, are also seemingly trivial. Amazon cited one worker for being off task for six minutes during an overnight shift in New Jersey; another worker for exceeding their break time by four minutes, despite Amazon’s supposed five minute grace period for breaks.
Meanwhile, in New York City, another worker was issued a violation notice for erring four times in one week in 2019 while picking items for order fulfillment, despite the fact that the same worker picked over 15,800 products correctly during that time.
The company claims that the majority of the supposed feedback relates to attendance, like when an employee takes a break that exceeds limits. It says that its productivity goals are “fair,” though labor advocates have said that Amazon’s quotas often lead to injury or even death, playing a role in the company’s warehouses being one of the most dangerous places in the industry to work.
These supposed violations were documented in internal company records that were released as part of the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) legal actions against Amazon, which includes the board’s complaint over former JFK8 employee Gerald Bryson’s termination in 2020. At one point in 2018, Bryson had supposedly made 22 errors while counting thousands of products, and was disciplined by a manager. Five more infractions like this in a year and he would be fired, the disciplinary note said.
“You’re sitting there worried about whether you’re going to have a job tomorrow because your rate is not where it’s supposed to be,” Bryson told Reuters. “It was horrible.” He was disciplined multiple times over the course of a month, even as he sped up his pace at the behest of management and the work began to wear down his body.
Bryson was involved with labor organizing efforts in the warehouse at the time and was fired after he helped lead a walkout by JFK8 workers in April 2020. After finding that Amazon illegally fired Bryson, the NLRB ordered the company to reinstate him and pay him lost wages in April.
In a separate lawsuit concerning the JFK8 warehouse, the NLRB has also been seeking to stop the company’s “flagrant unfair labor practices,” as the board refers to them.
Other warehouses also saw similar numbers of disciplinary notices in a similar period of time, court papers show. In Robbinsville, New Jersey, the roughly 4,200 workers were issued over 15,000 notices in the year ending in April 2020, or about 3.5 notices per employee. Another warehouse in North Haven, Connecticut, issued more than 5,000 disciplinary notes to its roughly 4,800 employees in the same time period.
slavery is alive and well!!!
Top US CEOs Made 254 Times More Than Median Workers in 2021, Study Shows
BY Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
PUBLISHED April 19, 2022
An analysis released Monday shows that the CEOs of some of the largest corporations in the United States made 254 times more than their median employees in 2021 as executive bonuses and stock awards grew significantly.
According to the latest edition of the Equilar 100, an annual report that spotlights executive pay at leading U.S. companies, median total CEO compensation at top firms soared to $20 million in 2021, a nearly 31% increase from 2020.
“Increases were seen across all pay components,” notes the new analysis, which lists the total compensation and CEO-to-median-employee pay ratio of the 100 largest U.S. companies by revenue, a ranking that includes Apple, Microsoft, Raytheon, and Intel.
“While median salary and median perks increased incrementally, the largest jumps were examined in the form of cash bonuses and stock awards,” the analysis notes. “The median value of stock awards increased by 22.7% in 2021, from $8.6 million to $10.5 million. Meanwhile, cash bonuses increased by 46.4% in 2021, from $2.8 million to $4.2 million.”
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger topped the Equilar 100 list with $177.9 million in total compensation in 2021 followed by Apple CEO Tim Cook, who took home $98.7 million last year — a 569% increase from 2020.
Amid record-shattering corporate profits and surging CEO pay, typical workers continued to struggle in 2021 as the coronavirus kept spreading and rising prices of food, housing, and other necessities eroded their modest wage gains. As Bloomberg reported last month, “employee compensation rose 11%” in 2021, “but the so-called labor share of national income — essentially, the portion that’s paid out as wages and salaries — fell back to pre-pandemic levels.”
Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, told CNBC on Monday that the new Equilar study shows corporations “really just let loose in 2021 and were focused on keeping their executives happy and not worrying as much about what was happening on the worker end.”
“Workers, many of whom are on the front lines of the crisis, have not been reaping the rewards,” said Anderson.
Equilar’s findings provide further evidence that the decades-long trend of soaring CEO compensation and largely stagnant worker pay is persisting as legislative efforts to narrow the gap go nowhere. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), CEO pay in the U.S. rose 1,322% between 1978 and 2020 while typical worker pay grew just 18%.
On Tuesday, EPI and Harvard University’s Shift Project released a Company Wage Tracker that uses survey data to show employee wage distributions at nearly 70 large retail and food-service companies, including Starbucks, Dollar General, Walmart, McDonald’s, and other prominent corporations.
“At Starbucks — where workers have sparked a union organizing wave in recent months — 63% of workers make below $15 an hour,” EPI notes. “At Dollar General and McDonald’s, 92% and 89% of workers, respectively, make below $15 an hour, with nearly one-in-four workers making below $10 an hour at both companies. A majority (51%) of workers make below $15 an hour at Walmart.”
Ben Zipperer, an economist at EPI, said in a statement that “low wages are a defining feature of the U.S. labor market, and the service sector in particular.”
“Low pay is not limited to ‘mom-and-pop’ stores — it is also widespread in big box stores, restaurants, and grocery stores that often have high CEO pay and revenue,” Zipperer added. “A higher minimum wage and unions can put corporate greed in check and raise wages throughout the labor market.”
RELATED: Leaked IRS Data Show the Very Richest Pay Lower Tax Rates Than the Merely Rich
According to the latest edition of the Equilar 100, an annual report that spotlights executive pay at leading U.S. companies, median total CEO compensation at top firms soared to $20 million in 2021, a nearly 31% increase from 2020.
“Increases were seen across all pay components,” notes the new analysis, which lists the total compensation and CEO-to-median-employee pay ratio of the 100 largest U.S. companies by revenue, a ranking that includes Apple, Microsoft, Raytheon, and Intel.
“While median salary and median perks increased incrementally, the largest jumps were examined in the form of cash bonuses and stock awards,” the analysis notes. “The median value of stock awards increased by 22.7% in 2021, from $8.6 million to $10.5 million. Meanwhile, cash bonuses increased by 46.4% in 2021, from $2.8 million to $4.2 million.”
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger topped the Equilar 100 list with $177.9 million in total compensation in 2021 followed by Apple CEO Tim Cook, who took home $98.7 million last year — a 569% increase from 2020.
Amid record-shattering corporate profits and surging CEO pay, typical workers continued to struggle in 2021 as the coronavirus kept spreading and rising prices of food, housing, and other necessities eroded their modest wage gains. As Bloomberg reported last month, “employee compensation rose 11%” in 2021, “but the so-called labor share of national income — essentially, the portion that’s paid out as wages and salaries — fell back to pre-pandemic levels.”
Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, told CNBC on Monday that the new Equilar study shows corporations “really just let loose in 2021 and were focused on keeping their executives happy and not worrying as much about what was happening on the worker end.”
“Workers, many of whom are on the front lines of the crisis, have not been reaping the rewards,” said Anderson.
Equilar’s findings provide further evidence that the decades-long trend of soaring CEO compensation and largely stagnant worker pay is persisting as legislative efforts to narrow the gap go nowhere. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), CEO pay in the U.S. rose 1,322% between 1978 and 2020 while typical worker pay grew just 18%.
On Tuesday, EPI and Harvard University’s Shift Project released a Company Wage Tracker that uses survey data to show employee wage distributions at nearly 70 large retail and food-service companies, including Starbucks, Dollar General, Walmart, McDonald’s, and other prominent corporations.
“At Starbucks — where workers have sparked a union organizing wave in recent months — 63% of workers make below $15 an hour,” EPI notes. “At Dollar General and McDonald’s, 92% and 89% of workers, respectively, make below $15 an hour, with nearly one-in-four workers making below $10 an hour at both companies. A majority (51%) of workers make below $15 an hour at Walmart.”
Ben Zipperer, an economist at EPI, said in a statement that “low wages are a defining feature of the U.S. labor market, and the service sector in particular.”
“Low pay is not limited to ‘mom-and-pop’ stores — it is also widespread in big box stores, restaurants, and grocery stores that often have high CEO pay and revenue,” Zipperer added. “A higher minimum wage and unions can put corporate greed in check and raise wages throughout the labor market.”
RELATED: Leaked IRS Data Show the Very Richest Pay Lower Tax Rates Than the Merely Rich
Starbucks anti-union push backfires
At least 100 company locations throughout 26 states have held union drives since August
By JON SKOLNIK - SALON
PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 24, 2022 5:45AM (EST)
Starbucks, the multinational coffee giant known for its "progressive" branding, is employing an array of dubious anti-labor tactics as more and more company employees from around the country unionize in protest of poor working conditions.
Over the past several weeks, Starbucks has inundated workers with anti-union text messages and held "captive audience meetings," where workers are forced to attend management-led lectures about the apparent downsides of unionizing.
The company has also launched its own website dedicated to dissauding workers from organizing. The site puts special emphasis on the "burden" of union dues and reminds employees that they might not qualify for company benefits under a union.
Most notably, the company has outright fired employees who have taken part in or led the union effort. Earlier this month, the company sacked seven workers in a Memphis location that is currently mulling union representation, escalating tensions between employees and management. Among those targeted were five out of the six of the store's union committee members, as well as two pro-union employees. The company attributed the firings to "significant violations" of safety and security, according to The Washington Post.
But Casey Moore, spokesperson for Starbucks Workers United, told the outlet that "if Starbucks had consistently fired people for the violations they fired Memphis workers over, they would have a hard time keeping many people on staff at all."
This week, another pro-union employee, 25-year-old Cassie Fleischer, was fired in one of the company's Buffalo, New York stores. Fleischer, who has already filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), told Newsweek that she was terminated "in retaliation for union activity."
"I do believe they're targeting union leaders," she said. "There are other union leaders who face the same consequences I faced, but we are confident that I will be reinstated."
Starbucks employees first began organizing back in August, when a cluster of stores in Buffalo formally filed a petition seeking union representation. In response, Starbucks immediately flooded the area's stores with out-of-state corporate executives, who had conversations with workers, held anti-union meetings and even performed menial tasks that had no apparent purpose, casting a pall over the organizing effort. At one point, the company mandated a series of store closures in Buffalo and encouraged employees to attend a speaking engagement by Starbucks' billionaire founder Howard Schultz.
As part of its anti-union campaign, Starbucks has retained thirty attorneys with Littler Mendelson, a law firm notorious for its "union avoidance" services. In filings with the NLRB, Littler has repeatedly argued that union drives should not be held on a store-by-store basis. However, the NLRB has broadly rebuffed this argument, noting the long-held convention of single-store bargaining units in the retail food market.
Thus far, the company's counteroffensive appears to be failing. At least 100 company locations throughout 26 states have held union drives, with likely more to come.
"We were inspired by the partners in Buffalo that managed to do something many of us have dreamed of for a long time," Hannah McCown, a Starbucks barista in Overland, Kansas, told The Guardian. "It's something we didn't think was possible, but they really pushed through and showed the rest of us across the nation that we could use our voices and actually unionize."
Richard Minter, director of organizing and vice-president of Workers United, called the work-led union effort "a national movement."
"It's organic in the way it's grown," he told The Guardian, "and it will continue its trajectory to be massive in the coming weeks."
RELATED: Labor Board Formally Rejects Starbucks’s Tactic to Delay Union Elections
Over the past several weeks, Starbucks has inundated workers with anti-union text messages and held "captive audience meetings," where workers are forced to attend management-led lectures about the apparent downsides of unionizing.
The company has also launched its own website dedicated to dissauding workers from organizing. The site puts special emphasis on the "burden" of union dues and reminds employees that they might not qualify for company benefits under a union.
Most notably, the company has outright fired employees who have taken part in or led the union effort. Earlier this month, the company sacked seven workers in a Memphis location that is currently mulling union representation, escalating tensions between employees and management. Among those targeted were five out of the six of the store's union committee members, as well as two pro-union employees. The company attributed the firings to "significant violations" of safety and security, according to The Washington Post.
But Casey Moore, spokesperson for Starbucks Workers United, told the outlet that "if Starbucks had consistently fired people for the violations they fired Memphis workers over, they would have a hard time keeping many people on staff at all."
This week, another pro-union employee, 25-year-old Cassie Fleischer, was fired in one of the company's Buffalo, New York stores. Fleischer, who has already filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), told Newsweek that she was terminated "in retaliation for union activity."
"I do believe they're targeting union leaders," she said. "There are other union leaders who face the same consequences I faced, but we are confident that I will be reinstated."
Starbucks employees first began organizing back in August, when a cluster of stores in Buffalo formally filed a petition seeking union representation. In response, Starbucks immediately flooded the area's stores with out-of-state corporate executives, who had conversations with workers, held anti-union meetings and even performed menial tasks that had no apparent purpose, casting a pall over the organizing effort. At one point, the company mandated a series of store closures in Buffalo and encouraged employees to attend a speaking engagement by Starbucks' billionaire founder Howard Schultz.
As part of its anti-union campaign, Starbucks has retained thirty attorneys with Littler Mendelson, a law firm notorious for its "union avoidance" services. In filings with the NLRB, Littler has repeatedly argued that union drives should not be held on a store-by-store basis. However, the NLRB has broadly rebuffed this argument, noting the long-held convention of single-store bargaining units in the retail food market.
Thus far, the company's counteroffensive appears to be failing. At least 100 company locations throughout 26 states have held union drives, with likely more to come.
"We were inspired by the partners in Buffalo that managed to do something many of us have dreamed of for a long time," Hannah McCown, a Starbucks barista in Overland, Kansas, told The Guardian. "It's something we didn't think was possible, but they really pushed through and showed the rest of us across the nation that we could use our voices and actually unionize."
Richard Minter, director of organizing and vice-president of Workers United, called the work-led union effort "a national movement."
"It's organic in the way it's grown," he told The Guardian, "and it will continue its trajectory to be massive in the coming weeks."
RELATED: Labor Board Formally Rejects Starbucks’s Tactic to Delay Union Elections
Starbucks Asks Labor Board to Stop Ongoing Union Election in Mesa, Arizona
BY Sharon Zhang, Truthout
PUBLISHED January 25, 2022
Starbucks is seeking to stop or pause an ongoing unionization vote at a store in Mesa, Arizona, in order to overturn a regional labor officials’ ruling that the election would be conducted on a store-by-store basis, rather than region-wide.
On Monday, the company filed an appeal with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to overturn an earlier ruling, hoping to incorporate workers in other parts of the region that haven’t necessarily been involved in unionization activities in the union vote, Bloomberg reported. Starbucks has requested that the election be stopped or that the ballots be impounded while the NLRB considers the appeal.
Earlier this month, the company requested that the union vote be region-wide in order to dilute the votes, but an NLRB regional official ruled that only the Power and Baseline store in Mesa be included. Ballots have already been sent out and are due next week.
“Trying to prevent our votes from being counted is so undemocratic,” Michelle Hejduk, an Arizona employee, told Bloomberg in a statement from Workers United. “But the partners will win.”
This is the second time that Starbucks has filed a request to interrupt a unionization vote. In November, the company filed a last-minute request to delay the mailing of ballots to Buffalo workers. The company’s request was the same: Starbucks wanted the NLRB to include all 20 Starbucks locations in western New York in the election instead of the three organizing stores.
The NLRB ultimately rejected the request, and the vote went on at the three stores as planned. That election resulted in two unionized stores in Buffalo, the Elmwood and Genesee Street locations. The union, Starbucks Workers United, has disputed the results of the election from the third location at Camp Road.
It’s unclear why Starbucks is filing such similar requests over and over. But it is an indication that the company may be intimidated by the organizing workers in Mesa; Monday’s filing may be a last-ditch effort to stop the unionization.
As More Perfect Union reported, Arizona workers say that the company is flooding the stores with managers who are surveilling workers and trying to find reasons to fire organizing employees. According to Starbucks Workers United, the company has already fired one employee, Brittany Harrison, after she spoke out about union-busting practices like holding mandatory anti-union meetings for unionizing workers.
The company has disputed that Harrison was fired. Retaliating against workers for participating in union activities is illegal, and companies like Amazon have faced discipline from the NLRB for taking such actions.
Even if the company is successful in interrupting the Arizona vote, Starbucks workers are now filing for union elections at a rate that may be difficult for the company to combat individually. As of Tuesday, over 30 stores have filed to unionize, with new election petitions being filed nearly every day this month.
The latest to file are two stores in Seattle, where the company is headquartered. Seattle workers have noted that they face poor working conditions even with preferential treatment from corporate.
Sarah Pappin, a shift supervisor at one of the unionizing Seattle stores, told Vice that Seattle workers have the same complaints as other Starbucks employees across the country: stores are often understaffed, workers don’t make a fair wage and the company has ignored COVID concerns.
“We see the best side of the company because we have such visibility to corporate. [Former CEO] Howard Schultz is a regular at some of our stores,” Pappin said. “We get the best experience of anyone in the country. But we’re still saying this is not enough for us to be successful.”
On Monday, the company filed an appeal with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to overturn an earlier ruling, hoping to incorporate workers in other parts of the region that haven’t necessarily been involved in unionization activities in the union vote, Bloomberg reported. Starbucks has requested that the election be stopped or that the ballots be impounded while the NLRB considers the appeal.
Earlier this month, the company requested that the union vote be region-wide in order to dilute the votes, but an NLRB regional official ruled that only the Power and Baseline store in Mesa be included. Ballots have already been sent out and are due next week.
“Trying to prevent our votes from being counted is so undemocratic,” Michelle Hejduk, an Arizona employee, told Bloomberg in a statement from Workers United. “But the partners will win.”
This is the second time that Starbucks has filed a request to interrupt a unionization vote. In November, the company filed a last-minute request to delay the mailing of ballots to Buffalo workers. The company’s request was the same: Starbucks wanted the NLRB to include all 20 Starbucks locations in western New York in the election instead of the three organizing stores.
The NLRB ultimately rejected the request, and the vote went on at the three stores as planned. That election resulted in two unionized stores in Buffalo, the Elmwood and Genesee Street locations. The union, Starbucks Workers United, has disputed the results of the election from the third location at Camp Road.
It’s unclear why Starbucks is filing such similar requests over and over. But it is an indication that the company may be intimidated by the organizing workers in Mesa; Monday’s filing may be a last-ditch effort to stop the unionization.
As More Perfect Union reported, Arizona workers say that the company is flooding the stores with managers who are surveilling workers and trying to find reasons to fire organizing employees. According to Starbucks Workers United, the company has already fired one employee, Brittany Harrison, after she spoke out about union-busting practices like holding mandatory anti-union meetings for unionizing workers.
The company has disputed that Harrison was fired. Retaliating against workers for participating in union activities is illegal, and companies like Amazon have faced discipline from the NLRB for taking such actions.
Even if the company is successful in interrupting the Arizona vote, Starbucks workers are now filing for union elections at a rate that may be difficult for the company to combat individually. As of Tuesday, over 30 stores have filed to unionize, with new election petitions being filed nearly every day this month.
The latest to file are two stores in Seattle, where the company is headquartered. Seattle workers have noted that they face poor working conditions even with preferential treatment from corporate.
Sarah Pappin, a shift supervisor at one of the unionizing Seattle stores, told Vice that Seattle workers have the same complaints as other Starbucks employees across the country: stores are often understaffed, workers don’t make a fair wage and the company has ignored COVID concerns.
“We see the best side of the company because we have such visibility to corporate. [Former CEO] Howard Schultz is a regular at some of our stores,” Pappin said. “We get the best experience of anyone in the country. But we’re still saying this is not enough for us to be successful.”
Opinion
US crime
Want to be a criminal in America? Stealing billions is your best bet to go scot-free
A wave of shoplifting crimes are attracting front-page news, while the $15bn stolen by corporations from workers receives no coverage at all
Judd Legum- the guardian
12/07/2021
In the United States, only certain types of theft are newsworthy.
For example, on 14 June 2021, a reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco tweeted a cellphone video of a man in Walgreens filling a garbage bag with stolen items and riding his bicycle out of the store. According to San Francisco’s crime database, the value of the merchandise stolen in the incident was between $200 and $950.
According to an analysis by Fair, a media watchdog, this single incident generated 309 stories between 14 June and 12 July. A search by Popular Information reveals that, since 12 July, there have been dozens of additional stories mentioning the incident. The theft has been covered in a slew of major publications including the New York Times, USA Today and CNN.
In most coverage, the video is presented as proof that there are no consequences for shoplifting in San Francisco. But the man in the video, Jean Lugo-Romero, was arrested about a week later and faces 15 charges, including “grand theft, second-degree burglary and shoplifting”. He was recently transferred to county jail where he is being held without bond.
Just a few months earlier, in November 2020, Walgreens paid a $4.5m settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit alleging that it stole wages from thousands of its employees in California between 2010 and 2017. The lawsuit alleged that Walgreens “rounded down employees’ hours on their timecards, required employees to pass through security checks before and after their shift without compensating them for time worked, and failed to pay premium wages to employees who were denied legally required meal breaks”.
Walgreens’ settlement includes attorney’s fees and other penalties, but $2,830,000 went to Walgreens employees to compensate them for the wages that the company had stolen. And, because it is a settlement, that amount represents a small fraction of the total liability. According to the order approving the settlement, it represents “approximately 22% of the potential damages”.
So this is a story of a corporation that stole millions of dollars from its own employees. How much news coverage did it generate? There was a single 221-word story in Bloomberg Law, an industry publication. And that’s it. There has been no coverage in the New York Times, USA Today, CNN, or the dozens of other publications that covered the story of a man stealing a few hundred dollars of merchandise.
While Lugo-Romero has been behind bars since June on allegations that he stole several thousand dollars in a series of shoplifting incidents, no one at Walgreens has had to take personal responsibility for stealing millions from its employees. Stefano Pessina, who served as Walgreens’ CEO during the majority of the alleged wage theft, saw his compensation rise from $7,133,155 in 2015 to $17,483,187 in 2020. In 2021, Pessina transitioned from CEO to executive chairman. Pessina’s 2021 compensation is not yet available, but the previous executive chairman made $8,797,713 last year. Needless to say, neither Pessina nor any Walgreens employee has had to spend any time in jail as a result of millions in wage theft.
Lugo-Romero’s alleged thefts are part of a larger problem of retail theft. But, after accounting for all retail theft, Walgreens recorded $2.3bn in profits in fiscal year 2021. Walgreens is still a highly profitable business. Meanwhile, the median Walgreens employee makes just $33,396. When the company steals hundreds or thousands of dollars in wages from its employees, it has a real impact on workers who are struggling to make ends meet.
The only way in which Walgreens is an aberration, unfortunately, is that it had to pay some of its employees back. Numerous companies steal billions in wages from workers in the United States each year. It is a crime that is seldom prosecuted – or covered in the media.
Wage theft occurs whenever an employer doesn’t pay workers according to the law. And it can take many forms. Sometimes employers fail to pay minimum wage. Sometimes employers don’t pay overtime to employees who work more than 40 hours a week. In other cases, employers force workers to perform tasks “off the clock” and without pay.
A 2017 study of minimum wage violations, which is just one kind of wage theft, found that in the 10 most populous states “2.4 million workers lose $8bn annually (an average of $3,300 per year for year-round workers) to minimum wage violations –nearly a quarter of their earned wages.” In these states, wage theft affected “17% of low-wage workers, with workers in all demographic categories being cheated out of pay”. A typical victim of wage theft “is losing, on average, $3,300 per year and receiving only $10,500 in annual wages.”
If similar levels of wage theft are found in other states, it suggests “the total wages stolen from workers due to minimum wage violations exceeds $15bn each year.” That’s more than the value of stolen goods in all property crimes, according to the latest FBI statistics.
Shoplifting is just a small fraction of total property crime because more than half of the value of all stolen property comes from stolen vehicles and currency. Nevertheless, media coverage of shoplifting vastly exceeds media coverage of wage theft. A search of United States publications in the Nexis news database reveals 11,631 stories mentioning shoplifting so far in 2021. Over the same period, the same outlets published just 2,009 stories mentioning wage theft.
---
Federal enforcement of wage theft falls under the purview of the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the US Department of Labor. According to research by Northwestern University professor Daniel Galvin, in 1948 “the WHD employed 1,000 investigators and was responsible for protecting 22.6 million workers.” Today, according to a report in NBC News, 765 federal investigators are responsible for protecting 143 million workers.
At the same time, corporations have “increasingly embraced subcontracting, franchising, and supply chain models”. These trends both put workers more at risk of wage theft and make it more difficult to lodge a complaint. Fewer employees are represented by a union and it is common for workers to have little or no interaction with the people responsible for paying fair wages.
---
California is one of a handful of states – along with Minnesota, New York, Oklahoma, Massachusetts and Virginia – that offer protections against wage theft beyond federal law. But in some areas, employees are increasingly required to waive their right to sue for wage theft as a condition of employment.
According to a report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), “75.75m workers in the United States earning less than $13 per hour ... were subject to forced arbitration in 2019”. Millions of these workers are victims of wage theft. But the “employer-imposed collective and class-action waiver” prohibits them from joining forces to take on employers who cheat. Instead, disputes are pushed into private arbitration, a forum that is notoriously friendly for corporations.
This means the only way to recover stolen wages would be for each employee to individually file a complaint. This is something most employees will never have the time or knowledge to do. With few exceptions, they cannot afford legal representation. And even if everyone were able to figure out how to challenge their employer themselves, “public agencies, operating at their current capacity, could recover less than 4%” of wages stolen from employees locked out of class action lawsuits.
A piece of federal legislation, the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, would prohibit companies from forcing employees to forfeit access to the legal system. This would allow victims of wage theft to join forces and seek recovery in court. And, perhaps, it could pressure more employers to follow the law in the first place.
For example, on 14 June 2021, a reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco tweeted a cellphone video of a man in Walgreens filling a garbage bag with stolen items and riding his bicycle out of the store. According to San Francisco’s crime database, the value of the merchandise stolen in the incident was between $200 and $950.
According to an analysis by Fair, a media watchdog, this single incident generated 309 stories between 14 June and 12 July. A search by Popular Information reveals that, since 12 July, there have been dozens of additional stories mentioning the incident. The theft has been covered in a slew of major publications including the New York Times, USA Today and CNN.
In most coverage, the video is presented as proof that there are no consequences for shoplifting in San Francisco. But the man in the video, Jean Lugo-Romero, was arrested about a week later and faces 15 charges, including “grand theft, second-degree burglary and shoplifting”. He was recently transferred to county jail where he is being held without bond.
Just a few months earlier, in November 2020, Walgreens paid a $4.5m settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit alleging that it stole wages from thousands of its employees in California between 2010 and 2017. The lawsuit alleged that Walgreens “rounded down employees’ hours on their timecards, required employees to pass through security checks before and after their shift without compensating them for time worked, and failed to pay premium wages to employees who were denied legally required meal breaks”.
Walgreens’ settlement includes attorney’s fees and other penalties, but $2,830,000 went to Walgreens employees to compensate them for the wages that the company had stolen. And, because it is a settlement, that amount represents a small fraction of the total liability. According to the order approving the settlement, it represents “approximately 22% of the potential damages”.
So this is a story of a corporation that stole millions of dollars from its own employees. How much news coverage did it generate? There was a single 221-word story in Bloomberg Law, an industry publication. And that’s it. There has been no coverage in the New York Times, USA Today, CNN, or the dozens of other publications that covered the story of a man stealing a few hundred dollars of merchandise.
While Lugo-Romero has been behind bars since June on allegations that he stole several thousand dollars in a series of shoplifting incidents, no one at Walgreens has had to take personal responsibility for stealing millions from its employees. Stefano Pessina, who served as Walgreens’ CEO during the majority of the alleged wage theft, saw his compensation rise from $7,133,155 in 2015 to $17,483,187 in 2020. In 2021, Pessina transitioned from CEO to executive chairman. Pessina’s 2021 compensation is not yet available, but the previous executive chairman made $8,797,713 last year. Needless to say, neither Pessina nor any Walgreens employee has had to spend any time in jail as a result of millions in wage theft.
Lugo-Romero’s alleged thefts are part of a larger problem of retail theft. But, after accounting for all retail theft, Walgreens recorded $2.3bn in profits in fiscal year 2021. Walgreens is still a highly profitable business. Meanwhile, the median Walgreens employee makes just $33,396. When the company steals hundreds or thousands of dollars in wages from its employees, it has a real impact on workers who are struggling to make ends meet.
The only way in which Walgreens is an aberration, unfortunately, is that it had to pay some of its employees back. Numerous companies steal billions in wages from workers in the United States each year. It is a crime that is seldom prosecuted – or covered in the media.
Wage theft occurs whenever an employer doesn’t pay workers according to the law. And it can take many forms. Sometimes employers fail to pay minimum wage. Sometimes employers don’t pay overtime to employees who work more than 40 hours a week. In other cases, employers force workers to perform tasks “off the clock” and without pay.
A 2017 study of minimum wage violations, which is just one kind of wage theft, found that in the 10 most populous states “2.4 million workers lose $8bn annually (an average of $3,300 per year for year-round workers) to minimum wage violations –nearly a quarter of their earned wages.” In these states, wage theft affected “17% of low-wage workers, with workers in all demographic categories being cheated out of pay”. A typical victim of wage theft “is losing, on average, $3,300 per year and receiving only $10,500 in annual wages.”
If similar levels of wage theft are found in other states, it suggests “the total wages stolen from workers due to minimum wage violations exceeds $15bn each year.” That’s more than the value of stolen goods in all property crimes, according to the latest FBI statistics.
Shoplifting is just a small fraction of total property crime because more than half of the value of all stolen property comes from stolen vehicles and currency. Nevertheless, media coverage of shoplifting vastly exceeds media coverage of wage theft. A search of United States publications in the Nexis news database reveals 11,631 stories mentioning shoplifting so far in 2021. Over the same period, the same outlets published just 2,009 stories mentioning wage theft.
---
Federal enforcement of wage theft falls under the purview of the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) of the US Department of Labor. According to research by Northwestern University professor Daniel Galvin, in 1948 “the WHD employed 1,000 investigators and was responsible for protecting 22.6 million workers.” Today, according to a report in NBC News, 765 federal investigators are responsible for protecting 143 million workers.
At the same time, corporations have “increasingly embraced subcontracting, franchising, and supply chain models”. These trends both put workers more at risk of wage theft and make it more difficult to lodge a complaint. Fewer employees are represented by a union and it is common for workers to have little or no interaction with the people responsible for paying fair wages.
---
California is one of a handful of states – along with Minnesota, New York, Oklahoma, Massachusetts and Virginia – that offer protections against wage theft beyond federal law. But in some areas, employees are increasingly required to waive their right to sue for wage theft as a condition of employment.
According to a report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), “75.75m workers in the United States earning less than $13 per hour ... were subject to forced arbitration in 2019”. Millions of these workers are victims of wage theft. But the “employer-imposed collective and class-action waiver” prohibits them from joining forces to take on employers who cheat. Instead, disputes are pushed into private arbitration, a forum that is notoriously friendly for corporations.
This means the only way to recover stolen wages would be for each employee to individually file a complaint. This is something most employees will never have the time or knowledge to do. With few exceptions, they cannot afford legal representation. And even if everyone were able to figure out how to challenge their employer themselves, “public agencies, operating at their current capacity, could recover less than 4%” of wages stolen from employees locked out of class action lawsuits.
A piece of federal legislation, the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act, would prohibit companies from forcing employees to forfeit access to the legal system. This would allow victims of wage theft to join forces and seek recovery in court. And, perhaps, it could pressure more employers to follow the law in the first place.
more slavery!!!
‘This has been happening for a long time’: Modern-day slavery uncovered in South Georgia
2021/12/3 19:05 (EST)
© TheAtlantaJournalConstitution
ATLANTA — A yearslong human trafficking operation trapped migrant workers in “modern-day slavery” on South Georgia farms, according to a federal indictment unsealed last week.
Victims include over one hundred laborers smuggled from Mexico and Central America into “brutal” and “inhumane” working conditions. Under the threat of gun violence, some were allegedly forced to dig for onions with their bare hands, earning only 20 cents for each bucket harvested. At least two people died on the job. Another was allegedly repeatedly raped.
When not out in the fields, workers were detained in work camps surrounded by electric fencing, or held in cramped living quarters, including dirty trailers with raw sewage leaks. There was little to no access to food or safe drinking water.
Twenty-four accused members and associates of the criminal enterprise that perpetuated the exploitation now face a slew of felony charges, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia. The multi-agency cooperation that yielded the indictment – dubbed “Operation Blooming Onion” – may be one of the largest-ever human trafficking and visa fraud investigations in the country, VICE News reported.
Only two of the defendants are described as South Georgia business owners in the indictment; most were labor contractors or recruiters. Their alleged criminal mistreatment of workers took many forms.
According to the indictment, laborers were charged unlawful fees for transportation, food and housing. And though they were putatively hired for agricultural work, some migrants were illegally used for lawn care, construction, and repair tasks. To prevent escapes, members of the accused crime ring unlawfully confiscated workers’ passports and documents. Conspirators also sold and traded workers amongst themselves, per the indictment.
“The American dream is a powerful attraction for destitute and desperate people across the globe, and where there is need, there is greed from those who will attempt to exploit these willing workers for their own obscene profits,” David Estes, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, said in a statement.
“Thanks to outstanding work from our law enforcement partners, Operation Blooming Onion frees more than 100 individuals from the shackles of modern-day slavery and will hold accountable those who put them in chains.”
The crimes chronicled in the indictment were alleged to have occurred in the South Georgia counties of Atkinson, Bacon, Coffee, Tattnall, Toombs and Ware, where local farmers paid the defendants to provide contract laborers.
The crime ring that orchestrated the human trafficking operation reaped over $200 million from the illegal scheme. Conspirators are facing charges including mail fraud and mail fraud conspiracy, forced labor and forced labor conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and witness tampering.
Solimar Mercado-Spencer is a senior staff attorney at the Farmworker Rights Division of the Georgia Legal Services Program, a nonprofit law firm that represents low-income farm workers in Georgia with issues related to their wages or working conditions. Among the division’s current set of clients are victims of the criminal enterprise uncovered by Operation Blooming Onion.
Mercado-Spencer said the revelations inside the federal indictment were no surprise.
“This has been happening for a long time in Georgia. … And these people that were arrested are not the only ones doing these things,” she said. “I hope (law enforcement) keeps busting these operations because that’s not the only one going on in Georgia.”
Because it’s happening in rural areas, nobody sees the victims, Mercado-Spencer said.
“All you see is, you know, your onions at Kroger. You can go buy them. You don’t know where they came from. But this is happening and nobody notices it. And these are essential workers that have been keeping us fed through the pandemic.”
Per the indictment, the exploited foreign workers were admitted to the U.S. through fraudulent use of the H-2A guest-worker visa program, which has been booming in Georgia as farmers struggle to find domestic sources of labor. According to the federal Office of Foreign Labor Certification, Georgia had 27,614 H-2A positions certified in fiscal year 2020, up from roughly 5,500 in fiscal year 2010. Georgia is second only to Florida for most H-2A workers in the nation.
Under the H-2A program, worker’s legal status in the U.S. is contingent on remaining under the employment of the party that sponsored their visa. Mercado-Spencer said that structure can put workers at disadvantage, with limited worker protections included in the program being overlooked.[...]
Victims include over one hundred laborers smuggled from Mexico and Central America into “brutal” and “inhumane” working conditions. Under the threat of gun violence, some were allegedly forced to dig for onions with their bare hands, earning only 20 cents for each bucket harvested. At least two people died on the job. Another was allegedly repeatedly raped.
When not out in the fields, workers were detained in work camps surrounded by electric fencing, or held in cramped living quarters, including dirty trailers with raw sewage leaks. There was little to no access to food or safe drinking water.
Twenty-four accused members and associates of the criminal enterprise that perpetuated the exploitation now face a slew of felony charges, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia. The multi-agency cooperation that yielded the indictment – dubbed “Operation Blooming Onion” – may be one of the largest-ever human trafficking and visa fraud investigations in the country, VICE News reported.
Only two of the defendants are described as South Georgia business owners in the indictment; most were labor contractors or recruiters. Their alleged criminal mistreatment of workers took many forms.
According to the indictment, laborers were charged unlawful fees for transportation, food and housing. And though they were putatively hired for agricultural work, some migrants were illegally used for lawn care, construction, and repair tasks. To prevent escapes, members of the accused crime ring unlawfully confiscated workers’ passports and documents. Conspirators also sold and traded workers amongst themselves, per the indictment.
“The American dream is a powerful attraction for destitute and desperate people across the globe, and where there is need, there is greed from those who will attempt to exploit these willing workers for their own obscene profits,” David Estes, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, said in a statement.
“Thanks to outstanding work from our law enforcement partners, Operation Blooming Onion frees more than 100 individuals from the shackles of modern-day slavery and will hold accountable those who put them in chains.”
The crimes chronicled in the indictment were alleged to have occurred in the South Georgia counties of Atkinson, Bacon, Coffee, Tattnall, Toombs and Ware, where local farmers paid the defendants to provide contract laborers.
The crime ring that orchestrated the human trafficking operation reaped over $200 million from the illegal scheme. Conspirators are facing charges including mail fraud and mail fraud conspiracy, forced labor and forced labor conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and witness tampering.
Solimar Mercado-Spencer is a senior staff attorney at the Farmworker Rights Division of the Georgia Legal Services Program, a nonprofit law firm that represents low-income farm workers in Georgia with issues related to their wages or working conditions. Among the division’s current set of clients are victims of the criminal enterprise uncovered by Operation Blooming Onion.
Mercado-Spencer said the revelations inside the federal indictment were no surprise.
“This has been happening for a long time in Georgia. … And these people that were arrested are not the only ones doing these things,” she said. “I hope (law enforcement) keeps busting these operations because that’s not the only one going on in Georgia.”
Because it’s happening in rural areas, nobody sees the victims, Mercado-Spencer said.
“All you see is, you know, your onions at Kroger. You can go buy them. You don’t know where they came from. But this is happening and nobody notices it. And these are essential workers that have been keeping us fed through the pandemic.”
Per the indictment, the exploited foreign workers were admitted to the U.S. through fraudulent use of the H-2A guest-worker visa program, which has been booming in Georgia as farmers struggle to find domestic sources of labor. According to the federal Office of Foreign Labor Certification, Georgia had 27,614 H-2A positions certified in fiscal year 2020, up from roughly 5,500 in fiscal year 2010. Georgia is second only to Florida for most H-2A workers in the nation.
Under the H-2A program, worker’s legal status in the U.S. is contingent on remaining under the employment of the party that sponsored their visa. Mercado-Spencer said that structure can put workers at disadvantage, with limited worker protections included in the program being overlooked.[...]
$7 billion in profit vs $2 per week raise, outstanding!!!
just think how much cvs cheated the customers.
Anti-masker abuse, subpar healthcare, and a 5 cent raise: CVS workers say enough is enough
California employees looking for a better deal in union negotiations as the company posts record profits
Michael Sainato - the guardian
Wed 15 Sep 2021 06.00 EDT
Thousands of workers at CVS stores across California are demanding better pay, increased safety standards, healthcare improvements and more security for workers in new union contract negotiations.
The demands followed the drug chain’s report of record profits over the past 18 months, in part due to keeping stores open throughout the pandemic and offering Covid-19 testing and vaccines in stores. CVS reported a profit of more than $7bn in 2020 and posted a $2.8bn profit in the second quarter of 2021. CVS is ranked the eighth largest retailer in the US based on 2020 sales and its parent company, CVS Health, is the fourth largest corporation in the US by revenue.
CVS has offered a wage increase of just 5 cents an hour for most workers in the contract negotiations.
“We made over a $7bn profit for this company in 2020. They made that off our backs. We were the ones who took the risks, but they only want to offer us nickels and dimes for a raise, to give us subpar healthcare, and not give us security proposals to keep us safe,” said Margaret Holguin, a CVS employee in Los Angeles and a member of the union negotiating committee.
More than 6,700 CVS workers represented by UFCW Locals 5, 135, 324, 770, 1164, 1428 and 1442 signed a petition supporting the demands, as Local 770 has been in new contract negotiations with CVS for several months. More than 12,000 employees at CVS are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers in the US, with Local 770 representing about 2,600 CVS employees in southern California.
Jeff Hall, a shift supervisor at a CVS store in Los Angeles, said that CVS workers have worked throughout the pandemic and constantly struggled with understaffing, which has made it difficult to enforce coronavirus safety protocols.
“It’ll be me and a cashier every day, and we have no way to man the door to make sure people are wearing masks,” said Hall. “We have at least 10 to 15 confrontations every single day. People without masks come to CVS because they know we can’t do anything.”
He described instances where he has been physically assaulted by irate customers who refuse to wear masks, and said that understaffing has made the store a target for anti-maskers, because some other grocery and retail stores have enough employees to enforce protocols.
Hall also criticized the proposed wage increases that CVS has offered workers who have endured the risks and poor working conditions caused by Covid-19, and said that full-time employees are facing cuts to their work schedules from 40 hours to 30 hours a week, which can result in a devastating loss of income.
“The first thing they want to do is they want to cut a quarter of everybody’s paycheck, and then they want to offer a nickel raise and say, ‘we’re taking care of our workers.’” Hall said. “Workers wouldn’t be able to pay their rent, buy groceries, take care of their children or put gas in their car. If anybody loses a quarter of their paycheck, how are they supposed to make adjustments and survive?”
Jennifer Reyes, another CVS employee in Los Angeles and a negotiating committee member, said health insurance CVS offers to employees is unaffordable, even though the company owns Aetna, one of the largest health insurance companies in the US.
“They own the company, so they should be able to implement a more affordable plan for their employees,” said Reyes, who noted her store shut down in late 2020 due to an outbreak of coronavirus cases among staff and that there have been recent cases among workers in her store. “We’re stretched really thin because of people being out.”
The understaffing at CVS stores has incited concerns over safety and security, Reyes said. She said she deals with irate customers who refuse to wear masks on a regular basis, and her store location is near a Rite Aid store where an employee was recently murdered during a robbery.
“The workers who work at CVS don’t earn a lot of money. They’ve gone through the pandemic, working the entire time as essential workers, putting themselves at risk, and there’s been increased violence in the stores,” said Kathy Finn, the secretary treasurer of UFCW Local 770. “They want better wages, they want more hours, more staff, because despite all the extra work they’re doing, because they’ve been doing Covid testing and vaccinations in addition to all their regular work, they don’t ever have enough staff.”
A spokesperson for CVS said in an email: “The health and safety of our colleagues is a top priority. We regularly review our workplace policies and practices to comply with all applicable federal and state workplace safety rules and to provide a safe working environment for our employees. We are currently negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with the UFCW Local 770 in California and workplace safety is a topic being discussed. CVS Pharmacy has a long-standing, productive relationship with the UFCW Local 770 and we look forward to finalizing a new agreement.”
The demands followed the drug chain’s report of record profits over the past 18 months, in part due to keeping stores open throughout the pandemic and offering Covid-19 testing and vaccines in stores. CVS reported a profit of more than $7bn in 2020 and posted a $2.8bn profit in the second quarter of 2021. CVS is ranked the eighth largest retailer in the US based on 2020 sales and its parent company, CVS Health, is the fourth largest corporation in the US by revenue.
CVS has offered a wage increase of just 5 cents an hour for most workers in the contract negotiations.
“We made over a $7bn profit for this company in 2020. They made that off our backs. We were the ones who took the risks, but they only want to offer us nickels and dimes for a raise, to give us subpar healthcare, and not give us security proposals to keep us safe,” said Margaret Holguin, a CVS employee in Los Angeles and a member of the union negotiating committee.
More than 6,700 CVS workers represented by UFCW Locals 5, 135, 324, 770, 1164, 1428 and 1442 signed a petition supporting the demands, as Local 770 has been in new contract negotiations with CVS for several months. More than 12,000 employees at CVS are represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers in the US, with Local 770 representing about 2,600 CVS employees in southern California.
Jeff Hall, a shift supervisor at a CVS store in Los Angeles, said that CVS workers have worked throughout the pandemic and constantly struggled with understaffing, which has made it difficult to enforce coronavirus safety protocols.
“It’ll be me and a cashier every day, and we have no way to man the door to make sure people are wearing masks,” said Hall. “We have at least 10 to 15 confrontations every single day. People without masks come to CVS because they know we can’t do anything.”
He described instances where he has been physically assaulted by irate customers who refuse to wear masks, and said that understaffing has made the store a target for anti-maskers, because some other grocery and retail stores have enough employees to enforce protocols.
Hall also criticized the proposed wage increases that CVS has offered workers who have endured the risks and poor working conditions caused by Covid-19, and said that full-time employees are facing cuts to their work schedules from 40 hours to 30 hours a week, which can result in a devastating loss of income.
“The first thing they want to do is they want to cut a quarter of everybody’s paycheck, and then they want to offer a nickel raise and say, ‘we’re taking care of our workers.’” Hall said. “Workers wouldn’t be able to pay their rent, buy groceries, take care of their children or put gas in their car. If anybody loses a quarter of their paycheck, how are they supposed to make adjustments and survive?”
Jennifer Reyes, another CVS employee in Los Angeles and a negotiating committee member, said health insurance CVS offers to employees is unaffordable, even though the company owns Aetna, one of the largest health insurance companies in the US.
“They own the company, so they should be able to implement a more affordable plan for their employees,” said Reyes, who noted her store shut down in late 2020 due to an outbreak of coronavirus cases among staff and that there have been recent cases among workers in her store. “We’re stretched really thin because of people being out.”
The understaffing at CVS stores has incited concerns over safety and security, Reyes said. She said she deals with irate customers who refuse to wear masks on a regular basis, and her store location is near a Rite Aid store where an employee was recently murdered during a robbery.
“The workers who work at CVS don’t earn a lot of money. They’ve gone through the pandemic, working the entire time as essential workers, putting themselves at risk, and there’s been increased violence in the stores,” said Kathy Finn, the secretary treasurer of UFCW Local 770. “They want better wages, they want more hours, more staff, because despite all the extra work they’re doing, because they’ve been doing Covid testing and vaccinations in addition to all their regular work, they don’t ever have enough staff.”
A spokesperson for CVS said in an email: “The health and safety of our colleagues is a top priority. We regularly review our workplace policies and practices to comply with all applicable federal and state workplace safety rules and to provide a safe working environment for our employees. We are currently negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with the UFCW Local 770 in California and workplace safety is a topic being discussed. CVS Pharmacy has a long-standing, productive relationship with the UFCW Local 770 and we look forward to finalizing a new agreement.”
opinion
American CEOs make 351 times more than workers. In 1965 it was 15 to one
Rather than address stagnant wages for hourly workers and yawning inequality, corporations are blaming a ‘labor shortage’
Indigo Olivier - the guardian
8/17/2021
Last week, the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan thinktank, released a report on the increasing pay gap between chief executives and workers. This research tells a familiar story with updated figures. When taking into account stocks, which now make up more than 80% of the average CEO’s compensation package, the report found that chief-executive pay has risen by an astounding 1,322% since 1978. That’s more than six times more than the top 0.1% of wage earners and more than 73 times higher than the growth of the typical worker’s pay, which grew by only 18% in the same time period. Most remarkable, however, is the 18.9% increase in CEO compensation between 2019 and 2020 alone.
CEO compensation outpacing that of the 0.1% is a clear indication that this growth is not the product of a competitive race for skills or increased productivity, the EPI report explains, so much as the “power of CEOs to extract concessions. Consequently, if CEOs earned less or were taxed more, there would be no adverse impact on the economy’s output or on employment,” the report concludes.
This report joins a slew of data sounding an alarm on a massive upward transfer of wealth to the top 1% over the course of the pandemic. One estimate by the Institute for Policy Studies puts this figure as high as $4tn, or a 54% increase in fortunes for the world’s 2,365 billionaires.
Today in the US, the CEO-to-worker pay gap stands at a staggering 351 to one, an unacceptable increase from 15 to one in 1965. In other words, the average CEO makes nearly nine times what the average person will earn over a lifetime in just one year.
It’s worth remembering that the federal minimum wage would be $24 an hour today had it kept pace with worker productivity, rather than $7.25, where it’s been stuck since 2009. Additionally, inflation has resulted in a nearly 2% pay cut over the past year despite modest gains in hourly wages, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This reality is unfolding against a narrative of a “labor shortage,” with small businesses, retail giants and fast-food chains expressing difficulty in filling poorly paid positions – even though there are one million more unemployed workers than there are open jobs. Clearly, something else is going on here.
The grim reality is that a huge section of the American labor force – between 25% and 40% – made more on unemployment than they ever have working full-time at a minimum wage job. $7.25 an hour is $290 a week before taxes, compared with the $300 in weekly federal benefits that pandemic unemployment assistance provided. Nor does this account for the additional weekly state benefits that those on unemployment received.
In our current milieu, “labor shortage” has become doublespeak for a stubborn reluctance on the part of politicians and businesses to address poverty wages, the remedy for which has been to let pandemic unemployment assistance expire so that workers are desperate enough to go back to the exploitative conditions that billion-dollar companies insist are necessary to keep the economy running.
---
The EPI is correct. A wealth tax on the 1% would not hinder the economy nor employment, so much as rein in the excesses of the billionaire space race and luxury doomsday bunkers that stand in stark relief to the floods, fires, famine and pestilence that have currently taken hold.
Among the report’s policy recommendations for reversing skyrocketing pay for CEOs are raising the marginal tax rate on the ultra rich to “limit rent-seeking behavior” and penalizing companies with unacceptable CEO-to-worker pay ratios with higher corporate taxes. Let’s examine the feasibility of both under Joe Biden’s administration.
When Biden came into office, Trump had cut corporate tax rates from 35% to 21% and lowered rates on the ultra-wealthy to such an extent that the richest 400 people in the US paid a lower tax rate than any other group in the country – including the minimum wage workers who are rightly refusing to return to the same conditions they withstood before the pandemic. Investopedia called Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act the “largest overhaul of the tax code in three decades”.
Biden, seeking to undo some of this pillaging of the public sphere, has proposed raising corporate taxes to 28% – 7% lower than what they had been when Barack Obama left office – and raising the top rates for individuals back to 39.6% from Trump’s 37% as part of the Democrats’ $3.5tn budget proposal (though there was some suggestion that Biden would concede to a 25% corporate tax rate if it would please congressional Republicans). Biden has also stated that he will not increase taxes on those making less than $400,000 – meaning less than the top 2% of wage earners.
In other words, popular slogans taking aim at the top 1% have resulted in an administration of corporate Democrats that will attempt to take aim at the 1%, but make clear to their base that the 1% is as far as they’re willing to go.
This is a far cry from the popular policies Bernie Sanders proposed during the presidential primaries, such as giving workers an ownership stake in the companies they’re employed by, democratizing corporate boards through employee elections, passing a wealth tax, banning stock buybacks and more. And it falls short of what is by far the cheapest and easiest solution to stimulating the economy and vastly reducing income inequality while steering clear of Republican interference: full student debt cancellation through executive order.
With the stroke of a pen, Biden could provide life-changing financial relief for one in eight people living in the US. Each day he chooses not to is further proof that Biden is keeping to his original promise to rich donors on the campaign trail: “… nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.”
CEO compensation outpacing that of the 0.1% is a clear indication that this growth is not the product of a competitive race for skills or increased productivity, the EPI report explains, so much as the “power of CEOs to extract concessions. Consequently, if CEOs earned less or were taxed more, there would be no adverse impact on the economy’s output or on employment,” the report concludes.
This report joins a slew of data sounding an alarm on a massive upward transfer of wealth to the top 1% over the course of the pandemic. One estimate by the Institute for Policy Studies puts this figure as high as $4tn, or a 54% increase in fortunes for the world’s 2,365 billionaires.
Today in the US, the CEO-to-worker pay gap stands at a staggering 351 to one, an unacceptable increase from 15 to one in 1965. In other words, the average CEO makes nearly nine times what the average person will earn over a lifetime in just one year.
It’s worth remembering that the federal minimum wage would be $24 an hour today had it kept pace with worker productivity, rather than $7.25, where it’s been stuck since 2009. Additionally, inflation has resulted in a nearly 2% pay cut over the past year despite modest gains in hourly wages, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
This reality is unfolding against a narrative of a “labor shortage,” with small businesses, retail giants and fast-food chains expressing difficulty in filling poorly paid positions – even though there are one million more unemployed workers than there are open jobs. Clearly, something else is going on here.
The grim reality is that a huge section of the American labor force – between 25% and 40% – made more on unemployment than they ever have working full-time at a minimum wage job. $7.25 an hour is $290 a week before taxes, compared with the $300 in weekly federal benefits that pandemic unemployment assistance provided. Nor does this account for the additional weekly state benefits that those on unemployment received.
In our current milieu, “labor shortage” has become doublespeak for a stubborn reluctance on the part of politicians and businesses to address poverty wages, the remedy for which has been to let pandemic unemployment assistance expire so that workers are desperate enough to go back to the exploitative conditions that billion-dollar companies insist are necessary to keep the economy running.
---
The EPI is correct. A wealth tax on the 1% would not hinder the economy nor employment, so much as rein in the excesses of the billionaire space race and luxury doomsday bunkers that stand in stark relief to the floods, fires, famine and pestilence that have currently taken hold.
Among the report’s policy recommendations for reversing skyrocketing pay for CEOs are raising the marginal tax rate on the ultra rich to “limit rent-seeking behavior” and penalizing companies with unacceptable CEO-to-worker pay ratios with higher corporate taxes. Let’s examine the feasibility of both under Joe Biden’s administration.
When Biden came into office, Trump had cut corporate tax rates from 35% to 21% and lowered rates on the ultra-wealthy to such an extent that the richest 400 people in the US paid a lower tax rate than any other group in the country – including the minimum wage workers who are rightly refusing to return to the same conditions they withstood before the pandemic. Investopedia called Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act the “largest overhaul of the tax code in three decades”.
Biden, seeking to undo some of this pillaging of the public sphere, has proposed raising corporate taxes to 28% – 7% lower than what they had been when Barack Obama left office – and raising the top rates for individuals back to 39.6% from Trump’s 37% as part of the Democrats’ $3.5tn budget proposal (though there was some suggestion that Biden would concede to a 25% corporate tax rate if it would please congressional Republicans). Biden has also stated that he will not increase taxes on those making less than $400,000 – meaning less than the top 2% of wage earners.
In other words, popular slogans taking aim at the top 1% have resulted in an administration of corporate Democrats that will attempt to take aim at the 1%, but make clear to their base that the 1% is as far as they’re willing to go.
This is a far cry from the popular policies Bernie Sanders proposed during the presidential primaries, such as giving workers an ownership stake in the companies they’re employed by, democratizing corporate boards through employee elections, passing a wealth tax, banning stock buybacks and more. And it falls short of what is by far the cheapest and easiest solution to stimulating the economy and vastly reducing income inequality while steering clear of Republican interference: full student debt cancellation through executive order.
With the stroke of a pen, Biden could provide life-changing financial relief for one in eight people living in the US. Each day he chooses not to is further proof that Biden is keeping to his original promise to rich donors on the campaign trail: “… nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.”
More Workers Are Saying That Minimum-Wage Jobs Just Aren’t Worth It Anymore
BY Janine Jackson, FAIR - TRUTHOUT
PUBLISHED August 14, 2021
...David Cooper: Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
It sure seems like something important is afoot. But we know media sometimes make a wave out of a ripple, and a sea change out of a seasonal shift, depending on the needs of the news cycle. So let me just ask you, first: What do you see actually happening, in terms of workers leaving jobs, or not returning to jobs? What observably is going on?
I think it’s really important to keep in mind, right off the bat, that we’re in a very unique moment in the economy, in the sense that parts of the economy have essentially shifted from zero to 100 almost overnight. A lot of these businesses that are complaining about their inability to hire workers have seen demand just surge; we’re talking restaurants that were closed for months that are reopening, and suddenly having lots of customers coming through the door.
Even under normal circumstances, setting aside these other factors that might be affecting people’s job decisions, it’s always going to take time for employers to staff up under those circumstances, to try and rebuild their workforce when many of them cut the vast majority of their staffs early in the pandemic last year. So some of this rhetoric, I think, is being overblown, just because of the uniqueness of the circumstances.
It’s funny how corporate media, in terms of understanding things like this, often evoke a kind of textbook supply-and-demand economic theory that presumes a power seesaw between labor and management. But then when labor looks like actually getting more leverage, that’s suddenly weird and aberrational.
Employers’ decisions — “Yes, we’ll take that subsidy, and no, we won’t create jobs,” “Yes, we’ll say we’re forced to lay off workers because of costs, but at the same time, we’ll give huge bonuses to our executives” — those kinds of decisions, in media’s lens, are fundamentally unremarkable. They’re just kind of market logic at work.
But then at a time like now, when workers seem to be choosing, it becomes like a psychological issue: “What did the pandemic do to their brains?” And it suggests that media’s frequent and often implicit reference to a market economics that maintains a balance of power between workers and owners—that’s not really the framework that we’re working with. Are media at least moving past the idea that this is about people not wanting to work? What does this say about the general understanding that corporate media offer in terms of the way power plays out in the workplace?
I think you’ve hit on a really important point, and that is that there is this assumption that is baked into our theories of the economy, that workers and employers have equal bargaining power. That if an employee doesn’t like their job, they can just instantly go out and find another one, without suffering any consequences. That if they think their pay is too low, all they have to do is just go and look around a little bit, and they can immediately go and find another one, and employers can just immediately react and raise their pay.
And, obviously, the world is far more complicated than that. And there is always a fundamental imbalance in the bargaining power of employers and employees. And when you’re talking about particular portions of the labor market, like low-wage workers, the imbalance in power is even more pronounced.
And what we’re seeing right now, coming out of the pandemic, is a lot of people got to see that when government stepped in, when lawmakers chose to act and gave them more generous, more accessible unemployment insurance; gave them some breathing room to find suitable jobs, not just the first one available; when we give workers the ability to take time off to care for themselves, or a family member who got sick, when some states got tougher rules on workplace safety; when some employers at least for a little while adopted hazard pay, to acknowledge the additional workloads that these frontline jobs were taking on; workers got to see that there is an alternative, that when they have some of this backing of government and policy, they are given a little more leverage.
And that might allow them to exert a little more pressure, to actually expect more from their employer, or to go out and look for a job that’s more suitable for their circumstances, which I think, unfortunately, for most of the last 40 years, corporate interests and policymakers, either through acts of commission or acts of omission, have largely undercut workers’ bargaining power. They’ve just handed more leverage over to employers in pretty much every way possible.
I think sources matter a lot, you know, who gets to speak in these articles, and who gets to offer their analysis or understanding of what’s going on. I think maybe the tenor is shifting a bit away from the idea that people don’t want to work, or people are lazy, or somehow they’re living high on the hog off these unemployment checks, which I don’t know who you’d have to be to imagine that $1,000 or $1,200 is suddenly making a person pick a different way in life.
Right.
But in terms of media, are there things you’d like to see reporters who are covering this workforce issue do more of or less of, or people they could listen to more, or maybe listen to less? What’s your sense of how media might illustrate this issue more accurately or usefully to folks?
I think that talking to the workers who have stepped away from the workforce right now, who maybe haven’t returned to jobs, and ask them, what is it that they want to get out of work? Because it’s more than just pay. I think that’s one of the other realizations that folks are having right now.
Some employers are raising wages, and that’s great; that needs to happen. Jobs shouldn’t be paying poverty-level wages.
But it’s more than that. It’s things like the availability to take time off to care for a loved one that’s sick, or flexibility in scheduling to accommodate childcare responsibilities. What are the working conditions like? Will they have to police mask-wearing or social distancing? How supportive will employers be if they come into conflict with customers? What’s the potential for advancement? Do folks view these jobs as potential stepping stones in a career, or is it just a one-off?
And another thing that’s important right now, I think, is workers are understandably questioning the future of particular employers or industries. So many businesses have suffered and gone under in this pandemic. I think it’s not unreasonable for a prospective employee to be considering, well, do I really think this job is going to be around six months from now? Is it worth going into this employer, not knowing what the future is going to hold for them?
And I also think it’s important for media to be considering what workers will get out of a particular business’s success. What are businesses doing to bring employees into the success of the business? Is it just going to be longer hours and more work, or are they going to get to share in some of the profits and benefits that come from that business’s success?
I think employees workers are scrutinizing these questions a lot more carefully now, because they’ve gone through this trauma, where they’ve come to realize that in many cases, there are things that are not worth a minimum wage job.[...]
It sure seems like something important is afoot. But we know media sometimes make a wave out of a ripple, and a sea change out of a seasonal shift, depending on the needs of the news cycle. So let me just ask you, first: What do you see actually happening, in terms of workers leaving jobs, or not returning to jobs? What observably is going on?
I think it’s really important to keep in mind, right off the bat, that we’re in a very unique moment in the economy, in the sense that parts of the economy have essentially shifted from zero to 100 almost overnight. A lot of these businesses that are complaining about their inability to hire workers have seen demand just surge; we’re talking restaurants that were closed for months that are reopening, and suddenly having lots of customers coming through the door.
Even under normal circumstances, setting aside these other factors that might be affecting people’s job decisions, it’s always going to take time for employers to staff up under those circumstances, to try and rebuild their workforce when many of them cut the vast majority of their staffs early in the pandemic last year. So some of this rhetoric, I think, is being overblown, just because of the uniqueness of the circumstances.
It’s funny how corporate media, in terms of understanding things like this, often evoke a kind of textbook supply-and-demand economic theory that presumes a power seesaw between labor and management. But then when labor looks like actually getting more leverage, that’s suddenly weird and aberrational.
Employers’ decisions — “Yes, we’ll take that subsidy, and no, we won’t create jobs,” “Yes, we’ll say we’re forced to lay off workers because of costs, but at the same time, we’ll give huge bonuses to our executives” — those kinds of decisions, in media’s lens, are fundamentally unremarkable. They’re just kind of market logic at work.
But then at a time like now, when workers seem to be choosing, it becomes like a psychological issue: “What did the pandemic do to their brains?” And it suggests that media’s frequent and often implicit reference to a market economics that maintains a balance of power between workers and owners—that’s not really the framework that we’re working with. Are media at least moving past the idea that this is about people not wanting to work? What does this say about the general understanding that corporate media offer in terms of the way power plays out in the workplace?
I think you’ve hit on a really important point, and that is that there is this assumption that is baked into our theories of the economy, that workers and employers have equal bargaining power. That if an employee doesn’t like their job, they can just instantly go out and find another one, without suffering any consequences. That if they think their pay is too low, all they have to do is just go and look around a little bit, and they can immediately go and find another one, and employers can just immediately react and raise their pay.
And, obviously, the world is far more complicated than that. And there is always a fundamental imbalance in the bargaining power of employers and employees. And when you’re talking about particular portions of the labor market, like low-wage workers, the imbalance in power is even more pronounced.
And what we’re seeing right now, coming out of the pandemic, is a lot of people got to see that when government stepped in, when lawmakers chose to act and gave them more generous, more accessible unemployment insurance; gave them some breathing room to find suitable jobs, not just the first one available; when we give workers the ability to take time off to care for themselves, or a family member who got sick, when some states got tougher rules on workplace safety; when some employers at least for a little while adopted hazard pay, to acknowledge the additional workloads that these frontline jobs were taking on; workers got to see that there is an alternative, that when they have some of this backing of government and policy, they are given a little more leverage.
And that might allow them to exert a little more pressure, to actually expect more from their employer, or to go out and look for a job that’s more suitable for their circumstances, which I think, unfortunately, for most of the last 40 years, corporate interests and policymakers, either through acts of commission or acts of omission, have largely undercut workers’ bargaining power. They’ve just handed more leverage over to employers in pretty much every way possible.
I think sources matter a lot, you know, who gets to speak in these articles, and who gets to offer their analysis or understanding of what’s going on. I think maybe the tenor is shifting a bit away from the idea that people don’t want to work, or people are lazy, or somehow they’re living high on the hog off these unemployment checks, which I don’t know who you’d have to be to imagine that $1,000 or $1,200 is suddenly making a person pick a different way in life.
Right.
But in terms of media, are there things you’d like to see reporters who are covering this workforce issue do more of or less of, or people they could listen to more, or maybe listen to less? What’s your sense of how media might illustrate this issue more accurately or usefully to folks?
I think that talking to the workers who have stepped away from the workforce right now, who maybe haven’t returned to jobs, and ask them, what is it that they want to get out of work? Because it’s more than just pay. I think that’s one of the other realizations that folks are having right now.
Some employers are raising wages, and that’s great; that needs to happen. Jobs shouldn’t be paying poverty-level wages.
But it’s more than that. It’s things like the availability to take time off to care for a loved one that’s sick, or flexibility in scheduling to accommodate childcare responsibilities. What are the working conditions like? Will they have to police mask-wearing or social distancing? How supportive will employers be if they come into conflict with customers? What’s the potential for advancement? Do folks view these jobs as potential stepping stones in a career, or is it just a one-off?
And another thing that’s important right now, I think, is workers are understandably questioning the future of particular employers or industries. So many businesses have suffered and gone under in this pandemic. I think it’s not unreasonable for a prospective employee to be considering, well, do I really think this job is going to be around six months from now? Is it worth going into this employer, not knowing what the future is going to hold for them?
And I also think it’s important for media to be considering what workers will get out of a particular business’s success. What are businesses doing to bring employees into the success of the business? Is it just going to be longer hours and more work, or are they going to get to share in some of the profits and benefits that come from that business’s success?
I think employees workers are scrutinizing these questions a lot more carefully now, because they’ve gone through this trauma, where they’ve come to realize that in many cases, there are things that are not worth a minimum wage job.[...]
no surprise!!
Amazon Pressured Alabama Workers to Vote Against Unionization, Labor Board Finds
BY Chris Walker, Truthout
PUBLISHED August 3, 2021
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is set to announce on Tuesday that a unionization vote this past spring for Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, was improperly interfered with by a pressure campaign and other illicit actions from the company — a ruling that could result in a new vote for workers in the future on whether they should form a union.
The NLRB hasn’t made an official statement yet regarding their findings. But word of the agency’s views on the union vote came by means of an NLRB hearing officer, and has been confirmed in statements issued by both Amazon and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which led the unionization effort for the workers in Bessemer.
The NLRB’s filing and recommendations will be sent to the agency’s regional director in Atlanta. An official ruling will then be issued by that regional office which oversaw the election. If the regional director in Atlanta agrees with the NLRB’s filing, a new election would be called and results from the last election would be tossed out.
In a statement regarding the pending filing, Stuart Appelbaum, president of RWDSU, said that it was the right move for the labor agency to be making.
“Throughout the NLRB hearing, we heard compelling evidence how Amazon tried to illegally interfere with and intimidate workers as they sought to exercise their right to form a union,” Appelbaum said. “We support the hearing officer’s recommendation that the NLRB set aside the election results and direct a new election.”
Although workers voted 2 to 1 against unionizing, several actions by Amazon likely led to employees being intimidated into voting against forming a union.
For example, Amazon pressured the United States Postal Service to install a mailbox where ballots would be dropped off just outside the warehouse. Placing ballot boxes for union votes that close to management offices may have violated federal labor laws, and it was alleged that the company was keeping a watchful eye on the ballot box to see who was voting.
“[The] Amazon [facility] is surveilled everywhere. You assume that everything can be seen,” said one worker during NLRB testimony.
The company also likely spent millions on anti-union consultants to defeat the unionization effort. Amazon also hired police to intimidate workers and those in support of the union.
Anti-union posters were displayed prominently around the workplace, including in the restrooms used by workers. Management also forced workers to attend anti-union meetings and to download apps that would send them anti-union messages.
For its own part, Amazon claimed it had done nothing wrong during the union vote, and that workers’ preferences should be respected.
“Our employees had a chance to be heard during a noisy time when all types of voices were weighing into the national debate, and at the end of the day, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of a direct connection with their managers and the company,” a statement from an Amazon spokesperson read.
But RWDSU rejected that idea, noting that the company took special care to harass, intimidate and cajole its workers into voting against forming a union.
“Amazon’s behavior throughout the election process was despicable,” Appelbaum said. “Amazon cheated, they got caught, and they are being held accountable.”
Well this is awkward.
The NLRB hasn’t made an official statement yet regarding their findings. But word of the agency’s views on the union vote came by means of an NLRB hearing officer, and has been confirmed in statements issued by both Amazon and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which led the unionization effort for the workers in Bessemer.
The NLRB’s filing and recommendations will be sent to the agency’s regional director in Atlanta. An official ruling will then be issued by that regional office which oversaw the election. If the regional director in Atlanta agrees with the NLRB’s filing, a new election would be called and results from the last election would be tossed out.
In a statement regarding the pending filing, Stuart Appelbaum, president of RWDSU, said that it was the right move for the labor agency to be making.
“Throughout the NLRB hearing, we heard compelling evidence how Amazon tried to illegally interfere with and intimidate workers as they sought to exercise their right to form a union,” Appelbaum said. “We support the hearing officer’s recommendation that the NLRB set aside the election results and direct a new election.”
Although workers voted 2 to 1 against unionizing, several actions by Amazon likely led to employees being intimidated into voting against forming a union.
For example, Amazon pressured the United States Postal Service to install a mailbox where ballots would be dropped off just outside the warehouse. Placing ballot boxes for union votes that close to management offices may have violated federal labor laws, and it was alleged that the company was keeping a watchful eye on the ballot box to see who was voting.
“[The] Amazon [facility] is surveilled everywhere. You assume that everything can be seen,” said one worker during NLRB testimony.
The company also likely spent millions on anti-union consultants to defeat the unionization effort. Amazon also hired police to intimidate workers and those in support of the union.
Anti-union posters were displayed prominently around the workplace, including in the restrooms used by workers. Management also forced workers to attend anti-union meetings and to download apps that would send them anti-union messages.
For its own part, Amazon claimed it had done nothing wrong during the union vote, and that workers’ preferences should be respected.
“Our employees had a chance to be heard during a noisy time when all types of voices were weighing into the national debate, and at the end of the day, they voted overwhelmingly in favor of a direct connection with their managers and the company,” a statement from an Amazon spokesperson read.
But RWDSU rejected that idea, noting that the company took special care to harass, intimidate and cajole its workers into voting against forming a union.
“Amazon’s behavior throughout the election process was despicable,” Appelbaum said. “Amazon cheated, they got caught, and they are being held accountable.”
Well this is awkward.
A Supreme Court ruling that's right out of the 19th century
Joe Maniscalco, DC Report @ Raw Story
July 18, 2021
Sitting in their air-conditioned offices with stewards who serve coffee and tea on request, a majority of our Supreme Court justices have come to an awful decision. They ordered an essential class of workers into slave-like isolation—unseen, unheard and unprotected—as they toil in scorching heat harvesting crops.
The justices, exploiting a single incident, turned back the clock on farmworker rights nearly a half-century.
In an under-reported 6-3 decision, the justices drop-kicked the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975 into the trash bin. That California law gave farmworkers access to labor organizers. The court decision assures farm owners that they once again reign over their employees like plantation owners in the antebellum South, just without bullwhips.
"It seems like a return to indentured servitude," Rev. Richard Witt, executive director of the Rural and Migrant Ministry in New York State, said after the U.S. Supreme Court's June 23 decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid.
In practical terms, the ruling means that farmworkers cannot access union organizers unless they leave the farm, creating a legal barrier that segregates the workers from the right to organize a union.
The majority ruling ignored human rights, including the right to form a union, and reaffirmed the court majority's view that property rights reign supreme. It furthers the high court's long history of favoring property over people.
Think of this decision as judicial backing for a modern economic version of slavery, just without the right to murder employees or sell them off. Sharecropping after the Civil War was slavery 2.0. Think of this ruling as American slavery 3.0—work without meaningful labor rights.
Just what did this California law do that required striking it down as unconstitutional? It allowed union organizers to walk onto farms to talk with workers during the hours they are not toiling in the fields. These visits by union organizers were limited to 120 days per year, each for no more than three hours.
A Visit During Working Hours
The case arose after an incident when some labor organizers met with workers during work hours, causing a ruckus in which some of the laborers walked out. Throwing out the California law over this incident would be akin to the high court invalidating stoplight traffic laws because one driver ran a red light.
Migrant farmworkers, like slaves and sharecroppers, often reside in temporary housing on the farm owner's land. Recognizing that, California gave union organizers access to workers during their off-hours.
But the court conservatives' have now effectively barred unions from approaching workers at all as long as they are on the owner's property. Assuring access to workers, the majority said, is a "taking" of the owners' property rights, which our Constitution allows only with "just compensation" to property owners.
Up to now, the Constitution's prohibition on uncompensated "takings" was limited to government acquiring private property for uses such as highways, public buildings or, in some instances, new private developments with government support. But assuring mere access to private property was not considered an unconstitutional taking.
The ruling harkens back to antebellum days. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., who wrote the opinion, is the current champion of oppressive property owners who want to grow more prosperous by ensuring employees don't get paid fairly or have safe working conditions. Achieving those exploitive goals becomes difficult if farmworkers form unions to argue for their rights.
Justice Stephen Breyer, in dissent, pointed to a fundamental legal problem with the idea that letting union organizers walk onto farmland to meet with laborers when they are not picking crops is what our Constitution's Fifth Amendment calls a "taking" of property.
"The Takings Clause prohibits the Government from taking private property for public use without 'just compensation,'" Breyer noted. "But the employers do not seek compensation."
Witt sees the bias in the way Chief Justice Roberts framed the high court ruling. "What about [farmworkers'] property rights?" the reverend said. "If they're living on the farm, don't their property rights count?
'No Trespassing'
Rural and Migrant Ministries is a non-profit interfaith organization advocating for the working poor and disenfranchised in New York State since the 1970s.
As soon as the court issued its ruling, Witt says, his ministry encountered newly posted "No Trespassing" signs on farms across New York State.
"Employers can control who can come and see" farmworkers, he said. "Are we going back to an era where only those who own land get to have their voices heard?"
Even at its most militant and anti-capitalist, the American Labor Movement has never been able to secure the same hard-fought rights and protections for farmworkers that other workers won through decades of struggle.
In 1935, persistent collective action from below forced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to get behind the National Labor Relations Act, which granted collective bargaining rights for workers.
But the bosses, albeit a little bruised, held onto enough sway to exclude farmworkers from that law. The exclusion is a solid example of structural racism since many, if not most, field hands are Black and Brown people.
The exclusions — fueled by Jim Crow racism and the desire of many business owners to ensure a permanent underclass of cheap labor — continue to this day in federal law. The result of this is virtually universal abuse of farmworkers, including violent attacks, sexual assault and an entrenched sub-minimum wage.
Farmworkers Excluded from Labor Law
These awful conditions amount to an economic extension of slaveholder rights, just without the legal right to sell off farmhands. The result of this has been shortened lives and needless misery.
According to labor activists in New York, Covid has infected more than 13,000 farmworkers nationwide. The death toll? Unknown because our governments pay so little attention to the essential workers who harvest the food we eat.
The pandemic had the unexpected effect of bringing the plight of farmworkers to public attention and brought widespread acclaim for their labor during the shutdowns.
But little has been done to remedy this enduring American evil of exploiting farmworkers. Now our Supreme Court has struck a blow against decency and fairness.
Farmworkers were among the majority of American workers left out of enforceable Covid safety measures that the Biden administration announced in June.
The 1975 California law that the high court struck down grew from 40 years of work on behalf of California farmworkers by the determined labor activist Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers Union he founded. The collective bargaining rights the UFW won applied only in the Golden State.
Owners Happy
The high court ruling thrilled the American Farm Bureau.
Zippy Duvall, president of the Farm Bureau, said the organization "appreciates the U.S. Supreme Court for reaffirming private property rights, which are foundational to our nation and critical to ensuring secure and well-managed farms. We hope this decision sends a message to state regulators that it's simply wrong to give outsiders access to farms, where families live and work hard to safeguard their animals and harvests."
Advocates for farmworkers see it very differently.
Edgar Franks, political director of Familias Unidas for la Justicia, an independent farmworker union representing workers from indigenous families across Washington State, was appalled by the court decision.
"We definitely think this is an anti-worker ruling," Franks recently said. "But it also goes beyond that. Chief Justice [John] Roberts redefined the 5th Amendment 'taking clause.' What if there were a health and safety violation?
Would that mean they would be denied entrance to check on worker safety? This makes life harder for many workers."
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka also took issue with the view that farmworkers' fundamental right to organize at the location where they work constitutes an unconstitutional "taking of their employers' property.
"As the state of California recognized more than 45 years ago, meeting with the union during off-hours at their workplace is the only practical way for workers to organize when they must regularly move from farm to farm throughout the growing season," Trumka said.
More to Come?Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy organization for farmworkers based in Washington, D.C., believes Roberts wrote so broadly that the ruling invites employers to test its limits.
"The court says it's not much of an issue — but given the breadth of their opinion, it's difficult to understand what the limits are on the power of the employer to limit anyone coming onto their property," he says.
That is what Witt worries about because the high court ruling seems to have First Amendment implications in the free exercise of religion.
Suzanne Adely, co-director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, thinks farm owners and other property owners will take an extreme view of how much the ruling limits access to workers. The alliance is a coalition of 31 worker-based organizations advocating for more than 3750,000 food workers in the United States and Canada. Adely fears that the ruling set a corrosive precedent.
"Employers say they are not going to that extent — but that won't matter much if conservatives in the future try to utilize this ruling for their case. It's utterly anti-union and anti-democratic. Globally speaking, a lot of countries around the world would consider this to be shocking."
The justices, exploiting a single incident, turned back the clock on farmworker rights nearly a half-century.
In an under-reported 6-3 decision, the justices drop-kicked the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975 into the trash bin. That California law gave farmworkers access to labor organizers. The court decision assures farm owners that they once again reign over their employees like plantation owners in the antebellum South, just without bullwhips.
"It seems like a return to indentured servitude," Rev. Richard Witt, executive director of the Rural and Migrant Ministry in New York State, said after the U.S. Supreme Court's June 23 decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid.
In practical terms, the ruling means that farmworkers cannot access union organizers unless they leave the farm, creating a legal barrier that segregates the workers from the right to organize a union.
The majority ruling ignored human rights, including the right to form a union, and reaffirmed the court majority's view that property rights reign supreme. It furthers the high court's long history of favoring property over people.
Think of this decision as judicial backing for a modern economic version of slavery, just without the right to murder employees or sell them off. Sharecropping after the Civil War was slavery 2.0. Think of this ruling as American slavery 3.0—work without meaningful labor rights.
Just what did this California law do that required striking it down as unconstitutional? It allowed union organizers to walk onto farms to talk with workers during the hours they are not toiling in the fields. These visits by union organizers were limited to 120 days per year, each for no more than three hours.
A Visit During Working Hours
The case arose after an incident when some labor organizers met with workers during work hours, causing a ruckus in which some of the laborers walked out. Throwing out the California law over this incident would be akin to the high court invalidating stoplight traffic laws because one driver ran a red light.
Migrant farmworkers, like slaves and sharecroppers, often reside in temporary housing on the farm owner's land. Recognizing that, California gave union organizers access to workers during their off-hours.
But the court conservatives' have now effectively barred unions from approaching workers at all as long as they are on the owner's property. Assuring access to workers, the majority said, is a "taking" of the owners' property rights, which our Constitution allows only with "just compensation" to property owners.
Up to now, the Constitution's prohibition on uncompensated "takings" was limited to government acquiring private property for uses such as highways, public buildings or, in some instances, new private developments with government support. But assuring mere access to private property was not considered an unconstitutional taking.
The ruling harkens back to antebellum days. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., who wrote the opinion, is the current champion of oppressive property owners who want to grow more prosperous by ensuring employees don't get paid fairly or have safe working conditions. Achieving those exploitive goals becomes difficult if farmworkers form unions to argue for their rights.
Justice Stephen Breyer, in dissent, pointed to a fundamental legal problem with the idea that letting union organizers walk onto farmland to meet with laborers when they are not picking crops is what our Constitution's Fifth Amendment calls a "taking" of property.
"The Takings Clause prohibits the Government from taking private property for public use without 'just compensation,'" Breyer noted. "But the employers do not seek compensation."
Witt sees the bias in the way Chief Justice Roberts framed the high court ruling. "What about [farmworkers'] property rights?" the reverend said. "If they're living on the farm, don't their property rights count?
'No Trespassing'
Rural and Migrant Ministries is a non-profit interfaith organization advocating for the working poor and disenfranchised in New York State since the 1970s.
As soon as the court issued its ruling, Witt says, his ministry encountered newly posted "No Trespassing" signs on farms across New York State.
"Employers can control who can come and see" farmworkers, he said. "Are we going back to an era where only those who own land get to have their voices heard?"
Even at its most militant and anti-capitalist, the American Labor Movement has never been able to secure the same hard-fought rights and protections for farmworkers that other workers won through decades of struggle.
In 1935, persistent collective action from below forced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to get behind the National Labor Relations Act, which granted collective bargaining rights for workers.
But the bosses, albeit a little bruised, held onto enough sway to exclude farmworkers from that law. The exclusion is a solid example of structural racism since many, if not most, field hands are Black and Brown people.
The exclusions — fueled by Jim Crow racism and the desire of many business owners to ensure a permanent underclass of cheap labor — continue to this day in federal law. The result of this is virtually universal abuse of farmworkers, including violent attacks, sexual assault and an entrenched sub-minimum wage.
Farmworkers Excluded from Labor Law
These awful conditions amount to an economic extension of slaveholder rights, just without the legal right to sell off farmhands. The result of this has been shortened lives and needless misery.
According to labor activists in New York, Covid has infected more than 13,000 farmworkers nationwide. The death toll? Unknown because our governments pay so little attention to the essential workers who harvest the food we eat.
The pandemic had the unexpected effect of bringing the plight of farmworkers to public attention and brought widespread acclaim for their labor during the shutdowns.
But little has been done to remedy this enduring American evil of exploiting farmworkers. Now our Supreme Court has struck a blow against decency and fairness.
Farmworkers were among the majority of American workers left out of enforceable Covid safety measures that the Biden administration announced in June.
The 1975 California law that the high court struck down grew from 40 years of work on behalf of California farmworkers by the determined labor activist Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers Union he founded. The collective bargaining rights the UFW won applied only in the Golden State.
Owners Happy
The high court ruling thrilled the American Farm Bureau.
Zippy Duvall, president of the Farm Bureau, said the organization "appreciates the U.S. Supreme Court for reaffirming private property rights, which are foundational to our nation and critical to ensuring secure and well-managed farms. We hope this decision sends a message to state regulators that it's simply wrong to give outsiders access to farms, where families live and work hard to safeguard their animals and harvests."
Advocates for farmworkers see it very differently.
Edgar Franks, political director of Familias Unidas for la Justicia, an independent farmworker union representing workers from indigenous families across Washington State, was appalled by the court decision.
"We definitely think this is an anti-worker ruling," Franks recently said. "But it also goes beyond that. Chief Justice [John] Roberts redefined the 5th Amendment 'taking clause.' What if there were a health and safety violation?
Would that mean they would be denied entrance to check on worker safety? This makes life harder for many workers."
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka also took issue with the view that farmworkers' fundamental right to organize at the location where they work constitutes an unconstitutional "taking of their employers' property.
"As the state of California recognized more than 45 years ago, meeting with the union during off-hours at their workplace is the only practical way for workers to organize when they must regularly move from farm to farm throughout the growing season," Trumka said.
More to Come?Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy organization for farmworkers based in Washington, D.C., believes Roberts wrote so broadly that the ruling invites employers to test its limits.
"The court says it's not much of an issue — but given the breadth of their opinion, it's difficult to understand what the limits are on the power of the employer to limit anyone coming onto their property," he says.
That is what Witt worries about because the high court ruling seems to have First Amendment implications in the free exercise of religion.
Suzanne Adely, co-director of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, thinks farm owners and other property owners will take an extreme view of how much the ruling limits access to workers. The alliance is a coalition of 31 worker-based organizations advocating for more than 3750,000 food workers in the United States and Canada. Adely fears that the ruling set a corrosive precedent.
"Employers say they are not going to that extent — but that won't matter much if conservatives in the future try to utilize this ruling for their case. It's utterly anti-union and anti-democratic. Globally speaking, a lot of countries around the world would consider this to be shocking."
SLAVERY ENDED, RIGHT????
CEOs made 299 times the salary of what the median employee received: analysis
Caroline Vakil - THE HILL
7/14/2021
The difference in compensation between CEOs and the average workers trended upward in 2020, according to a new report by a labor union released on Wednesday.
According to the AFL-CIO's Executive Paywatch report, the average S&P 500 CEO made $15.5 million in 2020, and chief executives made 299 times more than the average employee's salary.
According to the labor union, in 2019, the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio of S&P 500 companies was 264-1. Total compensation of chief executives rose by more than $700,000 on average in 2020 compared to 2019.
The communication services industry was the industry that had the highest average CEO pay at $28,283,727 in 2020. However, the industry with the highest average pay ratio was "consumer discretionary."
Though some chief executives - including those at Disney and Texas Roadhouse Inc. - had announced during the pandemic that they would be cutting their salaries or forgoing them completely, the labor union noted that chief executives still saw notable gains in pay.
Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler noted during a press call Wednesday regarding the report that while CEO base salaries were slightly lower "the average S&P 500 company CEO's stock-based pay increased by over $1 million. And that doesn't even factor in the dramatic rise in the stock market we saw in the second half of the year."
Additionally, she noted that chief executives saw their pay increase at a slightly higher rate over the past year than that of their average employee.
"On average, in 2020 at S&P 500 companies, CEO pay increased by 5 percent while the disclosed median employee's pay at those same companies only increased by 1 percent," she said.
According to the AFL-CIO's Executive Paywatch report, the average S&P 500 CEO made $15.5 million in 2020, and chief executives made 299 times more than the average employee's salary.
According to the labor union, in 2019, the average CEO-to-worker pay ratio of S&P 500 companies was 264-1. Total compensation of chief executives rose by more than $700,000 on average in 2020 compared to 2019.
The communication services industry was the industry that had the highest average CEO pay at $28,283,727 in 2020. However, the industry with the highest average pay ratio was "consumer discretionary."
Though some chief executives - including those at Disney and Texas Roadhouse Inc. - had announced during the pandemic that they would be cutting their salaries or forgoing them completely, the labor union noted that chief executives still saw notable gains in pay.
Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler noted during a press call Wednesday regarding the report that while CEO base salaries were slightly lower "the average S&P 500 company CEO's stock-based pay increased by over $1 million. And that doesn't even factor in the dramatic rise in the stock market we saw in the second half of the year."
Additionally, she noted that chief executives saw their pay increase at a slightly higher rate over the past year than that of their average employee.
"On average, in 2020 at S&P 500 companies, CEO pay increased by 5 percent while the disclosed median employee's pay at those same companies only increased by 1 percent," she said.
New York's 'essential' food delivery workers demand rights
Agence France-Presse
July 07, 2021
New York's legions of food delivery men and women -- who were declared essential workers during the pandemic but have no on the job access to bathrooms, health insurance or a minimum wage-- are mobilizing for the first time to demand better working conditions.
The 80,000 "deliveristas," overwhelmingly Hispanic immigrants who zip around the Big Apple on electric or other bikes come rain, snow or shine, are following the example of other "gig economy" workers such as Uber drivers in Britain who won the right to unionize in May after being recognized as "salaried workers," in a world first.
In just a few months, "Los Deliveristas Unidos," the first movement of independent riders for food delivery apps, has gained more than 1,000 members and over 13,000 Facebook followers and set up numerous WhatsApp chats across New York City.
The group has held large protests outside city hall and, with the help of the Worker's Justice Project and several councilors, managed to get the municipal legislature to debate six bills that would improve their conditions.
"We demand improvements. Life on the street is hard. One is exposed to insecurity, accidents, robberies, injustices, discrimination," said 38-year-old Guatemalan deliveryman and group co-founder Gustavo Ajche at a recent demonstration.
Another Los Deliveristas Unidos leader, Jonan Mancilla, said the delivery workers wanted to earn the state minimum wage of $15 an hour.
"We want to be respected," said the 33-year-old from Mexico.
Several riders told AFP that most of the applications they work for -- including Grubhub, Doordash, Seamless, Uber Eats, Instacart, PostMates, and Caviar -- do not pay them by the hour, but by delivery.
They get between one and four dollars for each delivery plus tip. Only Relay pays $10 an hour.
The delivery workers say that sometimes apps or restaurants keep part of the tips and that they have to travel long distances for just a couple of dollars.
They also complain that companies do not help them if they get injured and that they don't cover expenses for their bike or the insulated bag they use to transport food.
"Sometimes restaurants don't let us in the bathroom and we have to start looking for somewhere. That makes us lose a lot of time and deliveries," said 27-year-old Orquidea Paz, a rare female delivery worker and mother-of-four from Mexico.
Her husband, also a "deliverista," says he works 15 hours a day, seven days a week.
"I don't rest because I have a family to feed," Aristeo Policao, 32, told AFP.
The workers also say their bikes sometimes get stolen. Recently, 200 of them registered their bicycles with police, while the Worker's Justice Project provided many of them with GPS devices that help locate the vehicles.
The riders want the city to do more to combat the theft of electric bikes, which cost around $1,850 -- a fortune for these immigrants who typically don't have papers or speak English.
"These workers face extreme abuse," says Ligia Guallpa, executive director at the Worker's Justice Project.
"Food delivery was one of the most essential jobs in the pandemic, but it is also the one with the fewest protections.
"Even working 12 hours a day, seven days a week it is impossible to cover daily expenses to survive," and "applications do not want to be held responsible," he added.
The bills currently being considered would grant the riders access to restrooms at restaurants, set minimum travel payments and force apps to reveal the breakdown of tips.
It would also establish a weekly wage, cover the cost of the purchase of their insulated bags and allow workers to set a maximum delivery distance without being blocked by apps.
A spokesperson for Grubhub says it doesn't take a cut of tips but was unable to confirm how many riders it employs and their average salary.
"The health, safety and success of delivery workers across NYC is our top priority and critical to our business. We are overall supportive of the Los Deliveristas Unidos proposals, or already do what is proposed," the spokesperson said.
Doordash also said through a spokesperson that it pays delivery workers 100 percent of their tips, that it has met riders several times to hear their complaints and that it is working "to improve working conditions."
Other apps, including Seamless and Uber Eats did not respond to AFP's requests for comment on the claims of the "deliveristas."
The 80,000 "deliveristas," overwhelmingly Hispanic immigrants who zip around the Big Apple on electric or other bikes come rain, snow or shine, are following the example of other "gig economy" workers such as Uber drivers in Britain who won the right to unionize in May after being recognized as "salaried workers," in a world first.
In just a few months, "Los Deliveristas Unidos," the first movement of independent riders for food delivery apps, has gained more than 1,000 members and over 13,000 Facebook followers and set up numerous WhatsApp chats across New York City.
The group has held large protests outside city hall and, with the help of the Worker's Justice Project and several councilors, managed to get the municipal legislature to debate six bills that would improve their conditions.
"We demand improvements. Life on the street is hard. One is exposed to insecurity, accidents, robberies, injustices, discrimination," said 38-year-old Guatemalan deliveryman and group co-founder Gustavo Ajche at a recent demonstration.
Another Los Deliveristas Unidos leader, Jonan Mancilla, said the delivery workers wanted to earn the state minimum wage of $15 an hour.
"We want to be respected," said the 33-year-old from Mexico.
Several riders told AFP that most of the applications they work for -- including Grubhub, Doordash, Seamless, Uber Eats, Instacart, PostMates, and Caviar -- do not pay them by the hour, but by delivery.
They get between one and four dollars for each delivery plus tip. Only Relay pays $10 an hour.
The delivery workers say that sometimes apps or restaurants keep part of the tips and that they have to travel long distances for just a couple of dollars.
They also complain that companies do not help them if they get injured and that they don't cover expenses for their bike or the insulated bag they use to transport food.
"Sometimes restaurants don't let us in the bathroom and we have to start looking for somewhere. That makes us lose a lot of time and deliveries," said 27-year-old Orquidea Paz, a rare female delivery worker and mother-of-four from Mexico.
Her husband, also a "deliverista," says he works 15 hours a day, seven days a week.
"I don't rest because I have a family to feed," Aristeo Policao, 32, told AFP.
The workers also say their bikes sometimes get stolen. Recently, 200 of them registered their bicycles with police, while the Worker's Justice Project provided many of them with GPS devices that help locate the vehicles.
The riders want the city to do more to combat the theft of electric bikes, which cost around $1,850 -- a fortune for these immigrants who typically don't have papers or speak English.
"These workers face extreme abuse," says Ligia Guallpa, executive director at the Worker's Justice Project.
"Food delivery was one of the most essential jobs in the pandemic, but it is also the one with the fewest protections.
"Even working 12 hours a day, seven days a week it is impossible to cover daily expenses to survive," and "applications do not want to be held responsible," he added.
The bills currently being considered would grant the riders access to restrooms at restaurants, set minimum travel payments and force apps to reveal the breakdown of tips.
It would also establish a weekly wage, cover the cost of the purchase of their insulated bags and allow workers to set a maximum delivery distance without being blocked by apps.
A spokesperson for Grubhub says it doesn't take a cut of tips but was unable to confirm how many riders it employs and their average salary.
"The health, safety and success of delivery workers across NYC is our top priority and critical to our business. We are overall supportive of the Los Deliveristas Unidos proposals, or already do what is proposed," the spokesperson said.
Doordash also said through a spokesperson that it pays delivery workers 100 percent of their tips, that it has met riders several times to hear their complaints and that it is working "to improve working conditions."
Other apps, including Seamless and Uber Eats did not respond to AFP's requests for comment on the claims of the "deliveristas."
Overworked, underpaid: workers rail against hotel chains’ cost-cutting
Housekeepers say plans to cut daily cleaning and save money means they’ll have longer hours and more dangerous work
Michael Sainato - THE GUARDIAN
Mon 5 Jul 2021 05.00 EDT
The hotel industry is rebounding from the pandemic, but workers now fear planned labor cuts could cost tens of thousands of jobs and increased workloads for those who remain.
Several of the largest US hotel chains have outlined different ways of working, which labor groups say amount to a slide in standards that could have a profound impact on workers’ lives.
Nuris Veras Merlos, a housekeeper at a Hilton in downtown Seattle, was recently recalled to her job, but is only scheduled one or two days a week because her hotel eliminated daily room cleaning. She is concerned her job may disappear.
“Before the pandemic it was relatively simple touch-up cleaning. All of the surfaces, tiles, mirrors, glass, bathroom – it wasn’t such a big deal to clean them. Now when we work, the guests build up towels, wet floors, dirty linens, and it’s very difficult to scrub the tiles and all the surfaces. Sometimes they’re so dirty they’re black. And we have to use stronger chemicals to get them clean again and scrub with much more intensity,” said Veras Merlos.
It takes Veras Merlos and her co-workers nearly twice as long now to clean rooms after long stays, with much of the time spent picking up days’ worth of garbage and hauling a lot of dirty linens, trash, and cleaning equipment. She has to take ibuprofen to get through the more intense physical exertion.
“It feels like I’ve been run over by a train,” said Veras Merlos. “Hotels aren’t talking about the sacrifice and quantity of demanding work the housekeepers who worked during the pandemic have gone through. It’s scary seeing older, more senior workers getting injured. I have a co-worker whose shoulder is failing her and has been out of work for months. It makes me worry about my future.”
Several of the largest hotel corporations in the US have proposed to permanently cut housekeeping and staffing throughout their portfolios as part of hotel industry recovery.
In a November quarterly earnings call, Host Hotels and Resorts chief executive Jim Rosoleo noted hotels will transition to make daily housekeeping services an opt-in amenity for guests.
Park Hotels and Resorts presented a plan to investors in November to reduce full-time staffing with a projected $70m annual savings in cuts, including cuts to housekeeping services.
Pebblebrook chief Jon Bortz explained plans to continuously cut labor as part of the hotel industry recovery, and Marriott boss Leeny Oberg told investors the corporation plans to solidify savings on labor costs from Covid restrictions in areas such as housekeeping.
The Hilton chief executive also affirmed to investors cost-cutting reductions to housekeeping would be made permanent, even as his compensation increased by 161% from 2019 to over $55m in 2020, while median pay for Hilton employees declined by 34% from 2019 to 2020.
A recent report from Unite Here, a labor union representing hotel workers, found plans to end daily housekeeping would eliminate over 180,000 positions around the US – 39% of all hotel housekeeping jobs.
The cuts would result in $4.8bn in lost wages for workers in an industry who are predominantly women of color. According to Unite Here, about 65% of their 300,000 union members in the US and Canada remain unemployed.
Julie Gabot has worked as a housekeeper at the Marriott-operated Sheraton Waikiki for over 30 years. She was recalled to work in November, but said many of her co-workers have yet to be recalled even as the hotel occupancy rates have recovered, and she’s been faced with higher workloads.
She explained the higher workloads have caused her constant shoulder and back pain, and she’s banged her fingers and arms on cleaning equipment and furniture while trying to rush to complete rooms. Workers often skip lunch breaks to complete workloads, she said.
“Once you finish working, you can really feel the pain in your body,” Gabot said.
Gabot and her co-workers, who are organized with Unite Here, have been handing out leaflets to hotel guests encouraging them to request daily room services from housekeepers to restore previous working conditions and so housekeepers who are still furloughed will be recalled.
Marriott did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Andee Huang, a housekeeper at Westin Seaport in Boston for 13 years, returned to work in September while many of her coworkers were still waiting to be recalled.
“When I came home, I couldn’t cook or take care of my kids, and needed to take pills to be able to sleep due to the pain,” said Huang. “We were running around all day, and while rushing, you knock into tables and corners of furniture, so it’s dangerous. And it wasn’t fair for our co-workers who are stuck at home without work.”
Several of the largest US hotel chains have outlined different ways of working, which labor groups say amount to a slide in standards that could have a profound impact on workers’ lives.
Nuris Veras Merlos, a housekeeper at a Hilton in downtown Seattle, was recently recalled to her job, but is only scheduled one or two days a week because her hotel eliminated daily room cleaning. She is concerned her job may disappear.
“Before the pandemic it was relatively simple touch-up cleaning. All of the surfaces, tiles, mirrors, glass, bathroom – it wasn’t such a big deal to clean them. Now when we work, the guests build up towels, wet floors, dirty linens, and it’s very difficult to scrub the tiles and all the surfaces. Sometimes they’re so dirty they’re black. And we have to use stronger chemicals to get them clean again and scrub with much more intensity,” said Veras Merlos.
It takes Veras Merlos and her co-workers nearly twice as long now to clean rooms after long stays, with much of the time spent picking up days’ worth of garbage and hauling a lot of dirty linens, trash, and cleaning equipment. She has to take ibuprofen to get through the more intense physical exertion.
“It feels like I’ve been run over by a train,” said Veras Merlos. “Hotels aren’t talking about the sacrifice and quantity of demanding work the housekeepers who worked during the pandemic have gone through. It’s scary seeing older, more senior workers getting injured. I have a co-worker whose shoulder is failing her and has been out of work for months. It makes me worry about my future.”
Several of the largest hotel corporations in the US have proposed to permanently cut housekeeping and staffing throughout their portfolios as part of hotel industry recovery.
In a November quarterly earnings call, Host Hotels and Resorts chief executive Jim Rosoleo noted hotels will transition to make daily housekeeping services an opt-in amenity for guests.
Park Hotels and Resorts presented a plan to investors in November to reduce full-time staffing with a projected $70m annual savings in cuts, including cuts to housekeeping services.
Pebblebrook chief Jon Bortz explained plans to continuously cut labor as part of the hotel industry recovery, and Marriott boss Leeny Oberg told investors the corporation plans to solidify savings on labor costs from Covid restrictions in areas such as housekeeping.
The Hilton chief executive also affirmed to investors cost-cutting reductions to housekeeping would be made permanent, even as his compensation increased by 161% from 2019 to over $55m in 2020, while median pay for Hilton employees declined by 34% from 2019 to 2020.
A recent report from Unite Here, a labor union representing hotel workers, found plans to end daily housekeeping would eliminate over 180,000 positions around the US – 39% of all hotel housekeeping jobs.
The cuts would result in $4.8bn in lost wages for workers in an industry who are predominantly women of color. According to Unite Here, about 65% of their 300,000 union members in the US and Canada remain unemployed.
Julie Gabot has worked as a housekeeper at the Marriott-operated Sheraton Waikiki for over 30 years. She was recalled to work in November, but said many of her co-workers have yet to be recalled even as the hotel occupancy rates have recovered, and she’s been faced with higher workloads.
She explained the higher workloads have caused her constant shoulder and back pain, and she’s banged her fingers and arms on cleaning equipment and furniture while trying to rush to complete rooms. Workers often skip lunch breaks to complete workloads, she said.
“Once you finish working, you can really feel the pain in your body,” Gabot said.
Gabot and her co-workers, who are organized with Unite Here, have been handing out leaflets to hotel guests encouraging them to request daily room services from housekeepers to restore previous working conditions and so housekeepers who are still furloughed will be recalled.
Marriott did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Andee Huang, a housekeeper at Westin Seaport in Boston for 13 years, returned to work in September while many of her coworkers were still waiting to be recalled.
“When I came home, I couldn’t cook or take care of my kids, and needed to take pills to be able to sleep due to the pain,” said Huang. “We were running around all day, and while rushing, you knock into tables and corners of furniture, so it’s dangerous. And it wasn’t fair for our co-workers who are stuck at home without work.”
Robert Reich: Blame Chipotle, Not Workers, for the Price of Your Burrito
Republicans claim stimulus payments have forced employers to overcompensate for a labor shortage. But the only shortage is of jobs that pay a living wage.
ROBERT REICH - in these times
JUNE 21, 2021
House Republicans are blaming Democrats for the rise in Chipotle burrito prices.
You heard me right. The National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement last week claiming that Chipotle’s recent decision to raise prices on their burritos and other menu products by about 4 percent was caused by Democrats.
“Democrats’ socialist stimulus bill caused a labor shortage and now burrito lovers everywhere are footing the bill,” according to NRCC spokesperson Mike Berg.
Republicans have finally found an issue to run on in the 2022 midterm elections. Apparently, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head weren’t getting enough traction.
The Republican’s tortured logic is that the unemployment benefits in the American Survival Act have caused workers to stay home rather than seek employment, resulting in labor shortages that have forced employers like Chipotle to increase wages, which has required them to raise their prices.
Hence, Chipotle’s more expensive burrito.
This isn’t just loony economics. It’s dangerously loony economics because it might be believed, leading to all sorts to stupid public policies.
Start with the notion that $300 per week in federal unemployment benefits is keeping Americans from working.
Since fewer than 30 percent of jobless workers qualify for state unemployment benefits, the claim is that legions of workers have chosen to become couch potatoes and collect $15,000 a year rather than get a job.
I challenge one Republican lawmaker to live on $15,000 a year.
In fact, evidence suggests that workers are holding back from reentering the job market because they don’t have childcare or are still concerned about their health during the pandemic.
Besides, if employers want additional workers, they can do what they necessarily do for anything they want more of but can’t obtain at its current price – pay more.
It’s called capitalism. Republicans should bone up on it.
When Chipotle wanted to attract more workers, it raised its average wage to $15 an hour. That comes to around $30,000 a year per worker – still too little to live on but double the federal unemployment benefit.
Oh, and there’s no reason to suppose this wage hike forced Chipotle to raise the prices of its burritos. The company had other options.
Chipotle’s executives are among the best paid in America. Its CEO, Brian Niccol, raked in $38 million last year– which happens to be 2,898 times more than the typical Chipotle employee earned. All of Chipotle’s top executives got whopping pay increases.
So it would have been possible for Chipotle to avoid raising its burrito prices by – dare I say? – paying its executives less. But Chipotle decided otherwise.
By the way, I keep hearing Republican lawmakers say the GOP is the “party of the working class.” If that’s so, the Republican Party ought to celebrate when hourly workers get a raise instead of howling about it.
Everyone ought to celebrate when those at the bottom get higher wages.
The typical American worker hasn’t had a real raise in four decades. Income inequality is out of control. Wealth inequality is into the stratosphere (where Jeff Bezos is heading, apparently).
If wages at the bottom rise because employers need to pay more to get the workers they need, that’s not a problem. It’s a victory.
Instead of complaining about a so-called “labor shortage,” Republicans ought to be complaining about the shortage of jobs paying a living wage.
But don’t hold your breath, or your guacamole.
You heard me right. The National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement last week claiming that Chipotle’s recent decision to raise prices on their burritos and other menu products by about 4 percent was caused by Democrats.
“Democrats’ socialist stimulus bill caused a labor shortage and now burrito lovers everywhere are footing the bill,” according to NRCC spokesperson Mike Berg.
Republicans have finally found an issue to run on in the 2022 midterm elections. Apparently, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head weren’t getting enough traction.
The Republican’s tortured logic is that the unemployment benefits in the American Survival Act have caused workers to stay home rather than seek employment, resulting in labor shortages that have forced employers like Chipotle to increase wages, which has required them to raise their prices.
Hence, Chipotle’s more expensive burrito.
This isn’t just loony economics. It’s dangerously loony economics because it might be believed, leading to all sorts to stupid public policies.
Start with the notion that $300 per week in federal unemployment benefits is keeping Americans from working.
Since fewer than 30 percent of jobless workers qualify for state unemployment benefits, the claim is that legions of workers have chosen to become couch potatoes and collect $15,000 a year rather than get a job.
I challenge one Republican lawmaker to live on $15,000 a year.
In fact, evidence suggests that workers are holding back from reentering the job market because they don’t have childcare or are still concerned about their health during the pandemic.
Besides, if employers want additional workers, they can do what they necessarily do for anything they want more of but can’t obtain at its current price – pay more.
It’s called capitalism. Republicans should bone up on it.
When Chipotle wanted to attract more workers, it raised its average wage to $15 an hour. That comes to around $30,000 a year per worker – still too little to live on but double the federal unemployment benefit.
Oh, and there’s no reason to suppose this wage hike forced Chipotle to raise the prices of its burritos. The company had other options.
Chipotle’s executives are among the best paid in America. Its CEO, Brian Niccol, raked in $38 million last year– which happens to be 2,898 times more than the typical Chipotle employee earned. All of Chipotle’s top executives got whopping pay increases.
So it would have been possible for Chipotle to avoid raising its burrito prices by – dare I say? – paying its executives less. But Chipotle decided otherwise.
By the way, I keep hearing Republican lawmakers say the GOP is the “party of the working class.” If that’s so, the Republican Party ought to celebrate when hourly workers get a raise instead of howling about it.
Everyone ought to celebrate when those at the bottom get higher wages.
The typical American worker hasn’t had a real raise in four decades. Income inequality is out of control. Wealth inequality is into the stratosphere (where Jeff Bezos is heading, apparently).
If wages at the bottom rise because employers need to pay more to get the workers they need, that’s not a problem. It’s a victory.
Instead of complaining about a so-called “labor shortage,” Republicans ought to be complaining about the shortage of jobs paying a living wage.
But don’t hold your breath, or your guacamole.
Only 3 Percent of Jobs on Tennessee Government Website Pay Over $20,000
BY Sharon Zhang, Truthout
PUBLISHED June 14, 2021
Earlier this month, Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee announced that he, like many other Republican governors across the country, would be ending extra unemployment benefits for workers as provided by the federal government. The spurious justification given by Lee and other GOP governors was that people were making too much money off unemployment to want to return to work.
But new findings from Tennessee Senate Democrats shows that the real reason for people not being able to or wanting to return to work may be because the available jobs pay far too little.
Lee, the Democrats point out, often points to the 250,000 jobs that are listed on Tennessee’s job portal as reasoning for ending the extra unemployment benefits. “When we have 250,000 job openings in the state and we are paying people to stay home, that needs to change,” he said earlier in June.
Of those jobs, however, only about 8,500 list paying a salary of over $20,000 — which amounts to only about 3 percent of the available jobs that Lee so likes to tout.
It’s possible that many of these job listings simply don’t publicize the salary in the post. However, the Democrats also point out that a majority of the jobs are older than a month, meaning some of them may no longer be available. Meanwhile, the number of new job postings are far less than the number of people unemployed.
Meanwhile, as the Tennessee Democrats and many Democrats and progressives across the country have pointed out, ending unemployment benefits does more to hurt workers than it does to help the economy. The U.S. Congressional Joint Economic Committee found early in June that Republican governors ending extra unemployment benefits could cause their states to lose out on $12 billion in revenue.
Workers are not only hurt in the short term by this decision, but potentially also the long term. “Cutting benefits early in order to push people into jobs that don’t work for them (e.g. pay too little, endanger their health, are not geographically proximate, etc.) risks reducing demand in local economies, foregoing [sic] the potential for future better earnings, and ultimately constricting the economic recovery from the coronavirus recession,” the report found.
Indeed, as employers complain about a supposed worker shortage, reports and some businesses have found that the real issue is the unreasonable wages being offered by employers. A May report on the food industry found that the most common reason for restaurant employees to quit or leave the industry altogether is low wages.
Some business owners have even found that when they offer starting wages of $15 an hour or higher, they have more applicants than they can hire.
Still, Republicans have stuck with the now disproven talking point that unemployment benefits stop people from seeking work, much to the detriment of workers across the country.
Nationwide, food banks are reportedly bracing for a surge in demand as the GOP governors end extra unemployment benefits, the Guardian reports. The Census Bureau reported in May that 19.3 million Americans haven’t felt they’ve had enough to eat at some point in the past week, which is about 2.5 times the number of Americans who felt the same in 2019.
That number could increase when nearly 4 million people lose their unemployment benefits as states with Republican governors follow through on their threat to end the benefits early.
“We are still distributing about a million to a million and a half more meals each month than we did pre Covid,” Teresa Schryver, advocacy manager for a St. Louis food bank, told the Guardian. “We might see a spike again in July and August as we’re losing the unemployment benefits here in Missouri, so we might be doing 2m meals again for a couple of months.” Schryver added that it took food insecurity rates 10 years to bounce back from the 2008 recession and that the fallout from the pandemic will likely follow the same path.
But new findings from Tennessee Senate Democrats shows that the real reason for people not being able to or wanting to return to work may be because the available jobs pay far too little.
Lee, the Democrats point out, often points to the 250,000 jobs that are listed on Tennessee’s job portal as reasoning for ending the extra unemployment benefits. “When we have 250,000 job openings in the state and we are paying people to stay home, that needs to change,” he said earlier in June.
Of those jobs, however, only about 8,500 list paying a salary of over $20,000 — which amounts to only about 3 percent of the available jobs that Lee so likes to tout.
It’s possible that many of these job listings simply don’t publicize the salary in the post. However, the Democrats also point out that a majority of the jobs are older than a month, meaning some of them may no longer be available. Meanwhile, the number of new job postings are far less than the number of people unemployed.
Meanwhile, as the Tennessee Democrats and many Democrats and progressives across the country have pointed out, ending unemployment benefits does more to hurt workers than it does to help the economy. The U.S. Congressional Joint Economic Committee found early in June that Republican governors ending extra unemployment benefits could cause their states to lose out on $12 billion in revenue.
Workers are not only hurt in the short term by this decision, but potentially also the long term. “Cutting benefits early in order to push people into jobs that don’t work for them (e.g. pay too little, endanger their health, are not geographically proximate, etc.) risks reducing demand in local economies, foregoing [sic] the potential for future better earnings, and ultimately constricting the economic recovery from the coronavirus recession,” the report found.
Indeed, as employers complain about a supposed worker shortage, reports and some businesses have found that the real issue is the unreasonable wages being offered by employers. A May report on the food industry found that the most common reason for restaurant employees to quit or leave the industry altogether is low wages.
Some business owners have even found that when they offer starting wages of $15 an hour or higher, they have more applicants than they can hire.
Still, Republicans have stuck with the now disproven talking point that unemployment benefits stop people from seeking work, much to the detriment of workers across the country.
Nationwide, food banks are reportedly bracing for a surge in demand as the GOP governors end extra unemployment benefits, the Guardian reports. The Census Bureau reported in May that 19.3 million Americans haven’t felt they’ve had enough to eat at some point in the past week, which is about 2.5 times the number of Americans who felt the same in 2019.
That number could increase when nearly 4 million people lose their unemployment benefits as states with Republican governors follow through on their threat to end the benefits early.
“We are still distributing about a million to a million and a half more meals each month than we did pre Covid,” Teresa Schryver, advocacy manager for a St. Louis food bank, told the Guardian. “We might see a spike again in July and August as we’re losing the unemployment benefits here in Missouri, so we might be doing 2m meals again for a couple of months.” Schryver added that it took food insecurity rates 10 years to bounce back from the 2008 recession and that the fallout from the pandemic will likely follow the same path.
excerpt: The U.S. is complicit in the global war on workers
Chris Hedges Scheer Post - alternet
6/1/2021
As long as China can pay slave wages it will be impossible to raise wages anywhere else. Any trade agreement has to include the right of workers to organize, otherwise all the promises by Joe Biden to rebuild the American middle class is a lie. Between 2001-2011, 2.7 million jobs were lost to China with 2.1 million in manufacturing. None are coming back if workers in China and other countries that allow corporations to exploit labor and skirt basic environmental and labor regulations are locked in corporate servitude. And while we can chastise China for its labor policies, the United States has crushed its own union movement, allowed its corporations to move manufacturing overseas to profit from the Chinese manufacturing models, suppressed wages, passed anti-labor right-to-work laws, and demolished regulations that once protected workers. The war on workers is not a Chinese phenomenon. It is a global one. And U.S. corporations are complicit. Apple has 46 percent of its suppliers in China. Walmart has 80 percent of its suppliers in China. Amazon has 63 percent of its suppliers in China.
The largest U.S. corporations are full partners in the exploitation of Chinese labor, and the abandonment and impoverishment of the American working class. U.S. corporations and Chinese manufacturers kept millions of Chinese workers crammed into factories at the height of a global pandemic. Their health was of no concern. Apple's profits more than doubled to $23.6 billion in the most recent quarter. Its revenues rose by 54 percent to $89.6 billion, which meant Apple sold more than $1 billion on average each day. Until these corporations are held accountable, which the Biden administration will not do, nothing will change for workers here or in China. Economic justice is global or it does not exist.
Workers in Chinese industrial centers—self-contained company cities with up to a half million people—drive the huge profits of two of the world's most powerful companies, Foxconn, the world's largest provider of electronics manufacturing services, and Apple, with $ 2 trillion dollars in market value. Foxconn's largest customer is Apple, but it also produces products for Alphabet (formerly Google), Amazon, which owns more than 400 private-label brands, BlackBerry, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, GE, HP, IBM, Intel, LG, Microsoft, Nintendo, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba, as well as leading Chinese firms including Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, and Xiaomi. Foxconn assembles iPhones, iPads, iPods, Macs, TVs, Xboxes, PlayStations, Wii U's, Kindles, printers, as well as numerous digital devices.
---
Workers, who earn about $2 an hour and an average of $390 a month, are paid in wage debit cards, an updated version of company scrip. The bank card allows a worker to deposit, withdraw, and transfer money from 24-hour ATM machines that are accessible at Foxconn facilities.
Managers, foremen, and line leaders prohibit conversation on the assembly floor that operates on a 24-hour cycle of 10- or 12-hour shifts. Workers are reprimanded if they work "too slowly" on the line. They are punished for turning out defective products. Workers are often forced to remain behind after a shift if a worker committed an infraction. The worker who violated the rules is required to stand before his or her co-workers and read a statement of self-criticism. Any worker issued a "D" grade in their review for "unsatisfactory performance" is fired. The workers receive one day off every second week, or two rest days a month. They can be summarily shifted between the night and day shifts.[...] Complete article click above.
The largest U.S. corporations are full partners in the exploitation of Chinese labor, and the abandonment and impoverishment of the American working class. U.S. corporations and Chinese manufacturers kept millions of Chinese workers crammed into factories at the height of a global pandemic. Their health was of no concern. Apple's profits more than doubled to $23.6 billion in the most recent quarter. Its revenues rose by 54 percent to $89.6 billion, which meant Apple sold more than $1 billion on average each day. Until these corporations are held accountable, which the Biden administration will not do, nothing will change for workers here or in China. Economic justice is global or it does not exist.
Workers in Chinese industrial centers—self-contained company cities with up to a half million people—drive the huge profits of two of the world's most powerful companies, Foxconn, the world's largest provider of electronics manufacturing services, and Apple, with $ 2 trillion dollars in market value. Foxconn's largest customer is Apple, but it also produces products for Alphabet (formerly Google), Amazon, which owns more than 400 private-label brands, BlackBerry, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, GE, HP, IBM, Intel, LG, Microsoft, Nintendo, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba, as well as leading Chinese firms including Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, and Xiaomi. Foxconn assembles iPhones, iPads, iPods, Macs, TVs, Xboxes, PlayStations, Wii U's, Kindles, printers, as well as numerous digital devices.
---
Workers, who earn about $2 an hour and an average of $390 a month, are paid in wage debit cards, an updated version of company scrip. The bank card allows a worker to deposit, withdraw, and transfer money from 24-hour ATM machines that are accessible at Foxconn facilities.
Managers, foremen, and line leaders prohibit conversation on the assembly floor that operates on a 24-hour cycle of 10- or 12-hour shifts. Workers are reprimanded if they work "too slowly" on the line. They are punished for turning out defective products. Workers are often forced to remain behind after a shift if a worker committed an infraction. The worker who violated the rules is required to stand before his or her co-workers and read a statement of self-criticism. Any worker issued a "D" grade in their review for "unsatisfactory performance" is fired. The workers receive one day off every second week, or two rest days a month. They can be summarily shifted between the night and day shifts.[...] Complete article click above.
US unions
Striking coalminers in Alabama energize support across the south
United Mine Workers of America members are fighting for better wages and benefits and have filed unfair labor practice charges against Warrior Met Coal
Michael Sainato - the guardian
Tue 1 Jun 2021 03.00 EDT
About 1,100 coalminers represented by the United Mine Workers of America in Brookwood, Alabama, have been on strike since the start of April against Warrior Met Coal amid new union contract negotiations.
As the strike heads into its third month, workers are fighting for improvements to wages and benefits after they say several concessions were made by workers under the previous contract in 2016 when Warrior Met Coal took control of the mines in the wake of a bankruptcy filing by Walter Energy.
The strike has energized support across the state and other parts of the south, in an area that has traditionally been hostile to labor disputes.
Last month supporters held a concert to raise money for striking miners that included Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers and comedian Drew Morgan. Labor leaders from around the US, including the AFA-CWA president, Sara Nelson, and the AFL-CIO secretary treasurer, Liz Shuler, have visited the striking miners to lend their support.
“Warrior Met still refuses to engage in meaningful negotiations with the UMWA at the bargaining table,” the UMWA international president, Cecil E Roberts, said in a recent press release. “But they are clearly on the wrong side of history. Community support for the strikers is growing, and now their struggle is gaining nationwide attention.”
Strikers say they are suffering the impacts from the lost income, which makes it difficult to make ends meet and afford basic necessities like food and rent or home payments. They have also carried out acts of civil disobedience outside the company’s main offices.
James Traweek has worked at Warrior Met Coal for four years at the No 7 mine in Brookwood. He explained miners accepted a $6-an-hour pay cut and reduction in health insurance and retirement benefits during the bankruptcy process five years ago, while adhering to a strict attendance policy.
“We were required to work six, sometimes seven days a week, for 12 hours a day. We worked on a four-strike system, which meant missing four days in a year resulted in termination,” said Traweek. “The only thing that was accepted as an excuse was a death in the immediate family. We had to work sick with the flu and many other illnesses in fear of losing our jobs.”
He noted the workers were just seeking to be compensated what they were worth in wages and benefits comparable to other unionized mines. Warrior Met Coal have brought in replacement workers as part of their continuity plan, the use of which Traweek characterized as “gut-wrenching”.
“We’re fighting for our families and every other member of the organized labor community across the world. We can’t allow corporate greed to rob us of our dignity and worth,” added Traweek. “After bringing a company from bankruptcy to record breaking production, we feel we deserve more.”
Ahead of the strike, the UMWA filed several unfair labor practice charges against Warrior Met Coal, including allegations the company threatened bankruptcy and layoffs. Shortly after the strike began, Warrior Met Coal obtained a court injunction limiting the number of striking workers on the picket lines on site at the mines and local residents reported complaints of visible pollution in two creeks from runoff at the mine sites a few weeks into the strike.
The company recently assured investors in an earnings call that customer production volume commitments would be met through 2021, despite the strike’s impact on production at mines in Alabama.
“The mining industry is an important part of the community in Brookwood, Alabama. This has been the way of life here for a long time. The wealthy conglomeration in New York that took over the bankrupt Walter Energy does not care about the men and women that work in the coalmines or their families,” said Rily Hughett, a coalminer at Warrior Met Coal in Brookwood for 13 years, who worked through the bankruptcy transition in 2016.
Hughett explained coalminers face multiple dangers working on the job, including the risk of roof falls, methane gas buildups, low oxygen levels, working with heavy equipment and the pressure on workers to cut corners on safety for the sake of production. Coalmining is historically one of the most dangerous job professions.
Though Warrior Met Coal experienced a drop in revenue during the coronavirus pandemic as the coal and steel industries slowed down production, the company has made millions of dollars in profits since the bankruptcy. They reported a loss of about $35m in 2020 compared with net income of $302m in 2019.
“We only want a fair wage and good insurance for our families, but while they make hundreds of millions of dollars, they should show a little respect for the men and women that brought this company from bankruptcy to a thriving company,” Hughett added.
Workers rejected a tentative agreement offered by the company on 9 April, opting to continue the strike, as they were offered just a $1.50-an-hour raise over five years.
“They lowballed it,” said Marcus Vance, another coalminer on strike at Warrior Met Coal. “I think they’re trying to starve everybody out.”
Warrior Met Coal did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
As the strike heads into its third month, workers are fighting for improvements to wages and benefits after they say several concessions were made by workers under the previous contract in 2016 when Warrior Met Coal took control of the mines in the wake of a bankruptcy filing by Walter Energy.
The strike has energized support across the state and other parts of the south, in an area that has traditionally been hostile to labor disputes.
Last month supporters held a concert to raise money for striking miners that included Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers and comedian Drew Morgan. Labor leaders from around the US, including the AFA-CWA president, Sara Nelson, and the AFL-CIO secretary treasurer, Liz Shuler, have visited the striking miners to lend their support.
“Warrior Met still refuses to engage in meaningful negotiations with the UMWA at the bargaining table,” the UMWA international president, Cecil E Roberts, said in a recent press release. “But they are clearly on the wrong side of history. Community support for the strikers is growing, and now their struggle is gaining nationwide attention.”
Strikers say they are suffering the impacts from the lost income, which makes it difficult to make ends meet and afford basic necessities like food and rent or home payments. They have also carried out acts of civil disobedience outside the company’s main offices.
James Traweek has worked at Warrior Met Coal for four years at the No 7 mine in Brookwood. He explained miners accepted a $6-an-hour pay cut and reduction in health insurance and retirement benefits during the bankruptcy process five years ago, while adhering to a strict attendance policy.
“We were required to work six, sometimes seven days a week, for 12 hours a day. We worked on a four-strike system, which meant missing four days in a year resulted in termination,” said Traweek. “The only thing that was accepted as an excuse was a death in the immediate family. We had to work sick with the flu and many other illnesses in fear of losing our jobs.”
He noted the workers were just seeking to be compensated what they were worth in wages and benefits comparable to other unionized mines. Warrior Met Coal have brought in replacement workers as part of their continuity plan, the use of which Traweek characterized as “gut-wrenching”.
“We’re fighting for our families and every other member of the organized labor community across the world. We can’t allow corporate greed to rob us of our dignity and worth,” added Traweek. “After bringing a company from bankruptcy to record breaking production, we feel we deserve more.”
Ahead of the strike, the UMWA filed several unfair labor practice charges against Warrior Met Coal, including allegations the company threatened bankruptcy and layoffs. Shortly after the strike began, Warrior Met Coal obtained a court injunction limiting the number of striking workers on the picket lines on site at the mines and local residents reported complaints of visible pollution in two creeks from runoff at the mine sites a few weeks into the strike.
The company recently assured investors in an earnings call that customer production volume commitments would be met through 2021, despite the strike’s impact on production at mines in Alabama.
“The mining industry is an important part of the community in Brookwood, Alabama. This has been the way of life here for a long time. The wealthy conglomeration in New York that took over the bankrupt Walter Energy does not care about the men and women that work in the coalmines or their families,” said Rily Hughett, a coalminer at Warrior Met Coal in Brookwood for 13 years, who worked through the bankruptcy transition in 2016.
Hughett explained coalminers face multiple dangers working on the job, including the risk of roof falls, methane gas buildups, low oxygen levels, working with heavy equipment and the pressure on workers to cut corners on safety for the sake of production. Coalmining is historically one of the most dangerous job professions.
Though Warrior Met Coal experienced a drop in revenue during the coronavirus pandemic as the coal and steel industries slowed down production, the company has made millions of dollars in profits since the bankruptcy. They reported a loss of about $35m in 2020 compared with net income of $302m in 2019.
“We only want a fair wage and good insurance for our families, but while they make hundreds of millions of dollars, they should show a little respect for the men and women that brought this company from bankruptcy to a thriving company,” Hughett added.
Workers rejected a tentative agreement offered by the company on 9 April, opting to continue the strike, as they were offered just a $1.50-an-hour raise over five years.
“They lowballed it,” said Marcus Vance, another coalminer on strike at Warrior Met Coal. “I think they’re trying to starve everybody out.”
Warrior Met Coal did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Kroger, Blasted for Ending Hazard Pay, Gave CEO $22 Million
By Anders Melin - BLoomberg
May 13, 2021, 11:52 AM PDT Updated on May 13, 2021, 1:39 PM PDT
* McMullen’s compensation last year rose almost 6% from 2019
* The grocery company’s CEO earned 909 times the median worker
Kroger Co. Chief Executive Officer Rodney McMullen found himself in a hailstorm of criticism last spring over hazard pay to frontline workers.
In early 2020, as the coronavirus swept across the U.S., McMullen announced a $2 hourly hazard increase, or “Hero Bonus,” for store and warehouse workers. Two months later, the company ended the raise -- even as critics pointed out that the hazard remained.
McMullen, meanwhile, collected a $22.4 million pay package for 2020 -- his largest haul since he became Kroger’s boss in 2014.
The package, disclosed Thursday in a regulatory filing, rose almost 6% from the prior year thanks to a bigger bonus, a larger package of stock awards and a salary increase. Pay for Kroger’s median employee fell 8% to $24,617.
McMullen, a Kroger lifer, is one of many CEOs who saw their pay jump last year even as the pandemic roiled the U.S. economy and drove millions into unemployment. The typical company in the Russell 1000, an index of larger corporations, reported CEO compensation up 3% last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg that is derived from filings available as of April 30.
Kroger posted record revenue last year as scores of Americans stockpiled groceries and ate most meals at home. Its shares returned 12% including reinvested dividends, trailing the 18% rise of the S&P 500.
Precarious conditions for frontline workers led to calls for higher wages from unions, lawmakers and even President Joe Biden, who campaigned on raising the minimum federal hourly rate to $15. Many of the largest U.S. employers have moved to boost pay, including Amazon.com Inc. and McDonald’s Corp.
Cincinnati-based Kroger, which operates around 2,740 stores and employs 465,000 workers, said in March it plans to bring the average hourly wage to $16 an hour, from $15.50 -- a 3% increase. Last April, it also gave full-time workers a $300 bonus and part-timers half that. The company says that its average hourly wage rises to more than $20 when including benefits like health care.
“Kroger continues to reward and recognize our associates for their incredible work during this historic time,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. She also said the company is offering $100 to every associate that receives a Covid-19 vaccine.
In early 2020, as the coronavirus swept across the U.S., McMullen announced a $2 hourly hazard increase, or “Hero Bonus,” for store and warehouse workers. Two months later, the company ended the raise -- even as critics pointed out that the hazard remained.
McMullen, meanwhile, collected a $22.4 million pay package for 2020 -- his largest haul since he became Kroger’s boss in 2014.
The package, disclosed Thursday in a regulatory filing, rose almost 6% from the prior year thanks to a bigger bonus, a larger package of stock awards and a salary increase. Pay for Kroger’s median employee fell 8% to $24,617.
McMullen, a Kroger lifer, is one of many CEOs who saw their pay jump last year even as the pandemic roiled the U.S. economy and drove millions into unemployment. The typical company in the Russell 1000, an index of larger corporations, reported CEO compensation up 3% last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg that is derived from filings available as of April 30.
Kroger posted record revenue last year as scores of Americans stockpiled groceries and ate most meals at home. Its shares returned 12% including reinvested dividends, trailing the 18% rise of the S&P 500.
Precarious conditions for frontline workers led to calls for higher wages from unions, lawmakers and even President Joe Biden, who campaigned on raising the minimum federal hourly rate to $15. Many of the largest U.S. employers have moved to boost pay, including Amazon.com Inc. and McDonald’s Corp.
Cincinnati-based Kroger, which operates around 2,740 stores and employs 465,000 workers, said in March it plans to bring the average hourly wage to $16 an hour, from $15.50 -- a 3% increase. Last April, it also gave full-time workers a $300 bonus and part-timers half that. The company says that its average hourly wage rises to more than $20 when including benefits like health care.
“Kroger continues to reward and recognize our associates for their incredible work during this historic time,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. She also said the company is offering $100 to every associate that receives a Covid-19 vaccine.
McDonald's Raises Pay for U.S. Restaurant Workers
Heather Haddon - msn.com
5/13/2021
McDonald’s Corp. said it would raise pay for employees at company-owned restaurants in the U.S., one of the latest companies to bolster wages and benefits as they struggle to hire workers.
The burger giant said Thursday it would increase wages for more than 36,500 hourly workers by an average of 10% over the next several months. Nonmanagerial workers at the chain’s roughly 660 company-owned restaurants in the U.S. would earn at least $11 to $17 an hour at entry levels after the increases, McDonald’s said. Supervisors would earn an hourly minimum of $15 to $20. Nonmanagerial employees at company-owned stores earlier this year earned an average of nearly $12 an hour, McDonald’s said, and supervisors earned some $16 to $18 an hour.
McDonald’s owns a fraction of its 13,900 U.S. restaurants, around 95% of which are operated by franchisees. Owners have said they are reviewing pay and benefits at their stores. The National Owners Association, a group representing U.S. franchisees, said in an email to its members on Sunday that strong sales should allow operators to raise menu prices if they choose to compensate for higher spending on pay and benefits.
“We need to do whatever it takes to staff our restaurants and then charge for it,” the association said.
A shortage of workers across the U.S. economy has prompted some employers to boost pay and benefits as they hunt for workers. McDonald’s, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Applebee’s, KFC and other chains have said they want to hire tens of thousands of workers in the coming months as they reopen dining rooms and seek to better staff their restaurants.
Chipotle on Monday said it would raise wages at its 2,800 restaurants to an average of $15 an hour by the end of next month. Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants Inc. said it paid $17 million in bonuses to workers last month and boosted wages to at least $10 an hour for 20% of the chain’s 135,000 hourly staff.
Unions and activists have for years urged chains including McDonald’s to boost wages. McDonald’s and its restaurants are one of the world’s largest private employers. The median hourly wage for a U.S. fast-food worker in mid-2020 stood at $11.47, Labor Department data show.
McDonald’s said Thursday it decided to raise pay at company stores after looking at what other restaurants were paying and as more states and the federal government consider mandating minimum-wage increases. The company said it expects the average wage at the restaurants it owns to reach $15 an hour by 2024. McDonald’s said it wants to hire 10,000 employees in the next three months as it reopens more dining rooms.
The burger giant said Thursday it would increase wages for more than 36,500 hourly workers by an average of 10% over the next several months. Nonmanagerial workers at the chain’s roughly 660 company-owned restaurants in the U.S. would earn at least $11 to $17 an hour at entry levels after the increases, McDonald’s said. Supervisors would earn an hourly minimum of $15 to $20. Nonmanagerial employees at company-owned stores earlier this year earned an average of nearly $12 an hour, McDonald’s said, and supervisors earned some $16 to $18 an hour.
McDonald’s owns a fraction of its 13,900 U.S. restaurants, around 95% of which are operated by franchisees. Owners have said they are reviewing pay and benefits at their stores. The National Owners Association, a group representing U.S. franchisees, said in an email to its members on Sunday that strong sales should allow operators to raise menu prices if they choose to compensate for higher spending on pay and benefits.
“We need to do whatever it takes to staff our restaurants and then charge for it,” the association said.
A shortage of workers across the U.S. economy has prompted some employers to boost pay and benefits as they hunt for workers. McDonald’s, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Applebee’s, KFC and other chains have said they want to hire tens of thousands of workers in the coming months as they reopen dining rooms and seek to better staff their restaurants.
Chipotle on Monday said it would raise wages at its 2,800 restaurants to an average of $15 an hour by the end of next month. Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants Inc. said it paid $17 million in bonuses to workers last month and boosted wages to at least $10 an hour for 20% of the chain’s 135,000 hourly staff.
Unions and activists have for years urged chains including McDonald’s to boost wages. McDonald’s and its restaurants are one of the world’s largest private employers. The median hourly wage for a U.S. fast-food worker in mid-2020 stood at $11.47, Labor Department data show.
McDonald’s said Thursday it decided to raise pay at company stores after looking at what other restaurants were paying and as more states and the federal government consider mandating minimum-wage increases. The company said it expects the average wage at the restaurants it owns to reach $15 an hour by 2024. McDonald’s said it wants to hire 10,000 employees in the next three months as it reopens more dining rooms.
The US restaurant industry is lacking in wages, not workers
THE INDUSTRY BEMOANS BENEFITS, BUT WORKERS DON’T WANT JOBS WHERE PAY IS LOW AND RISKS HIGH, SAY SARU JAYARAMAN, PRESIDENT OF ONE FAIR WAGE, AND AUTHOR MARK BITTMAN
Saru Jayaraman and Mark Bittman - the guardian
5/9/2021
Among the things Americans say they’re looking forward to most when pandemic-related restrictions ends is “having dinner in a restaurant with friends”. But if the restaurant industry doesn’t support higher wages, there will be fewer restaurants for customers to return to.
There is an unprecedented shortage of job applicants for restaurant jobs. In a new survey this week by One Fair Wage of more than 2,800 workers, more than half (53%) reported that they are thinking about leaving restaurants. More than three-quarters of workers surveyed (76%) said they are leaving restaurants because of low wages and tips – by far the most important reason for leaving – and a slightly higher percentage (78%) said that the factor that would make them stay in restaurants is a “full, stable, livable wage”.
So this isn’t, as many industry representatives would have you believe, a shortage of workers. It’s a wage shortage that is racist and sexist in that it disproportionately affects women and people of color, and is a legacy of slavery. It is created by the narrow-sighted greed of the industry and its trade lobby, the National Restaurant Association, which has a history of fighting against fair wages since it was formed by white restaurant owners in 1919.
There are, in fact, plenty of qualified and experienced restaurant workers, many or even most of whom were laid off and left destitute over the last year. The National Restaurant Association is now, for the most part, a conglomerate of corporate chain restaurants and a powerful lobby. As part of its transparent but sadly effective (until now, at least), propaganda campaign, members of “The Other NRA”, as many call it, have suggested that workers would rather stay home and collect unemployment than take jobs as they become available.
But that’s not true: more than half of unemployed restaurant workers were denied unemployment insurance during the pandemic, largely because their base pay was too low to qualify, according to the One Fair Wage survey. In fact, those fortunate enough to receive unemployment benefits would immediately lose them if they turned down work; that’s how unemployment insurance works. Their low pay is the result of the sub-minimum wage laws for tipped workers (still $2.13 per hour at the federal level), the very same laws that the NRA has spent millions of dollars, over decades, lobbying to keep in place.
Now, it’s safe to say that almost all minimum wage laws are woefully inadequate, and despite the doubling of labor productivity, minimum wage workers today are paid substantially less in real terms than their counterparts earned five decades ago. Had Congress continued to increase the minimum wage in line with productivity growth of the last few decades, the minimum wage today would be around $24 an hour, which actually approaches its stated intent, a livable wage. But for tipped workers in general and the restaurant industry in particular (along with agriculture and “domestic service”), wages are especially bad. That sub-minimum wage is a direct legacy of slavery (note that the jobs to which it applies are largely held by Bipoc and especially women), still pushed by the same types of powerful business owners that opposed paying their workers after emancipation. Unsurprisingly, the sub-minimum wage has led to a massive race and gender wage gap across the industry: nationwide, Black women working for tips in restaurants make $4.79 an hour less than their white male counterparts.
Deadly professions
The reality, according to what the workers themselves are saying, is that out-of-work restaurant professionals don’t want to return to jobs where the pay is lower than ever at a time when the work itself is more dangerous than ever. Tips are down an estimated 50% to 75%, while public health researchers say that restaurant work is the single most deadly profession during the pandemic. Furthermore, tipped workers were already experiencing the worst sexual harassment of any industry in the nation, and relying on food stamps at double the rate of the rest of working Americans – almost entirely due to the sub-minimum wage. During the pandemic, more than 40% of workers reported that sexual harassment in restaurants increased, and hundreds of women reported that they are being asked regularly to remove their masks so that male customers can judge their looks and their tips on that basis.
Being unwilling to risk health and welfare for poverty wages doesn’t make restaurant workers lazy; rather, it makes them smart, cautious and strategic, even if they’re desperate for work. Restaurant professionals are understandably fed up with an industry that has built its business model for centuries on the exploitation of its workers. Their righteous anger, simmering for some time, reached its boiling point during the pandemic – especially now that Congress approved $28.6bn in relief for restaurant owners.
The simple question is: where is the relief for workers?
Because, so far, a Congress still overwhelmingly dominated by anti-worker white men, has failed to pass the Raise the Wage Act, which would end the sub-minimum wage and establish the full, fair federal wage for all workers to $15 an hour, with tips on top when appropriate. It is difficult not to see this failure to end a direct legacy of slavery as racist.
A growing number of independent restaurant owners and chefs, as well as an increasing number of municipalities and states, understand that the old business model is broken and support ending the sub-minimum wage. And more and more diners, who perhaps have never realized that their tips are a large part of servers’ salaries, are translating their symbolic support for racial and gender justice into calls for concrete, systemic reform. Because as refreshing as it will be to return to a lovely cafe and order some fabulously prepared food and drink with a group of friends, those of us who love eating out know that great restaurants need great staff. Restaurants are only as wonderful as the people who work in them. And to truly save the restaurant industry – not just its owners – we have to ensure that restaurant workers are paid a full, fair livable wage.
There is an unprecedented shortage of job applicants for restaurant jobs. In a new survey this week by One Fair Wage of more than 2,800 workers, more than half (53%) reported that they are thinking about leaving restaurants. More than three-quarters of workers surveyed (76%) said they are leaving restaurants because of low wages and tips – by far the most important reason for leaving – and a slightly higher percentage (78%) said that the factor that would make them stay in restaurants is a “full, stable, livable wage”.
So this isn’t, as many industry representatives would have you believe, a shortage of workers. It’s a wage shortage that is racist and sexist in that it disproportionately affects women and people of color, and is a legacy of slavery. It is created by the narrow-sighted greed of the industry and its trade lobby, the National Restaurant Association, which has a history of fighting against fair wages since it was formed by white restaurant owners in 1919.
There are, in fact, plenty of qualified and experienced restaurant workers, many or even most of whom were laid off and left destitute over the last year. The National Restaurant Association is now, for the most part, a conglomerate of corporate chain restaurants and a powerful lobby. As part of its transparent but sadly effective (until now, at least), propaganda campaign, members of “The Other NRA”, as many call it, have suggested that workers would rather stay home and collect unemployment than take jobs as they become available.
But that’s not true: more than half of unemployed restaurant workers were denied unemployment insurance during the pandemic, largely because their base pay was too low to qualify, according to the One Fair Wage survey. In fact, those fortunate enough to receive unemployment benefits would immediately lose them if they turned down work; that’s how unemployment insurance works. Their low pay is the result of the sub-minimum wage laws for tipped workers (still $2.13 per hour at the federal level), the very same laws that the NRA has spent millions of dollars, over decades, lobbying to keep in place.
Now, it’s safe to say that almost all minimum wage laws are woefully inadequate, and despite the doubling of labor productivity, minimum wage workers today are paid substantially less in real terms than their counterparts earned five decades ago. Had Congress continued to increase the minimum wage in line with productivity growth of the last few decades, the minimum wage today would be around $24 an hour, which actually approaches its stated intent, a livable wage. But for tipped workers in general and the restaurant industry in particular (along with agriculture and “domestic service”), wages are especially bad. That sub-minimum wage is a direct legacy of slavery (note that the jobs to which it applies are largely held by Bipoc and especially women), still pushed by the same types of powerful business owners that opposed paying their workers after emancipation. Unsurprisingly, the sub-minimum wage has led to a massive race and gender wage gap across the industry: nationwide, Black women working for tips in restaurants make $4.79 an hour less than their white male counterparts.
Deadly professions
The reality, according to what the workers themselves are saying, is that out-of-work restaurant professionals don’t want to return to jobs where the pay is lower than ever at a time when the work itself is more dangerous than ever. Tips are down an estimated 50% to 75%, while public health researchers say that restaurant work is the single most deadly profession during the pandemic. Furthermore, tipped workers were already experiencing the worst sexual harassment of any industry in the nation, and relying on food stamps at double the rate of the rest of working Americans – almost entirely due to the sub-minimum wage. During the pandemic, more than 40% of workers reported that sexual harassment in restaurants increased, and hundreds of women reported that they are being asked regularly to remove their masks so that male customers can judge their looks and their tips on that basis.
Being unwilling to risk health and welfare for poverty wages doesn’t make restaurant workers lazy; rather, it makes them smart, cautious and strategic, even if they’re desperate for work. Restaurant professionals are understandably fed up with an industry that has built its business model for centuries on the exploitation of its workers. Their righteous anger, simmering for some time, reached its boiling point during the pandemic – especially now that Congress approved $28.6bn in relief for restaurant owners.
The simple question is: where is the relief for workers?
Because, so far, a Congress still overwhelmingly dominated by anti-worker white men, has failed to pass the Raise the Wage Act, which would end the sub-minimum wage and establish the full, fair federal wage for all workers to $15 an hour, with tips on top when appropriate. It is difficult not to see this failure to end a direct legacy of slavery as racist.
A growing number of independent restaurant owners and chefs, as well as an increasing number of municipalities and states, understand that the old business model is broken and support ending the sub-minimum wage. And more and more diners, who perhaps have never realized that their tips are a large part of servers’ salaries, are translating their symbolic support for racial and gender justice into calls for concrete, systemic reform. Because as refreshing as it will be to return to a lovely cafe and order some fabulously prepared food and drink with a group of friends, those of us who love eating out know that great restaurants need great staff. Restaurants are only as wonderful as the people who work in them. And to truly save the restaurant industry – not just its owners – we have to ensure that restaurant workers are paid a full, fair livable wage.
How Our Postal Service Helped Deliver Win To Amazon In Defeat Of Union
The Company Ignored Labor Board Directive and Installed Postal Service Drop Box to Collect Ballots at Alabama Warehouse
By Joe Maniscalco and David Cay Johnston - dc report
5/4/2021
After the failed union vote at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, the critical postmortems ignored a reality that may result in another election: Amazon cheated.
And Louis DeJoy, the Trump-era holdover dismantling the U.S. Postal Service, helped.
A National Labor Relations Board hearing on Friday will consider a request for a new vote sought by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The union complaint alleges a campaign of intimidation to pressure employees to reject the union.
The labor board has a long history of looking the other way when given evidence of cheating by employers in union elections. But this time may be different because of who helped cheat — from local on up to national officials.
The Jeff Bezos company installed a drop box to collect votes on company property despite being told by the labor board staff not to do so.
Drop boxes were placed with the connivance of the service led by DeJoy. Former President Donald Trump installed this high-rolling donor to worsen mail delivery during the fall presidential election Trump was hellbent to win. Less mail, less votes; less votes, less competition, perhaps.
Here, we use the pejorative connivance because the drop box installed inside Amazon’s Bessemer parking lot did not carry any postal insignia.
Amazon can leverage the Postal Service because Amazon has fattened it.
The Postal Service generated nearly $4 billion in revenue from Amazon in 2019 and counted an eye-popping $1.6 billion of that in profit. The volume of business Amazon delivered grew bigly last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
This reliance on Amazon for high profits likely explains why, beyond his well-documented anti-union animus, DeJoy would help Amazon fight the union.
A pro-union worker, Jennifer Bates, told reporters last month that colleagues at the Bessemer Fulfillment Center were reluctant to deposit ballots in the mysterious drop box that suddenly appeared in the parking lot.
Workers Feared Amazon
“Some of the people are afraid to put them in there,” Bates said. “The ‘yes’ voters feel that Amazon will probably try to steal their ballots.”
Labor lawyer Brandon Magner tweeted: “If Amazon did install these mailboxes, or if they exercise control over the mailboxes, such as having a key to the ballot box, that would clearly merit setting aside the election if the union were to lose.”
During the voting, from Feb. 8 to March 29, Amazon demonstrated just how crucial controlling the Bessemer warehouse parking lot — and what went on inside it — was to the company.
‘Coercion and Intimidation’
The union made the following claims:
Without a union, individual workers have no power. And while some who voted against the union told journalists after the vote that Amazon paid them well, the issue is whether it should pay them even better along with improving their benefits and work rules.
Record Profits
Last year, Amazon reported a profit of $24.2 billion before taxes, up from $13.9 billion in 2019 and almost 10 times its 2016 pretax profit.
Amazon pays little in federal income tax. In 2020 its “effective federal income tax rate of just 9.4%, less than half the statutory corporate tax of 21%.” So said Mathew Gardner of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy earlier this year when Amazon announced its latest financial success.
Amazon has been so successful that a dollar invested when it first sold stock in 1997 has now grown to $2,300, making it one of the most fantastically profitable investments even in this era of high profits in high tech.
While the company doesn’t want to share more of its gains with the blue-collar Americans whose labor makes its profits possible by quickly fulfilling orders, it does lavish money on its executives. One reason to favor the top is that the way Amazon pays executives provides a stealth financial and tax subsidy.
Costly Stock Options
The company showered so many valuable stock options on its highest-paid people that the tax savings alone came to more than $600 million last year, Gardner calculated.
Stock options save companies on corporate income tax. The companies get to deduct their value even though the cost is borne by existing stockholders. The stockholders’ share of the company is diluted by the new shares given to executives. In other words, it’s a tax deduction that costs the company nothing.
Options are also a form of compensation that cost the company nothing, unlike the hard cash it must pay out to rank-and-file workers like those at the Bessemer warehouse.
What’s most troubling about this union election is that a federal government corporation worked with management against the workers. That’s a troubling sign of authoritarianism.
Remember Amazon worked in concert with the Postal Service to install the drop box to collect ballots on company property. The service acted after staff at the labor board, the federal agency tasked with protecting the rights of American workers in the private sector, told them they couldn’t do it. But just as it pressured workers, Amazon pressured the service into pleasing Bezos, the richest person in America.
No Answers
Dave Partenheimer, a postal public relations manager, would not talk about who ultimately gave the go-ahead to install the drop box in the Amazon warehouse parking lot.
Partenheimer declined to say whether the service knew that the labor board already denied Amazon’s request for such a drop box. He also declined to identify who ultimately approved installation.
Instead, Partenheimer reiterated an earlier statement about a “Centralized Box Unit [CBU] with a collection compartment” being “suggested by the postal service as a solution to provide an efficient and secure delivery and collection point.”
The labor board isn’t talking about the drop box either, at least not while it considers the 23 separate objections filed by the Retail Store, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
Labor board spokeswoman Kayla Blado declined to comment on whether the Postal Service has the authority to supersede her agency’s decisions. She would not even confirm that the agency did, in fact, deny Amazon’s request to have a ballot drop box installed on its property.
DeJoy Strikes Again
The persistent controversy about the drop box and the Bessemer vote overall, however, parallels the madness that surrounded mail-in ballots during the last presidential election. DeJoy ordered the removal of mail sorting machines in the run-up to the vote, while the rest of the Trump administration whined about the supposed inability of the Postal Service to properly deliver ballots.
Trump also complained throughout his four years in office that the Postal Service was subsidizing Amazon. This was to advance his attacks on the aggressive reporting by The Washington Post, which Bezos owns, but whose newsroom he has never influenced according to the top editor and reporters working there.
We now know that the prices Amazon paid generated outsized profits for the Postal Service, exposing yet another Trump lie only a few Americans, like DCReport readers, know.
Fought Mail-in Votes, Then Didn’t
At first, Amazon fought hard to block mail-in voting in the General Election. It dismissed the potential dangers of in-person voting during the pandemic. Then it reversed course and challenged the ability of the Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots in a timely fashion. Taken together it was a classic case of Amazon talking out of both sides of the company’s mouth.
Lisa Y. Henderson, the labor board’s acting Region 10 director, dismissed the company’s contradictory arguments in January and ordered that balloting be conducted by mail.
How the labor board rules, and whether the long list of federal rules that hobble union organizing, will be addressed by President Joe Biden’s administration. Decisions will be crucial to whether Americans as a whole prosper, or we continue to create inequality through policies that tilt heavily to the side of business owners and investors.
The struggle between American workers and the bosses has been, and continues to be, fantastically lopsided.
The Economic Policy Institute’s Unequal Power Project, for instance, notes an “inherent imbalance in bargaining power between employers and employees” that creates “a lack of freedom in the workplace.”
Pro-union workers at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse remained undaunted after losing the initial vote, declaring, “This battle has just begun.”
“I’m not discouraged, Linda Burns told reporters after losing the vote by a more than 2-to-1 margin. “This is the beginning. [Jeff] Bezos, you misled a lot of our people. We’re going to fight for our rights.”
Co-worker Emitt Ashford said if the labor board does order a new election, “We would see a change in the tide now that people have the information.”
“We would win,” he said.
And Louis DeJoy, the Trump-era holdover dismantling the U.S. Postal Service, helped.
A National Labor Relations Board hearing on Friday will consider a request for a new vote sought by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The union complaint alleges a campaign of intimidation to pressure employees to reject the union.
The labor board has a long history of looking the other way when given evidence of cheating by employers in union elections. But this time may be different because of who helped cheat — from local on up to national officials.
The Jeff Bezos company installed a drop box to collect votes on company property despite being told by the labor board staff not to do so.
Drop boxes were placed with the connivance of the service led by DeJoy. Former President Donald Trump installed this high-rolling donor to worsen mail delivery during the fall presidential election Trump was hellbent to win. Less mail, less votes; less votes, less competition, perhaps.
Here, we use the pejorative connivance because the drop box installed inside Amazon’s Bessemer parking lot did not carry any postal insignia.
Amazon can leverage the Postal Service because Amazon has fattened it.
The Postal Service generated nearly $4 billion in revenue from Amazon in 2019 and counted an eye-popping $1.6 billion of that in profit. The volume of business Amazon delivered grew bigly last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
This reliance on Amazon for high profits likely explains why, beyond his well-documented anti-union animus, DeJoy would help Amazon fight the union.
A pro-union worker, Jennifer Bates, told reporters last month that colleagues at the Bessemer Fulfillment Center were reluctant to deposit ballots in the mysterious drop box that suddenly appeared in the parking lot.
Workers Feared Amazon
“Some of the people are afraid to put them in there,” Bates said. “The ‘yes’ voters feel that Amazon will probably try to steal their ballots.”
Labor lawyer Brandon Magner tweeted: “If Amazon did install these mailboxes, or if they exercise control over the mailboxes, such as having a key to the ballot box, that would clearly merit setting aside the election if the union were to lose.”
During the voting, from Feb. 8 to March 29, Amazon demonstrated just how crucial controlling the Bessemer warehouse parking lot — and what went on inside it — was to the company.
‘Coercion and Intimidation’
The union made the following claims:
- Amazon hired police officers to patrol the parking lot and surveil interactions between employees and union organizers. The constant presence “created an atmosphere of coercion and intimidation thereby interfering with the right of employees to a free and fair election.”
- The company used local government officials to change policies governing employees exiting the workplace. Amazon got the timing on a traffic light located outside the facility changed so union organizers wouldn’t have much time to approach departing workers.
- Workers were forced to sit through hours of mandatory indoctrination meetings. These sessions, often are used by companies to scare workers into believing their jobs will disappear if they vote for a union. The tactic is often effective with workers who have not yet experienced the benefits of collective bargaining.
Without a union, individual workers have no power. And while some who voted against the union told journalists after the vote that Amazon paid them well, the issue is whether it should pay them even better along with improving their benefits and work rules.
Record Profits
Last year, Amazon reported a profit of $24.2 billion before taxes, up from $13.9 billion in 2019 and almost 10 times its 2016 pretax profit.
Amazon pays little in federal income tax. In 2020 its “effective federal income tax rate of just 9.4%, less than half the statutory corporate tax of 21%.” So said Mathew Gardner of the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy earlier this year when Amazon announced its latest financial success.
Amazon has been so successful that a dollar invested when it first sold stock in 1997 has now grown to $2,300, making it one of the most fantastically profitable investments even in this era of high profits in high tech.
While the company doesn’t want to share more of its gains with the blue-collar Americans whose labor makes its profits possible by quickly fulfilling orders, it does lavish money on its executives. One reason to favor the top is that the way Amazon pays executives provides a stealth financial and tax subsidy.
Costly Stock Options
The company showered so many valuable stock options on its highest-paid people that the tax savings alone came to more than $600 million last year, Gardner calculated.
Stock options save companies on corporate income tax. The companies get to deduct their value even though the cost is borne by existing stockholders. The stockholders’ share of the company is diluted by the new shares given to executives. In other words, it’s a tax deduction that costs the company nothing.
Options are also a form of compensation that cost the company nothing, unlike the hard cash it must pay out to rank-and-file workers like those at the Bessemer warehouse.
What’s most troubling about this union election is that a federal government corporation worked with management against the workers. That’s a troubling sign of authoritarianism.
Remember Amazon worked in concert with the Postal Service to install the drop box to collect ballots on company property. The service acted after staff at the labor board, the federal agency tasked with protecting the rights of American workers in the private sector, told them they couldn’t do it. But just as it pressured workers, Amazon pressured the service into pleasing Bezos, the richest person in America.
No Answers
Dave Partenheimer, a postal public relations manager, would not talk about who ultimately gave the go-ahead to install the drop box in the Amazon warehouse parking lot.
Partenheimer declined to say whether the service knew that the labor board already denied Amazon’s request for such a drop box. He also declined to identify who ultimately approved installation.
Instead, Partenheimer reiterated an earlier statement about a “Centralized Box Unit [CBU] with a collection compartment” being “suggested by the postal service as a solution to provide an efficient and secure delivery and collection point.”
The labor board isn’t talking about the drop box either, at least not while it considers the 23 separate objections filed by the Retail Store, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
Labor board spokeswoman Kayla Blado declined to comment on whether the Postal Service has the authority to supersede her agency’s decisions. She would not even confirm that the agency did, in fact, deny Amazon’s request to have a ballot drop box installed on its property.
DeJoy Strikes Again
The persistent controversy about the drop box and the Bessemer vote overall, however, parallels the madness that surrounded mail-in ballots during the last presidential election. DeJoy ordered the removal of mail sorting machines in the run-up to the vote, while the rest of the Trump administration whined about the supposed inability of the Postal Service to properly deliver ballots.
Trump also complained throughout his four years in office that the Postal Service was subsidizing Amazon. This was to advance his attacks on the aggressive reporting by The Washington Post, which Bezos owns, but whose newsroom he has never influenced according to the top editor and reporters working there.
We now know that the prices Amazon paid generated outsized profits for the Postal Service, exposing yet another Trump lie only a few Americans, like DCReport readers, know.
Fought Mail-in Votes, Then Didn’t
At first, Amazon fought hard to block mail-in voting in the General Election. It dismissed the potential dangers of in-person voting during the pandemic. Then it reversed course and challenged the ability of the Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots in a timely fashion. Taken together it was a classic case of Amazon talking out of both sides of the company’s mouth.
Lisa Y. Henderson, the labor board’s acting Region 10 director, dismissed the company’s contradictory arguments in January and ordered that balloting be conducted by mail.
How the labor board rules, and whether the long list of federal rules that hobble union organizing, will be addressed by President Joe Biden’s administration. Decisions will be crucial to whether Americans as a whole prosper, or we continue to create inequality through policies that tilt heavily to the side of business owners and investors.
The struggle between American workers and the bosses has been, and continues to be, fantastically lopsided.
The Economic Policy Institute’s Unequal Power Project, for instance, notes an “inherent imbalance in bargaining power between employers and employees” that creates “a lack of freedom in the workplace.”
Pro-union workers at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse remained undaunted after losing the initial vote, declaring, “This battle has just begun.”
“I’m not discouraged, Linda Burns told reporters after losing the vote by a more than 2-to-1 margin. “This is the beginning. [Jeff] Bezos, you misled a lot of our people. We’re going to fight for our rights.”
Co-worker Emitt Ashford said if the labor board does order a new election, “We would see a change in the tide now that people have the information.”
“We would win,” he said.
slavery exposed, again!!!
California workers paid as little as $2 an hour -- and it's totally legal
Sky Palma - raw story
April 20, 2021
According to The Fresno Bee, in the state of California where the minimum wage is $14, there are workers who are being paid as little as $2, and it's completely legal.
The program 14(c) allows companies to pay Californians with disabilities below minimum wage. According to supporters of the program, it gives employment opportunities to people who wouldn't have them otherwise. But opponents say it's exploiting workers.
"Some disability advocates are pushing to end the program: A recent proposal to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour included a provision ending 14(c)," the Fresno Bee reports. "But with the proposal stalling in Congress, advocates have put forth a bill in the California Legislature to phase out the program by 2025, joining ten other states including Alaska, Oregon and Texas."
The Bee tells the story of Jackie Armstrong, 35, who is autistic. In 2009 when California's minimum wage was $8 an hour, she was paid $5 an hour for assembling boxes of prunes and dates. The rules of the program allowed her to be paid based on how productive she was compared to an average worker without a disability.
"If you are constantly treated as less than, you think of yourself as less than," said Armstrong.
"For eight decades, this practice has reinforced a false assumption that people with disabilities are less capable of full employment than people without disabilities," said Gregory Cramer, a senior legislative advocate for Disability Rights California who is sponsoring the bill. "Decades of research demonstrates that people with disabilities can, with the right support, succeed in a competitive integrated environment."
Read the full article over at The Fresno Bee.
The program 14(c) allows companies to pay Californians with disabilities below minimum wage. According to supporters of the program, it gives employment opportunities to people who wouldn't have them otherwise. But opponents say it's exploiting workers.
"Some disability advocates are pushing to end the program: A recent proposal to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour included a provision ending 14(c)," the Fresno Bee reports. "But with the proposal stalling in Congress, advocates have put forth a bill in the California Legislature to phase out the program by 2025, joining ten other states including Alaska, Oregon and Texas."
The Bee tells the story of Jackie Armstrong, 35, who is autistic. In 2009 when California's minimum wage was $8 an hour, she was paid $5 an hour for assembling boxes of prunes and dates. The rules of the program allowed her to be paid based on how productive she was compared to an average worker without a disability.
"If you are constantly treated as less than, you think of yourself as less than," said Armstrong.
"For eight decades, this practice has reinforced a false assumption that people with disabilities are less capable of full employment than people without disabilities," said Gregory Cramer, a senior legislative advocate for Disability Rights California who is sponsoring the bill. "Decades of research demonstrates that people with disabilities can, with the right support, succeed in a competitive integrated environment."
Read the full article over at The Fresno Bee.
Median Worker Makes $3,250 Less Per Year Than in 1979 Due to Decline in Unions
BY Sharon Zhang, Truthout
PUBLISHED April 8, 2021
As unionization and collective bargaining have declined in the U.S., wages have also declined for the average worker over the past four decades, finds a new report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released Thursday.
“A major factor depressing wage growth for middle earners and driving the growth of wage inequality over the last four decades has been the erosion of collective bargaining,” wrote Lawrence Mishel of EPI. For the average worker, the decline in unionization has led to a decrease in wages of $1.56 per hour worked, or the equivalent of $3,250 less per year. This is a 7.9 percent decrease from 1979 to 2017.
Because men were more likely than women to be part of a union in 1979, the decline in wages has been worse for men. The median male wage declined $2.49 per hour over the same period, or the equivalent of $5,171 a year.
Since 1983, the first year that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) began recording union data comparably, the proportion of workers in a union has fallen by nearly half. Whereas in 1983, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, the rate in 2020 was only 10.8 percent, according to BLS.
Decreasing union membership has also caused an increase in the wage gap between the upper- and middle-classes, finds EPI. Deunionization is responsible for a large part of the growth of the wage gap between those in the 90th percentile of earners and the 50th percentile over the past four decades. “Deunionization has this result because it depressed the wages of middle-wage earners but had little impact on high-wage earners at the 90th percentile,” writes EPI.
Wage inequality between nonwhite and white people has also increased as a result of declining unionization, writes Mishel. Nonwhite people benefit the most from unions due to a higher likelihood of their being employed in low-wage jobs.
The long-term decline in union membership in the U.S. is a result of laws like the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which enacted restrictions on unions, many of which still exist. A 2018 court case, Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, also weakened unions by declaring it unconstitutional for unions to require fees for collective bargaining. The decline in unionization isn’t for lack of interest among workers — as EPI points out in a different report — because a higher proportion of nonunion workers say they would vote for a union than nonunion workers from 40 years ago did.
Instead, the decline of unions in the country can be attributed largely to strong corporate opposition to unionization. As has been demonstrated countless times over the past years, and especially publicly so by Amazon recently, corporations have been empowered by weak labor laws to pull out all stops, including illegally firing workers and spending millions of dollars to stop unionization efforts.
Though these companies may face penalties from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for violating labor laws, the penalties are often no more than a slap on the wrist for large multinational corporations.
Aside from the decline of unions in the U.S., EPI writes, “the only factor more responsible for weak wage growth for the typical worker is the excessive unemployment perpetrated by central bank policymakers’ high interest rate policies and fiscal austerity.”
Declining unionization and erosion of collective bargaining is especially pronounced in the U.S. In European countries like Sweden, Denmark and Finland, by contrast, union membership hovers around 65 percent; in Iceland, 92 percent of workers were in a union as of 2018. And in countries with lower union membership like France, where only 10 percent of workers were in a union in 2018, nearly 100 percent were covered by collective bargaining agreements, wrote Pacific Standard.
One solution to declining union membership could be the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, which was passed in the House last month. The PRO Act makes it easier for workers to unionize by, among other provisions, giving the NLRB more authority to punish companies for breaking labor laws. It also contains a provision to override so-called “right-to-work” laws that weaken unions financially.
“A major factor depressing wage growth for middle earners and driving the growth of wage inequality over the last four decades has been the erosion of collective bargaining,” wrote Lawrence Mishel of EPI. For the average worker, the decline in unionization has led to a decrease in wages of $1.56 per hour worked, or the equivalent of $3,250 less per year. This is a 7.9 percent decrease from 1979 to 2017.
Because men were more likely than women to be part of a union in 1979, the decline in wages has been worse for men. The median male wage declined $2.49 per hour over the same period, or the equivalent of $5,171 a year.
Since 1983, the first year that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) began recording union data comparably, the proportion of workers in a union has fallen by nearly half. Whereas in 1983, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent, the rate in 2020 was only 10.8 percent, according to BLS.
Decreasing union membership has also caused an increase in the wage gap between the upper- and middle-classes, finds EPI. Deunionization is responsible for a large part of the growth of the wage gap between those in the 90th percentile of earners and the 50th percentile over the past four decades. “Deunionization has this result because it depressed the wages of middle-wage earners but had little impact on high-wage earners at the 90th percentile,” writes EPI.
Wage inequality between nonwhite and white people has also increased as a result of declining unionization, writes Mishel. Nonwhite people benefit the most from unions due to a higher likelihood of their being employed in low-wage jobs.
The long-term decline in union membership in the U.S. is a result of laws like the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which enacted restrictions on unions, many of which still exist. A 2018 court case, Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, also weakened unions by declaring it unconstitutional for unions to require fees for collective bargaining. The decline in unionization isn’t for lack of interest among workers — as EPI points out in a different report — because a higher proportion of nonunion workers say they would vote for a union than nonunion workers from 40 years ago did.
Instead, the decline of unions in the country can be attributed largely to strong corporate opposition to unionization. As has been demonstrated countless times over the past years, and especially publicly so by Amazon recently, corporations have been empowered by weak labor laws to pull out all stops, including illegally firing workers and spending millions of dollars to stop unionization efforts.
Though these companies may face penalties from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for violating labor laws, the penalties are often no more than a slap on the wrist for large multinational corporations.
Aside from the decline of unions in the U.S., EPI writes, “the only factor more responsible for weak wage growth for the typical worker is the excessive unemployment perpetrated by central bank policymakers’ high interest rate policies and fiscal austerity.”
Declining unionization and erosion of collective bargaining is especially pronounced in the U.S. In European countries like Sweden, Denmark and Finland, by contrast, union membership hovers around 65 percent; in Iceland, 92 percent of workers were in a union as of 2018. And in countries with lower union membership like France, where only 10 percent of workers were in a union in 2018, nearly 100 percent were covered by collective bargaining agreements, wrote Pacific Standard.
One solution to declining union membership could be the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, which was passed in the House last month. The PRO Act makes it easier for workers to unionize by, among other provisions, giving the NLRB more authority to punish companies for breaking labor laws. It also contains a provision to override so-called “right-to-work” laws that weaken unions financially.
At a Major Education Company, Freelancers Must Now Pay a Fee In Order to Get Paid
McGraw Hill is clawing back 2.2% of every invoice, and a worker says it feels like “wage theft.”
HAMILTON NOLAN - in these times
MARCH 24, 2021
Freelance workers everywhere are subjected to a wide variety of indignities and ripoffs. They are the workers who are most at the mercy of their employers’ whims, and least able to fight back. Now, into the pantheon of freelancer exploitation comes a truly jaw-dropping policy: Forcing freelancers to pay money in order to get paid.
McGraw Hill (MH) is a multibillion-dollar educational publishing company, with thousands of employees and offices around the world. Beginning in October of last year, the company instituted a new policy for all of its freelancers and independent contractors — they are now required to pay a fee of 2.2% every time they file an invoice through the company’s invoicing system, called Fieldglass. (There is no other system, meaning the fee is mandatory.) In other words, if a freelancer does $1,000 of work for MH, they will be paid only $978. The other $22 will be taken as an “administrative fee.”
In effect, the company has imposed an across-the-board wage cut on all of its freelancers and contractors, without having to come right out and say it. An email sent to all freelancers explaining the new fee offered this explanation: “McGraw Hill has chosen to align with market standards and transition to a Supplier funded model. The 2.2% Small Supplier fee included on your invoice supports labor market compliance, administrative tasks, and the Vendor Management System (VMS) associated with payment processes.”
Likewise, the company says that under its new policy, the costs of MH complying with various laws and regulations are now being offloaded onto freelancers themselves. “Since October 2020, contractors providing services to McGraw Hill have been charged a fee to cover the cost of third-party vendors that help us ensure that each contractor meets the requirements needed to be classified as an Independent Contractor under various state laws and IRS regulations,” said MH spokesperson Tyler Reed. “We need to ensure that those classifying themselves as Independent Contractors are in fact contractors, according to state and IRS guidelines, otherwise there is a legal and financial risk to McGraw Hill and to the contractor.”
State laws and IRS guidelines were around long before last October, so it is unclear why the company decided then that it was no longer able to bear the costs of compliance. Reed did not respond to that question.
The new practice of charging workers the costs associated with normal company functions does not sit well with one longtime MH freelancer, who said that it felt indistinguishable from “wage theft.”
“This will cost me a few hundred dollars over the course of this year — not the end of the world, but still, it’s a de facto pay cut,” the freelancer said, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal. “But I can’t figure out what to do about it, except try to spread the word.”
Though the policy may be unfair, it does not violate any laws, according to the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, and labor law experts. “It’s likely that these practices are legal. There is very little regulation of independent contractor relationships, which is precisely why many independent contractors need the rights and protections that come with being an employee,” said Laura Padin, a senior staff attorney with the National Employment Law Project. “It’s telling that McGraw Hill unilaterally imposed this fee on its freelancers. A true independent contractor would be setting or negotiating the terms and conditions of their work.”
The ability of a major company like MH to push its own costs onto its most vulnerable workers goes to the heart of the gross power imbalance inherent in the world of independent contracting. The company’s claim that its new fee is a move to “align with market standards” is dubious. Dave Hill, vice president of the National Writers Union, which represents freelance writers, said that such a mandatory fee is “certainly not the industry standard among freelancers working in media.”
Nor is it the case that every invoicing platform charges freelancers a cut of their own invoice in order to pay them. Few people can say that more definitively than Matt Saincome, a longtime freelance writer, editor, and publisher of The Hard Times and other publications, who founded the invoice company Outvoice, which specializes in paying freelancers, and does not charge them a fee. Saincome called the MH fee “horrible,” and added “This is a pay cut.”
“It’s not market standard to push admin or processing costs off on freelancers,” he said. “Employers already save money by using freelance work instead of W‑2 employees. It’s shameful and wrong to ask freelancers to pay the already heavily reduced administrative costs related to working with them.”
In America, the incentive for companies to offload their own costs onto their labor force is embodied in the very fabric of labor law governing the independent contractor relationship. It is, for example, why Uber drivers pay to maintain their own vehicles. Such arrangements are tempting for employers, but never benign from the perspective of workers, who are forced to accept less for no reason other than a lack of bargaining power.
“Is this McGraw Hill’s 21st Century company store? No one should pay the boss in order to get paid,” said Larry Goldbetter, the president of the National Writers Union. “When McGraw Hill freelancers are ready, NWU will represent you and together, end this practice.”
McGraw Hill (MH) is a multibillion-dollar educational publishing company, with thousands of employees and offices around the world. Beginning in October of last year, the company instituted a new policy for all of its freelancers and independent contractors — they are now required to pay a fee of 2.2% every time they file an invoice through the company’s invoicing system, called Fieldglass. (There is no other system, meaning the fee is mandatory.) In other words, if a freelancer does $1,000 of work for MH, they will be paid only $978. The other $22 will be taken as an “administrative fee.”
In effect, the company has imposed an across-the-board wage cut on all of its freelancers and contractors, without having to come right out and say it. An email sent to all freelancers explaining the new fee offered this explanation: “McGraw Hill has chosen to align with market standards and transition to a Supplier funded model. The 2.2% Small Supplier fee included on your invoice supports labor market compliance, administrative tasks, and the Vendor Management System (VMS) associated with payment processes.”
Likewise, the company says that under its new policy, the costs of MH complying with various laws and regulations are now being offloaded onto freelancers themselves. “Since October 2020, contractors providing services to McGraw Hill have been charged a fee to cover the cost of third-party vendors that help us ensure that each contractor meets the requirements needed to be classified as an Independent Contractor under various state laws and IRS regulations,” said MH spokesperson Tyler Reed. “We need to ensure that those classifying themselves as Independent Contractors are in fact contractors, according to state and IRS guidelines, otherwise there is a legal and financial risk to McGraw Hill and to the contractor.”
State laws and IRS guidelines were around long before last October, so it is unclear why the company decided then that it was no longer able to bear the costs of compliance. Reed did not respond to that question.
The new practice of charging workers the costs associated with normal company functions does not sit well with one longtime MH freelancer, who said that it felt indistinguishable from “wage theft.”
“This will cost me a few hundred dollars over the course of this year — not the end of the world, but still, it’s a de facto pay cut,” the freelancer said, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of reprisal. “But I can’t figure out what to do about it, except try to spread the word.”
Though the policy may be unfair, it does not violate any laws, according to the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, and labor law experts. “It’s likely that these practices are legal. There is very little regulation of independent contractor relationships, which is precisely why many independent contractors need the rights and protections that come with being an employee,” said Laura Padin, a senior staff attorney with the National Employment Law Project. “It’s telling that McGraw Hill unilaterally imposed this fee on its freelancers. A true independent contractor would be setting or negotiating the terms and conditions of their work.”
The ability of a major company like MH to push its own costs onto its most vulnerable workers goes to the heart of the gross power imbalance inherent in the world of independent contracting. The company’s claim that its new fee is a move to “align with market standards” is dubious. Dave Hill, vice president of the National Writers Union, which represents freelance writers, said that such a mandatory fee is “certainly not the industry standard among freelancers working in media.”
Nor is it the case that every invoicing platform charges freelancers a cut of their own invoice in order to pay them. Few people can say that more definitively than Matt Saincome, a longtime freelance writer, editor, and publisher of The Hard Times and other publications, who founded the invoice company Outvoice, which specializes in paying freelancers, and does not charge them a fee. Saincome called the MH fee “horrible,” and added “This is a pay cut.”
“It’s not market standard to push admin or processing costs off on freelancers,” he said. “Employers already save money by using freelance work instead of W‑2 employees. It’s shameful and wrong to ask freelancers to pay the already heavily reduced administrative costs related to working with them.”
In America, the incentive for companies to offload their own costs onto their labor force is embodied in the very fabric of labor law governing the independent contractor relationship. It is, for example, why Uber drivers pay to maintain their own vehicles. Such arrangements are tempting for employers, but never benign from the perspective of workers, who are forced to accept less for no reason other than a lack of bargaining power.
“Is this McGraw Hill’s 21st Century company store? No one should pay the boss in order to get paid,” said Larry Goldbetter, the president of the National Writers Union. “When McGraw Hill freelancers are ready, NWU will represent you and together, end this practice.”
plantation news!!!
AMAZON RETALIATED AGAINST CHICAGO WORKERS FOLLOWING SPRING COVID-19 PROTESTS, NLRB FINDS
Workers are now waiting to see how, and if, Amazon will agree to settle the claims.
Rachel M. Cohen - the intercept
March 17 2021, 4:00 a.m.
IN APRIL 2020, as the world was coming to terms with the new coronavirus pandemic, workers at an Amazon sorting facility in Chicago launched a series of safety strikes to demand Covid-19 protections for all staff. It was one of several organized protests by Amazon workers nationwide, and the actions in Chicago, at the DCH1 delivery station in Pilsen on the south side of the city, came after management announced in late March that a worker had tested positive for the virus.
“We decided to take a stand,” said Shantrece Johnson, a worker who was involved. “Most of us, we don’t mind working, but we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and we had the potential to bring this [virus] home.” Johnson ultimately contracted Covid-19 in mid-April, before Amazon agreed to provide personal protective equipment to workers at the warehouse.
Roughly 70 to 80 workers participated in the four safety strikes. Among other things, the Chicago workers demanded that their warehouse be shut down for two weeks and cleaned; that Amazon cover the costs of any medical bills for workers who get sick on the job; that the warehouse pause processing nonessential items; and that management provide immediate transparency if and when anyone else got infected.
Following the strikes, DCH1 Amazon workers said they faced retaliation in the form of intimidation and disciplinary write-ups. Johnson herself was written up, she said, for ostensibly not obeying social distancing. The workers banded together and filed a charge with their regional National Labor Relations Board office. Their charge, known as an unfair labor practice, or ULP, included five allegations of National Labor Relations Act violations. The workers accused their site lead, Domonic Wilkerson, of unlawfully disciplining them for protected activities, unlawfully interrogating them, unlawfully engaging in surveillance, unlawfully breaking up their gatherings, and maintaining an “overly broad rule” that precluded gatherings on Amazon’s property outside their normal shifts.
In text messages reviewed by The Intercept, the NLRB regional agent assigned to the case informed the workers on February 24 that the federal agency had reached a decision and found merit to the workers’ claims. On March 10, the NLRB told the workers that “Amazon has stated its intent to settle” and that the agency was working with the company to clarify an agreement. (A settlement would lay out how Amazon will remedy the violations, but if Amazon does not ultimately agree to settle, then the NLRB would issue a complaint and schedule a hearing before an administrative law judge.) The timeline is not clear, but as redress, the workers requested that Amazon provide notice, both physically and electronically, to all relevant employees about what happened and make clear that their rights will not be violated again.
Neither Amazon nor Wilkerson returned requests for comment, and an NLRB spokesperson told The Intercept that the agency could not comment on the case until a final decision is released.
Ted Miin, one of the workers who filed the charge, said that the most significant thing to him about the NLRB’s decision is “the message that we have rights, we should know them, and we should know how to use the NLRB as a tool to make more room for us to organize.” Miin said that, while anecdotal, he feels that over the last year as their charges have been investigated, management has “been more careful” with workers on a daily basis; Miin also said that personally he felt higher-ups were more accommodating with requests for warehouse supplies, equipment, and day-to-day issues.
Johnson also called the NLRB decision “a major victory” given Amazon’s “big team of lawyers.” Both Johnson and Miin said they received calls from the regional NLRB in late February informing them that the NRLB found merit to their claims.
THE AMAZON WORKER organizing happening in Chicago — under the banner of Amazonians United Chicagoland — looks different from the ongoing high-profile union drive in Bessemer, Alabama.
In Alabama, nearly 6,000 Amazon warehouse workers have been casting votes on whether to form a union with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Voting continues through March 29, and if a majority votes in favor, it would mark the first Amazon union in the United States. (The only previous election, at a warehouse in Delaware in 2014, failed.) The Washington Post reported that more than 1,000 Amazon workers in other parts of the country have contacted the RWDSU about potentially launching their own union organizing drives, and President Joe Biden recently offered support for the workers.
In Chicago and in other cities, including New York City and Sacramento, there are worker-led Amazonians United groups that consider themselves unions, though they are not affiliated with any formal legally recognized union like the RWDSU.
“We are not affiliated with any legal organization that claims to be a union, especially major business unions, many of whom have tried to recruit us,” said Miin. He said that they support the Amazon workers in Bessemer and did not rule out affiliating with a formal union in the future but that they have a different approach to worker organizing. Miin added that affiliating with a legal union would be a decision determined democratically by the workers later when and if they felt ready.
Amazonians United Chicagoland got its start in April 2019, when a handful of DCH1 workers came together to demand clean water be made available to them in the warehouse. Their five-gallon water stations were often left open to dusty air and were never clean, and there were often no cups available, they said. Workers collected 150 signatures from colleagues protesting the conditions, and after delivering the petition to management, Amazon consented to provide water.
Later that summer, workers banded together again to organize for air conditioning, health insurance, and a pay increase, and by the fall, workers organized around a manager they felt was abusive. Miin says their largest campaign was their successful effort in early 2020, before Covid-19 hit, to push for paid time off. Their organizing was inspired by a similar PTO campaign launched by Amazon workers in Sacramento in December 2019. In a formal update dated March 20, 2020, Amazon confirmed that the workers could begin taking paid time off.
While the workers are celebrating their not-yet-official victory at the NLRB, their latest fight is against a new policy Amazon began rolling out in January known as “megacycle” shifts. These 10 1/2-hour shifts, which run from 1:20 a.m. to 11:50 a.m., were presented to DCH1 workers as new nonnegotiable work schedules going forward. Vice reported in February that the megacycle shifts were being rolled out quietly at delivery stations nationwide, collapsing multiple shorter shift options into one long one. Workers noted that the new option leaves no flexibility for parents and caretakers. Amazon also recently announced it would be closing the DCH1 warehouse, shutting down operations on April 2.
Amazonians United is fighting back, and recently launched a new petition for megacycle accommodations, with demands that include a $2-per-hour pay increase, Lyft rides to and from work to compensate for inaccessible public transit after midnight, and flexibility for associates who can’t work the full shift. They say if Amazon tries to split them up into different warehouses, they’ll respond by organizing new warehouses.
“I think we’d be really naive to believe closing DCH1 was in no way related to the organizing we’ve been doing,” said Miin.
RELATED: Amazon Is Hiring Aggressive Firms to Bust Union Efforts
“We decided to take a stand,” said Shantrece Johnson, a worker who was involved. “Most of us, we don’t mind working, but we’re in the middle of a pandemic, and we had the potential to bring this [virus] home.” Johnson ultimately contracted Covid-19 in mid-April, before Amazon agreed to provide personal protective equipment to workers at the warehouse.
Roughly 70 to 80 workers participated in the four safety strikes. Among other things, the Chicago workers demanded that their warehouse be shut down for two weeks and cleaned; that Amazon cover the costs of any medical bills for workers who get sick on the job; that the warehouse pause processing nonessential items; and that management provide immediate transparency if and when anyone else got infected.
Following the strikes, DCH1 Amazon workers said they faced retaliation in the form of intimidation and disciplinary write-ups. Johnson herself was written up, she said, for ostensibly not obeying social distancing. The workers banded together and filed a charge with their regional National Labor Relations Board office. Their charge, known as an unfair labor practice, or ULP, included five allegations of National Labor Relations Act violations. The workers accused their site lead, Domonic Wilkerson, of unlawfully disciplining them for protected activities, unlawfully interrogating them, unlawfully engaging in surveillance, unlawfully breaking up their gatherings, and maintaining an “overly broad rule” that precluded gatherings on Amazon’s property outside their normal shifts.
In text messages reviewed by The Intercept, the NLRB regional agent assigned to the case informed the workers on February 24 that the federal agency had reached a decision and found merit to the workers’ claims. On March 10, the NLRB told the workers that “Amazon has stated its intent to settle” and that the agency was working with the company to clarify an agreement. (A settlement would lay out how Amazon will remedy the violations, but if Amazon does not ultimately agree to settle, then the NLRB would issue a complaint and schedule a hearing before an administrative law judge.) The timeline is not clear, but as redress, the workers requested that Amazon provide notice, both physically and electronically, to all relevant employees about what happened and make clear that their rights will not be violated again.
Neither Amazon nor Wilkerson returned requests for comment, and an NLRB spokesperson told The Intercept that the agency could not comment on the case until a final decision is released.
Ted Miin, one of the workers who filed the charge, said that the most significant thing to him about the NLRB’s decision is “the message that we have rights, we should know them, and we should know how to use the NLRB as a tool to make more room for us to organize.” Miin said that, while anecdotal, he feels that over the last year as their charges have been investigated, management has “been more careful” with workers on a daily basis; Miin also said that personally he felt higher-ups were more accommodating with requests for warehouse supplies, equipment, and day-to-day issues.
Johnson also called the NLRB decision “a major victory” given Amazon’s “big team of lawyers.” Both Johnson and Miin said they received calls from the regional NLRB in late February informing them that the NRLB found merit to their claims.
THE AMAZON WORKER organizing happening in Chicago — under the banner of Amazonians United Chicagoland — looks different from the ongoing high-profile union drive in Bessemer, Alabama.
In Alabama, nearly 6,000 Amazon warehouse workers have been casting votes on whether to form a union with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Voting continues through March 29, and if a majority votes in favor, it would mark the first Amazon union in the United States. (The only previous election, at a warehouse in Delaware in 2014, failed.) The Washington Post reported that more than 1,000 Amazon workers in other parts of the country have contacted the RWDSU about potentially launching their own union organizing drives, and President Joe Biden recently offered support for the workers.
In Chicago and in other cities, including New York City and Sacramento, there are worker-led Amazonians United groups that consider themselves unions, though they are not affiliated with any formal legally recognized union like the RWDSU.
“We are not affiliated with any legal organization that claims to be a union, especially major business unions, many of whom have tried to recruit us,” said Miin. He said that they support the Amazon workers in Bessemer and did not rule out affiliating with a formal union in the future but that they have a different approach to worker organizing. Miin added that affiliating with a legal union would be a decision determined democratically by the workers later when and if they felt ready.
Amazonians United Chicagoland got its start in April 2019, when a handful of DCH1 workers came together to demand clean water be made available to them in the warehouse. Their five-gallon water stations were often left open to dusty air and were never clean, and there were often no cups available, they said. Workers collected 150 signatures from colleagues protesting the conditions, and after delivering the petition to management, Amazon consented to provide water.
Later that summer, workers banded together again to organize for air conditioning, health insurance, and a pay increase, and by the fall, workers organized around a manager they felt was abusive. Miin says their largest campaign was their successful effort in early 2020, before Covid-19 hit, to push for paid time off. Their organizing was inspired by a similar PTO campaign launched by Amazon workers in Sacramento in December 2019. In a formal update dated March 20, 2020, Amazon confirmed that the workers could begin taking paid time off.
While the workers are celebrating their not-yet-official victory at the NLRB, their latest fight is against a new policy Amazon began rolling out in January known as “megacycle” shifts. These 10 1/2-hour shifts, which run from 1:20 a.m. to 11:50 a.m., were presented to DCH1 workers as new nonnegotiable work schedules going forward. Vice reported in February that the megacycle shifts were being rolled out quietly at delivery stations nationwide, collapsing multiple shorter shift options into one long one. Workers noted that the new option leaves no flexibility for parents and caretakers. Amazon also recently announced it would be closing the DCH1 warehouse, shutting down operations on April 2.
Amazonians United is fighting back, and recently launched a new petition for megacycle accommodations, with demands that include a $2-per-hour pay increase, Lyft rides to and from work to compensate for inaccessible public transit after midnight, and flexibility for associates who can’t work the full shift. They say if Amazon tries to split them up into different warehouses, they’ll respond by organizing new warehouses.
“I think we’d be really naive to believe closing DCH1 was in no way related to the organizing we’ve been doing,” said Miin.
RELATED: Amazon Is Hiring Aggressive Firms to Bust Union Efforts
SLAVERY TODAY!!!
14-hour days and no bathroom breaks: Amazon's overworked delivery drivers
Michael Sainato - THE GUARDIAN
Thu 11 Mar 2021 05.00 EST
Drivers report being underpaid and having to urinate in bottles in their vehicles to keep up with delivery rates
James Meyers worked as a driver for several Amazon delivery service providers in Austin, Texas, for about one year until he quit in October 2020 citing the immense workloads and poor working conditions.
Fourteen-hour shifts were common because delivery service providers wouldn’t allow drivers to return any packages from their routes and the pressure to meet delivery rates meant Meyers used a plastic bottle to go to the bathroom on a daily basis.
“I saw no effort on Amazon’s part to push delivery service providers to allow their drivers to use the restroom on a normal human basis, leading many, myself included, to urinate inside bottles for fear of slowing down our delivery rates,” Meyers said.
“Any time a van is off route or stops for longer than three minutes, it notifies the delivery service provider. Amazon encourages the delivery service owners to cut down on said stops. I would personally get called by a dispatcher every time I stopped to go to the bathroom. Sitting on the phone with them made the stop take longer. It just wasn’t worth the angry looks in the morning or the worry I’d get fired.”
Amazon uses contractors for delivery services, a move Meyers said makes it exceedingly difficult for workers to organize, and he said, contributes to drivers being overworked and underpaid by the delivery service providers who are paid bonuses on metrics such as route completion percentages.
Amazon has been publicly opposed to unionization and organizing among their employees, most recently through an anti-union campaign launched ahead of a union election vote at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, which has included anti-union captive audience meetings and sending mass texts and ads to workers encouraging them to vote against the union.
The Teamsters Union is now working to organize drivers at Amazon delivery service providers around the US over concerns about the retail giant’s impact on the transportation industry and use of subcontractors.
“This sort of model is problematic for the entire industry,” said Randy Korgan, the director of the Teamster’s Amazon Project. “They’re willing to loan these small subcontractors money, get them access to their vans and help them advertise for employees to offload all the responsibility that would normally fall on Amazon.”
The Teamsters currently represent pilots at two Amazon air transport contractors.
Korgan said the wages Amazon delivery drivers receive, starting at $15 an hour, are far below the average wages for drivers at companies like UPS, where Teamsters represent about 240,000 workers. Based on the union’s current contract, UPS drivers start at $21 an hour and can make up to $40 an hour or more.
“If Amazon decides to take millions of jobs and essentially cut their labor costs in half, that only comes out of workers’ pockets,” added Korgan. “That creates a major economic problem in an industry that for the last 50 years has done a good job of supporting millions of middle-class jobs.”
In Iowa, the Des Moines Register reported the Teamsters are organizing drivers and warehouse workers at Amazon for higher pay and less stringent rates, utilizing strikes rather than focusing on union elections through the National Labor Relations Board.
Drivers for Amazon contractors have complained of the surveillance and pressure they receive through cameras and a tracking app, Mentor.
A driver for an Amazon delivery service provider in the Portland, Oregon area, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, expressed concerns over the surveillance cameras being installed in delivery vehicles, as she often has to use the bathroom in the van due to the lack of available public restrooms and pressure against taking time off of routes to use them.
“In order to take a bathroom break, especially being a woman, we would have to be in an area that has a grocery store. That isn’t always the case and even if it were, that would take at least 10 minutes off our drive time, in which our dispatch would wonder why we’re falling behind,” she said. “So instead, I keep a cup with me and wipes and I go to the bathroom in the back of my van. I’m very concerned about the AI technology being installed in the vans, and being seen while I am urinating is just one of my concerns.”
Drivers for Amazon delivery service providers also face fear of retaliation for trying to organize in their workplaces.
Derrick Flournoy worked as a driver for an Amazon Delivery Service Provider in Downers Grove, Illinois, for more than one year before he quit after experiencing retaliation from management for organizing an online chat for workers to discuss grievances on the job such as the lack of pay increases.
“I started the chat group on a Friday morning, and about an hour after the chat group was put up the manager took it down, which we didn’t even know that he had the power to do if he wasn’t included in the chat, and then he also disabled my ability within the entire app to even communicate with anybody, unless it was directly with management,” said Flournoy, who filed an unfair labor practice charge through the Amazon Delivery Drivers Coalition against Amazon after he was removed from his work shift immediately after the incident. “To me, it was obvious retaliation, and it was his way of showing that he had power and if we didn’t basically form a model of who he wanted, that he could take our hours.”
Flournoy made $16 an hour, which remained unchanged from when he started in December 2019 to when he left in February 2021, even as a 40-hour full-time work week wasn’t guaranteed.
“Sixteen dollars an hour isn’t enough for the amount of work that we have to do. We’re a representation of the wealthiest company in the world and we’re barely making enough money to live,” Flournoy added. “I just think that it’s crazy to me that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have gone back and forth every week about who is the wealthiest person in the world and I can’t even pay my rent. I’m breaking my back to deliver packages every day and there’s no compassion from upper management to understand or to listen to drivers’ concerns.”
An Amazon spokesperson claimed drivers have built-in time through their routes for breaks and provide a list of nearby restrooms in the delivery app. They did not comment on the unfair labor practice charge or on organizing efforts by drivers.
“We’re proud to empower more than 2,000 delivery service partners around the country – small businesses that create thousands more jobs and offer a great work environment with pay of at least $15/hour, healthcare benefits, and paid time off,” the spokesperson said in an email.
James Meyers worked as a driver for several Amazon delivery service providers in Austin, Texas, for about one year until he quit in October 2020 citing the immense workloads and poor working conditions.
Fourteen-hour shifts were common because delivery service providers wouldn’t allow drivers to return any packages from their routes and the pressure to meet delivery rates meant Meyers used a plastic bottle to go to the bathroom on a daily basis.
“I saw no effort on Amazon’s part to push delivery service providers to allow their drivers to use the restroom on a normal human basis, leading many, myself included, to urinate inside bottles for fear of slowing down our delivery rates,” Meyers said.
“Any time a van is off route or stops for longer than three minutes, it notifies the delivery service provider. Amazon encourages the delivery service owners to cut down on said stops. I would personally get called by a dispatcher every time I stopped to go to the bathroom. Sitting on the phone with them made the stop take longer. It just wasn’t worth the angry looks in the morning or the worry I’d get fired.”
Amazon uses contractors for delivery services, a move Meyers said makes it exceedingly difficult for workers to organize, and he said, contributes to drivers being overworked and underpaid by the delivery service providers who are paid bonuses on metrics such as route completion percentages.
Amazon has been publicly opposed to unionization and organizing among their employees, most recently through an anti-union campaign launched ahead of a union election vote at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, which has included anti-union captive audience meetings and sending mass texts and ads to workers encouraging them to vote against the union.
The Teamsters Union is now working to organize drivers at Amazon delivery service providers around the US over concerns about the retail giant’s impact on the transportation industry and use of subcontractors.
“This sort of model is problematic for the entire industry,” said Randy Korgan, the director of the Teamster’s Amazon Project. “They’re willing to loan these small subcontractors money, get them access to their vans and help them advertise for employees to offload all the responsibility that would normally fall on Amazon.”
The Teamsters currently represent pilots at two Amazon air transport contractors.
Korgan said the wages Amazon delivery drivers receive, starting at $15 an hour, are far below the average wages for drivers at companies like UPS, where Teamsters represent about 240,000 workers. Based on the union’s current contract, UPS drivers start at $21 an hour and can make up to $40 an hour or more.
“If Amazon decides to take millions of jobs and essentially cut their labor costs in half, that only comes out of workers’ pockets,” added Korgan. “That creates a major economic problem in an industry that for the last 50 years has done a good job of supporting millions of middle-class jobs.”
In Iowa, the Des Moines Register reported the Teamsters are organizing drivers and warehouse workers at Amazon for higher pay and less stringent rates, utilizing strikes rather than focusing on union elections through the National Labor Relations Board.
Drivers for Amazon contractors have complained of the surveillance and pressure they receive through cameras and a tracking app, Mentor.
A driver for an Amazon delivery service provider in the Portland, Oregon area, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, expressed concerns over the surveillance cameras being installed in delivery vehicles, as she often has to use the bathroom in the van due to the lack of available public restrooms and pressure against taking time off of routes to use them.
“In order to take a bathroom break, especially being a woman, we would have to be in an area that has a grocery store. That isn’t always the case and even if it were, that would take at least 10 minutes off our drive time, in which our dispatch would wonder why we’re falling behind,” she said. “So instead, I keep a cup with me and wipes and I go to the bathroom in the back of my van. I’m very concerned about the AI technology being installed in the vans, and being seen while I am urinating is just one of my concerns.”
Drivers for Amazon delivery service providers also face fear of retaliation for trying to organize in their workplaces.
Derrick Flournoy worked as a driver for an Amazon Delivery Service Provider in Downers Grove, Illinois, for more than one year before he quit after experiencing retaliation from management for organizing an online chat for workers to discuss grievances on the job such as the lack of pay increases.
“I started the chat group on a Friday morning, and about an hour after the chat group was put up the manager took it down, which we didn’t even know that he had the power to do if he wasn’t included in the chat, and then he also disabled my ability within the entire app to even communicate with anybody, unless it was directly with management,” said Flournoy, who filed an unfair labor practice charge through the Amazon Delivery Drivers Coalition against Amazon after he was removed from his work shift immediately after the incident. “To me, it was obvious retaliation, and it was his way of showing that he had power and if we didn’t basically form a model of who he wanted, that he could take our hours.”
Flournoy made $16 an hour, which remained unchanged from when he started in December 2019 to when he left in February 2021, even as a 40-hour full-time work week wasn’t guaranteed.
“Sixteen dollars an hour isn’t enough for the amount of work that we have to do. We’re a representation of the wealthiest company in the world and we’re barely making enough money to live,” Flournoy added. “I just think that it’s crazy to me that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have gone back and forth every week about who is the wealthiest person in the world and I can’t even pay my rent. I’m breaking my back to deliver packages every day and there’s no compassion from upper management to understand or to listen to drivers’ concerns.”
An Amazon spokesperson claimed drivers have built-in time through their routes for breaks and provide a list of nearby restrooms in the delivery app. They did not comment on the unfair labor practice charge or on organizing efforts by drivers.
“We’re proud to empower more than 2,000 delivery service partners around the country – small businesses that create thousands more jobs and offer a great work environment with pay of at least $15/hour, healthcare benefits, and paid time off,” the spokesperson said in an email.
slave-based capitalism!!!
INTERVIEW ECONOMY & LABOR
Hiking the Minimum Wage to $15 Is Key — But It’s Hardly a Living Wage
BY C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout
PUBLISHED March 7, 2021
The advocacy group The Other 98% posted this image as part of its campaign to raise wages for fast food workers.
The federal minimum wage hasn’t increased in over a decade. After a brief but failed attempt by the Biden administration to raise it to $15 an hour, it will most likely remain at the current $7.25 for an indefinite time to come. This is a shame, for the economic benefits of wage hikes are beyond dispute, as many studies have shown, including those authored by Robert Pollin, distinguished professor of economics and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Pollin is co-author of The Living Wage: Building a Fair Economy (1998) and A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (2008) and has worked with many U.S. non-governmental organizations on creating living wage statutes at both the statewide and municipal levels. In this interview, Pollin discusses why, even though we must continue to push for a $15 minimum wage, we must also consider what a true living wage looks like.
C.J. Polychroniou: The general argument against raising the minimum wage is that it is bad for small business and the economy in general. Is there any truth in this claim?
Robert Pollin: Going through a bit of background will be helpful here. The federal minimum wage was last increased in July 2009, from $6.55 an hour to $7.25. So, no increase in 12 years. But actually, the situation is far worse than even what this suggests. That is because, at the very least, we have to factor in the effects of inflation on people’s ability to buy the things they need to live. Inflation means that the prices of food, housing, transportation, clothing and other necessities have been rising. So the minimum wage today would need to be $8.77 in order to buy what $7.25 could buy in 2009.
But there is still much more to the story once we take account of inflation. That is, after we factor in inflation, the U.S. minimum wage actually peaked in 1968, 52 years ago. In today’s dollars, after factoring in inflation, the federal minimum wage in 1968 was $11.90, 64 percent higher than today’s $7.25 figure. Further still, average labor productivity — i.e., the amount of goods or services an average worker can produce over the course of a day in the U.S. — has risen at an average rate of 1.9 percent per year since 1968. What if, starting in 1968, the federal minimum wage had risen every year in step with the 1.9 percent average increase in productivity as well as inflation? That would mean that minimum wage workers would get raises when they are producing more every day, but their raise would only equal exactly their 1.9 percent improvement in productivity but not a penny more. In that case, the federal minimum wage today would be $31.67 an hour -- over four times higher than the actual federal minimum wage today.
Now if we go back to 1968, when the federal minimum wage was approximately $11.90 in today’s dollars, in fact the U.S. economy was booming. The official unemployment rate was 3.6 percent, i.e., less than half of the average 8.1 percent unemployment rate over 2020. So it is obvious that the U.S. economy can function just fine at a much higher federal minimum wage rate than the $7.25 rate that prevails today.
We also get basically the same result by looking at the experiences in recent years with minimum wage laws in U.S. states and living wage statues in some municipalities that are higher than the federal minimum wage. Right now, 29 states along with the District of Columbia operate with minimum wage rates higher than the federal minimum. The citywide minimum in Washington, D.C., is already at $15.00, and the State of Washington is next highest at $13.69. The evidence on the experiences in these states and cities is that businesses function at least as well if not better than those states that still operate at the federal $7.25 minimum. The employment opportunities in these states and cities are also at least as good if not better.
It is fair to ask: If businesses are mandated to pay higher wages than they would choose to pay otherwise, then why is it that we don’t see these businesses lay off employees or close up operations after they are forced to give raises? The answer is that the overwhelming majority of businesses don’t want to be forced to raise wages for their employees, but they learn to adjust. They might raise their prices modestly to cover their increased payroll. The businesses’ level of productivity is also likely to improve. This is because their workers become more committed to their jobs when they are paid at minimally decent levels. These productivity increases will not be enough to compensate for the businesses’ increased payroll, but they will help to partially cover some of their higher costs.
Finally, some businesses may just end up accepting modestly lower profits, even if reluctantly. To the extent this occurs, raising the minimum wage will end up advancing a more equal distribution of income between businesses and workers. This is after 40 years under neoliberalism in which inequality has risen relentlessly. The decline in the value of the minimum wage, after adjusting for inflation, has been a significant factor contributing to the overall rise in inequality under neoliberalism.
Millions of Americans earn wages at or below the federal minimum. Are there estimates of the consequences of a wage hike to $15 an hour on the lives of the working poor?
According to a range of research compiled by the Economic Policy Institute, increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 would deliver pay increases for nearly 32 million workers, 21 percent of the entire U.S. workforce. Nearly 60 percent of workers whose families are currently living below the official poverty line would see their pay go up. The average affected worker with a year-round full-time job would earn an extra $3,300 per year. This would have a major impact on the lives of these workers and their families. It would mean, for example, they would be able to take care of an elderly relative rather than work a second job to cover rent. It would mean they could get their car repaired when that becomes necessary without having to cut back on buying food. It could even mean that they could take a modest vacation.
It is also important to note that the minimum wage increase to $15 an hour would disproportionately benefit Black and Latino workers — with 31 percent of Black people and 26 percent of Latinos getting raises through the minimum wage increase. Finally, we have to dispel the idea that a minimum wage increase largely benefits teenagers with after-school part-time jobs. Only 10 percent of the workers who would benefit from the $15 minimum wage are teenagers. But it is also the case that teenagers deserve to be paid decently. A large share of them are making significant contributions to their families’ overall income level.
Is a $15 minimum wage itself really enough for a worker to live on decently?
We should be clear that raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour takes us only a small way towards establishing decent wage standards in the U.S. A critical question to ask here is: What would constitute a living wage standard in the U.S.? There have been various efforts at addressing this question. One of the most comprehensive efforts has been by a team of researchers at MIT, led by Professor Amy Glasmeier, who produce what they call a “Living Wage Calculator.” The MIT researchers describe their living wage standard as follows: “It is a market-based approach that draws upon geographically specific expenditure data related to a family’s likely minimum food, childcare, health insurance, housing, transportation and other basic necessities (e.g. clothing, personal care items, etc.) costs.”
The MIT researchers also make clear what their living wage standard is capable of purchasing in all the various regions of the U.S. They write:
The living wage model does not allow for what many consider the basic necessities enjoyed by many Americans. It does not budget funds for pre-prepared meals or those eaten in restaurants. It does not include money for entertainment, nor does it allocate leisure time for unpaid vacations or holidays. Lastly, it does not provide a financial means for planning for the future through savings and investment or for the purchase of capital assets. The living wage is the minimum income standard that, if met, draws a very fine line between the financial independence of the working poor and the need to seek out public assistance or suffer consistent and severe housing and food insecurity. In light of this fact, the living wage is perhaps better defined as a minimum subsistence wage for persons living in the United States.
Given this description of how the MIT researchers define a “living wage” standard, their results as to what constitutes a living wage in various regions of the U.S. are striking. For example, considering a family with a single parent and one child, the MIT Calculator finds that as a statewide average, the living wage would range from a low in Mississippi of $26.74 to a high in Massachusetts of $36.88. Wisconsin is in the middle of the state living wage average, at $30.17.
In short, the fight for a $15 federal minimum wage needs to be won. But it should also be recognized as being an important but still small step toward reversing the impact of 40 years of neoliberal economic policies on the lives of working people in the United States.
C.J. Polychroniou: The general argument against raising the minimum wage is that it is bad for small business and the economy in general. Is there any truth in this claim?
Robert Pollin: Going through a bit of background will be helpful here. The federal minimum wage was last increased in July 2009, from $6.55 an hour to $7.25. So, no increase in 12 years. But actually, the situation is far worse than even what this suggests. That is because, at the very least, we have to factor in the effects of inflation on people’s ability to buy the things they need to live. Inflation means that the prices of food, housing, transportation, clothing and other necessities have been rising. So the minimum wage today would need to be $8.77 in order to buy what $7.25 could buy in 2009.
But there is still much more to the story once we take account of inflation. That is, after we factor in inflation, the U.S. minimum wage actually peaked in 1968, 52 years ago. In today’s dollars, after factoring in inflation, the federal minimum wage in 1968 was $11.90, 64 percent higher than today’s $7.25 figure. Further still, average labor productivity — i.e., the amount of goods or services an average worker can produce over the course of a day in the U.S. — has risen at an average rate of 1.9 percent per year since 1968. What if, starting in 1968, the federal minimum wage had risen every year in step with the 1.9 percent average increase in productivity as well as inflation? That would mean that minimum wage workers would get raises when they are producing more every day, but their raise would only equal exactly their 1.9 percent improvement in productivity but not a penny more. In that case, the federal minimum wage today would be $31.67 an hour -- over four times higher than the actual federal minimum wage today.
Now if we go back to 1968, when the federal minimum wage was approximately $11.90 in today’s dollars, in fact the U.S. economy was booming. The official unemployment rate was 3.6 percent, i.e., less than half of the average 8.1 percent unemployment rate over 2020. So it is obvious that the U.S. economy can function just fine at a much higher federal minimum wage rate than the $7.25 rate that prevails today.
We also get basically the same result by looking at the experiences in recent years with minimum wage laws in U.S. states and living wage statues in some municipalities that are higher than the federal minimum wage. Right now, 29 states along with the District of Columbia operate with minimum wage rates higher than the federal minimum. The citywide minimum in Washington, D.C., is already at $15.00, and the State of Washington is next highest at $13.69. The evidence on the experiences in these states and cities is that businesses function at least as well if not better than those states that still operate at the federal $7.25 minimum. The employment opportunities in these states and cities are also at least as good if not better.
It is fair to ask: If businesses are mandated to pay higher wages than they would choose to pay otherwise, then why is it that we don’t see these businesses lay off employees or close up operations after they are forced to give raises? The answer is that the overwhelming majority of businesses don’t want to be forced to raise wages for their employees, but they learn to adjust. They might raise their prices modestly to cover their increased payroll. The businesses’ level of productivity is also likely to improve. This is because their workers become more committed to their jobs when they are paid at minimally decent levels. These productivity increases will not be enough to compensate for the businesses’ increased payroll, but they will help to partially cover some of their higher costs.
Finally, some businesses may just end up accepting modestly lower profits, even if reluctantly. To the extent this occurs, raising the minimum wage will end up advancing a more equal distribution of income between businesses and workers. This is after 40 years under neoliberalism in which inequality has risen relentlessly. The decline in the value of the minimum wage, after adjusting for inflation, has been a significant factor contributing to the overall rise in inequality under neoliberalism.
Millions of Americans earn wages at or below the federal minimum. Are there estimates of the consequences of a wage hike to $15 an hour on the lives of the working poor?
According to a range of research compiled by the Economic Policy Institute, increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 would deliver pay increases for nearly 32 million workers, 21 percent of the entire U.S. workforce. Nearly 60 percent of workers whose families are currently living below the official poverty line would see their pay go up. The average affected worker with a year-round full-time job would earn an extra $3,300 per year. This would have a major impact on the lives of these workers and their families. It would mean, for example, they would be able to take care of an elderly relative rather than work a second job to cover rent. It would mean they could get their car repaired when that becomes necessary without having to cut back on buying food. It could even mean that they could take a modest vacation.
It is also important to note that the minimum wage increase to $15 an hour would disproportionately benefit Black and Latino workers — with 31 percent of Black people and 26 percent of Latinos getting raises through the minimum wage increase. Finally, we have to dispel the idea that a minimum wage increase largely benefits teenagers with after-school part-time jobs. Only 10 percent of the workers who would benefit from the $15 minimum wage are teenagers. But it is also the case that teenagers deserve to be paid decently. A large share of them are making significant contributions to their families’ overall income level.
Is a $15 minimum wage itself really enough for a worker to live on decently?
We should be clear that raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour takes us only a small way towards establishing decent wage standards in the U.S. A critical question to ask here is: What would constitute a living wage standard in the U.S.? There have been various efforts at addressing this question. One of the most comprehensive efforts has been by a team of researchers at MIT, led by Professor Amy Glasmeier, who produce what they call a “Living Wage Calculator.” The MIT researchers describe their living wage standard as follows: “It is a market-based approach that draws upon geographically specific expenditure data related to a family’s likely minimum food, childcare, health insurance, housing, transportation and other basic necessities (e.g. clothing, personal care items, etc.) costs.”
The MIT researchers also make clear what their living wage standard is capable of purchasing in all the various regions of the U.S. They write:
The living wage model does not allow for what many consider the basic necessities enjoyed by many Americans. It does not budget funds for pre-prepared meals or those eaten in restaurants. It does not include money for entertainment, nor does it allocate leisure time for unpaid vacations or holidays. Lastly, it does not provide a financial means for planning for the future through savings and investment or for the purchase of capital assets. The living wage is the minimum income standard that, if met, draws a very fine line between the financial independence of the working poor and the need to seek out public assistance or suffer consistent and severe housing and food insecurity. In light of this fact, the living wage is perhaps better defined as a minimum subsistence wage for persons living in the United States.
Given this description of how the MIT researchers define a “living wage” standard, their results as to what constitutes a living wage in various regions of the U.S. are striking. For example, considering a family with a single parent and one child, the MIT Calculator finds that as a statewide average, the living wage would range from a low in Mississippi of $26.74 to a high in Massachusetts of $36.88. Wisconsin is in the middle of the state living wage average, at $30.17.
In short, the fight for a $15 federal minimum wage needs to be won. But it should also be recognized as being an important but still small step toward reversing the impact of 40 years of neoliberal economic policies on the lives of working people in the United States.
Why it's time to make large corporations pay living wages
Phil Mattera, DC Report @ Raw Story
February 26, 2021
There was a time when landing a job with a large corporation was, even for blue-collar workers, a ticket to a comfortable life—good wages, generous benefits and a secure retirement. Women and workers of color did not share fully in this bounty, but they generally did better at big firms than small ones.
All this began to unravel in the 1980s, when big business used the excuse of global competition to chip away at the living standards of the domestic workforce. This took the form of an assault on unions, which had played a key role in bringing about the improvements in the terms of employment. In meatpacking, for instance, what had been a high-wage, high-union-density industry turned into a bastion of precarious labor.
The real solution to the problem is not voluntary corporate action but rather collective bargaining. Amazon and Walmart could assist their workers by dropping their opposition to unionization.
When large corporations off-loaded a substantial portion of their employment costs, they created a higher burden for the public sector. As their pay and benefits shrank, workers turned to the social safety net to fill the gap. Programs such as Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) that were originally designed for employees of small firms and for the unemployed became a lifeline for the workforce at some Fortune 500 companies.
Subsidizing Labor Costs
From a social point of view, this was a good thing—but it also created a situation in which taxpayers were in effect subsidizing the labor costs of mega-corporations. This became an issue in the early 2000s with regard to Walmart, and there were unsuccessful efforts in states such as Maryland to require large firms to spend more on employee healthcare.
Although the issue receded from public attention, figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have sought to keep it alive, putting the main focus on the employment practices of Amazon.com. In 2018 Sanders helped pressure the giant e-commerce firm to raise its wage rates by introducing legislation that would have taxed large companies to recoup the cost of government benefits given to their employees.
Now the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Sanders is continuing his effort from a position of even greater influence. He just held a hearing on whether taxpayers are subsidizing poverty wages at large corporations. As in 2018, just highlighting the issue had a concrete impact. At the hearing on Thursday (Feb. 25), the chief executive of Costco announced that his company would raise its minimum pay rate to $16 an hour. This came a week after Walmart hiked its rate to $15 but only for a portion of its workforce.
Some Wage Boosts
After years of wage stagnation, it is heartening to see that large companies are beginning to feel some pressure to boost their wage rates. Yet rises of only a few dollars an hour will not do the trick. Pay needs to be substantially higher than $15 an hour. That's why the real solution to the problem is not voluntary corporate action but rather collective bargaining. Amazon and Walmart could assist their workers much more by dropping their opposition to unionization.
Having a voice at work would solve not only the pay problem but also the crisis in healthcare coverage and other benefits. The scope of that crisis was made plain by another speaker at the Senate Budget Committee hearing. Cindy Brown Barnes of the Government Accountability Office summarized research showing that an estimated 12 million adults enrolled in Medicaid and 9 million adults living in households receiving food stamp benefits earned wages at some point in 2018.
The GAO had more difficulty determining the portion of these populations employed at large corporations. That is because only a limited number of the state agencies administering Medicaid and food stamps collect and update employer information on recipients.
Corporations On the Dole
The partial data is still revealing. Among the six states providing employer information for Medicaid recipients, Walmart was in the top 10 in all, while McDonald's and Amazon were in five. Among the nine states providing employer information for food stamp recipients, Walmart was in the top 10 in all, while McDonald's was in eight and Amazon was in four.
These findings provide valuable information for the Sanders campaign against poverty wages. Companies such as Amazon—which recently reported that its annual revenues in 2020 were up 38% and its profits nearly doubled to $21 billion—can well afford to pay employees a living wage and provide the benefits necessary for a decent standard of living.
Public safety net programs are essential to society, but those who are employed by mega-corporations should not have to make use of them.
All this began to unravel in the 1980s, when big business used the excuse of global competition to chip away at the living standards of the domestic workforce. This took the form of an assault on unions, which had played a key role in bringing about the improvements in the terms of employment. In meatpacking, for instance, what had been a high-wage, high-union-density industry turned into a bastion of precarious labor.
The real solution to the problem is not voluntary corporate action but rather collective bargaining. Amazon and Walmart could assist their workers by dropping their opposition to unionization.
When large corporations off-loaded a substantial portion of their employment costs, they created a higher burden for the public sector. As their pay and benefits shrank, workers turned to the social safety net to fill the gap. Programs such as Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) that were originally designed for employees of small firms and for the unemployed became a lifeline for the workforce at some Fortune 500 companies.
Subsidizing Labor Costs
From a social point of view, this was a good thing—but it also created a situation in which taxpayers were in effect subsidizing the labor costs of mega-corporations. This became an issue in the early 2000s with regard to Walmart, and there were unsuccessful efforts in states such as Maryland to require large firms to spend more on employee healthcare.
Although the issue receded from public attention, figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have sought to keep it alive, putting the main focus on the employment practices of Amazon.com. In 2018 Sanders helped pressure the giant e-commerce firm to raise its wage rates by introducing legislation that would have taxed large companies to recoup the cost of government benefits given to their employees.
Now the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Sanders is continuing his effort from a position of even greater influence. He just held a hearing on whether taxpayers are subsidizing poverty wages at large corporations. As in 2018, just highlighting the issue had a concrete impact. At the hearing on Thursday (Feb. 25), the chief executive of Costco announced that his company would raise its minimum pay rate to $16 an hour. This came a week after Walmart hiked its rate to $15 but only for a portion of its workforce.
Some Wage Boosts
After years of wage stagnation, it is heartening to see that large companies are beginning to feel some pressure to boost their wage rates. Yet rises of only a few dollars an hour will not do the trick. Pay needs to be substantially higher than $15 an hour. That's why the real solution to the problem is not voluntary corporate action but rather collective bargaining. Amazon and Walmart could assist their workers much more by dropping their opposition to unionization.
Having a voice at work would solve not only the pay problem but also the crisis in healthcare coverage and other benefits. The scope of that crisis was made plain by another speaker at the Senate Budget Committee hearing. Cindy Brown Barnes of the Government Accountability Office summarized research showing that an estimated 12 million adults enrolled in Medicaid and 9 million adults living in households receiving food stamp benefits earned wages at some point in 2018.
The GAO had more difficulty determining the portion of these populations employed at large corporations. That is because only a limited number of the state agencies administering Medicaid and food stamps collect and update employer information on recipients.
Corporations On the Dole
The partial data is still revealing. Among the six states providing employer information for Medicaid recipients, Walmart was in the top 10 in all, while McDonald's and Amazon were in five. Among the nine states providing employer information for food stamp recipients, Walmart was in the top 10 in all, while McDonald's was in eight and Amazon was in four.
These findings provide valuable information for the Sanders campaign against poverty wages. Companies such as Amazon—which recently reported that its annual revenues in 2020 were up 38% and its profits nearly doubled to $21 billion—can well afford to pay employees a living wage and provide the benefits necessary for a decent standard of living.
Public safety net programs are essential to society, but those who are employed by mega-corporations should not have to make use of them.
USING SLAVERY FOR SWEETS!!!
The 1.5 Million Child Slaves Behind Your Chocolate Bar
Lawsuit Cites Global Candy Companies; Seeks Freedom, Compensation for Children Forced into Dangerous Work on Cocoa Farms
By Jillian S. Ambroz - DC REPORT
2/23/2021
Next time you take a bite of a chocolate bar, consider the small hands that farmed the cocoa beans.
Industrial food heavyweights like Nestlé USA, Hershey and MARS Inc., rely on cocoa grown in Côte D’Ivoire, the Ivory Coast, to make their confections. And the West African nation relies on enslaved child laborers to farm its cocoa crops, a well-known fact in the candy world that keeps the cocoa at favorably low prices for the big companies.
A class-action civil suit brought against the big chocolate companies sheds stark light on the entire candy bar industry. It outlines the relationships between the candy makers and the cocoa farms in West Africa, which provide 70% of the world’s cocoa supply. Half is grown in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Most American chocolate is made from Ivory Coast cocoa beans.
The plaintiffs are eight former enslaved children who, the court papers charge, were trafficked from their home country Mali, and sold to cocoa farms in the neighboring West African country.
“This lawsuit against the cocoa and chocolate industry is about much more than the eight Malian citizens who were trafficked and exploited as child slaves to harvest cocoa,” says Fernando Morales-de la Cruz, founder of Cacao for Change and Cartoons for Change. Both organizations in Strasbourg, France, seek to raise awareness of child labor in both the cocoa and coffee trades.
Low Price Business Model
“The business model of the chocolate industry is cruel, exploitative, and illegal because it exploits between 2.2 and 3 million children worldwide, besides exploiting millions of farmers and farmworkers, all to buy cocoa for less than one-third of the real price,” Morales-de la Cruz said.
He noted that a number of chocolate companies run their revenues through Switzerland to avoid taxes in countries, like the United States, where they earn their profits selling chocolate confections. “With their Swissploitation business model the cartel of cocoa companies ‘saves’ more than $20 billion per year buying cheap cocoa,” he said.
This is the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor as declared by the United Nation’s International Labor Organization. The time is ripe to press for an end to profiting off exploitive and forced child labor.
Make no mistake, chocolate is big business. The global chocolate market is a $136 billion business. It’s expected to grow to $182 billion by 2025.
The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Columbia just days ago, selecting the U.S. legal system for several reasons. In 2000, Congress and President Bill Clinton enacted a landmark law against human trafficking known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, or TVPA. It has been reauthorized five times, most recently in 2019 with Congress earmarking $250 million toward the effort. That law gives us extraterritorial jurisdiction.
Our Government Knows
Since the 1990s, the U.S. State Department and the Department of Labor have recognized the existence of child slavery in the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast. In 2004, State estimated there were at least 15,000 child laborers working on cocoa, coffee and cotton farms there. As the photo above shows these children wield machetes to do their dangerous harvesting.
A study conducted by Tulane University in 2015 found that the number of children engaged in the ‘Worst Forms of Child Labor’ on cocoa plantations grew substantially between 2009 and 2014.
In October 2020, a new report by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, which was funded by Labor, was released showing child labor had increased again in the cocoa production sector since the Tulane study.
In the 2018 to 2019 harvest season, the prevalence of children involved in hazardous child labor in the cocoa sector in the Ivory Coast and Ghana rose to almost 1.5 million children. That’s also 1,000 times the official U.S. estimate in 2004. The Ivory Coast has fewer than 26 million people.
Hazardous Work
The study also found that in cocoa-growing regions of Ghana and the Ivory Coast more than 43% of all children between the ages of 5 and 17 living in agricultural households are engaged in hazardous work – not just child labor, but hazardous child labor.
Comparing a 10-year span concluding with the 2018-2019 harvest season, the NORC report found a 14% increase in child labor and a 62% increase in production over the same period.
“There is a large group of extremely poor, vulnerable boys in Mali and Burkina Faso who are on the verge of starving and will do about anything for the promise of a paying job,” said Terry Collingsworth, who was arrested by the Ivory Coast police as he interviewed enslaved boys at a cocoa plantation. Collingsworth is executive director of International Rights Advocates.
Mali and Burkina Faso both border the Ivory Coast. Cacao refers to the beans harvested to make chocolate. Cocoa refers to the product after the beans are roasted.
Sweet Talk
So, what’s the U.S. government doing besides bankrolling studies?
In 2001, the House passed a bill that would require U.S. importers and manufacturers to certify and label their products “slave-free.” Have you seen those startling words on your recent candy wrappers? No? That’s because of what’s known as the Cocoa Cartel, the defendants in the lawsuit, rallied against it.
Instead, they were able to get themselves a sweet deal, the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a voluntary private inspection and enforcement system that all but guaranteed the continuance of enslaved child labor.
In fact, as part of the initial Harkin-Engel Protocol, the candy companies gave themselves an arbitrary deadline till 2005 to end their reliance on child labor for cocoa harvesting. That deadline got extended again and again.
Now the industry has a goal to stop profiting from enslaved child labor by 2025, though an industry spokesperson admitted in 2018 that the industry would fail to meet that deadline.
As the class-action suit alleges, the defendants’ “voluntary initiative is a sham, and they are getting away with and profiting from an international human rights crime while claiming they are making progress.”
Given the fact that enslaved children are still picking the beans, it’s fair to call it the Cocoa Cartel strategy “see no enslaved children.” Clearly, this willful blindless strategy worked.
The U.S. government has several agencies monitoring human trafficking, in addition to the State Department and Department of Labor, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
A Loophole Hurts Kids
There are several federal laws going back to the Tariff Act of 1930 designed to reduce the profit motive for labor trafficking by barring the import of goods made with trafficked labor.
But these laws had a loophole. All importers had to do was show that domestic production could not meet demand and the use of enslaved children was irrelevant. Since the United States is not a cocoa bean country, that was as easy as breaking off a piece of a KitKat bar.
That loophole was supposedly closed in 2015, although almost no one noticed. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 was intended to close a loophole in an earlier law that made it possible for goods produced using forced labor to still enter the United States.
The new law enhanced the Customs and Border Patrol’s ability to block such products altogether.
Clearly, the chocolate titans found a workaround. The lawsuit brought on behalf of the enslaved children asserts that the “defendants have engaged in various deceptive practices to avoid taking responsibility for their long-term profiting from various forms of child slavery.”
After the Tulane report came out, the defendants “renewed their false assurances to consumers and regulators that they would initiate programs to reduce child labor in their supply chains,” according to the suit. As the NORC study showed, child labor increased.
The suit states, “Defendants control production and could, if they wanted to, stop profiting from child labor. Instead, they chose to delay taking action by creating ineffective programs that provide public relations cover for their obviously failed efforts.”
---
Corporate Accountability
At the heart of that lawsuit is whether domestic corporations can be held accountable and liable for aiding and abetting human rights crimes committed abroad. The case could redefine the limits of corporate liability under the ATS, according to the blog Just Security.
The Trump administration tried to intervene in the case. Strangely, the acting solicitor general filed briefs on an issue none of the parties raised: whether aiding and abetting liability claims are ever permissible under the Alien Tort Statute.
“Child labor is unacceptable and goes against everything we stand for. Nestlé has explicit policies against it and is unwavering in our dedication to ending it. We remain committed to combatting child labor within the cocoa supply chain and addressing its root causes as part of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan and through collaborative efforts,” a Nestlé spokesperson said. “This lawsuit does not advance the shared goal of ending child labor in the cocoa industry.
Child labor is a complex, global problem. Tackling this issue is a shared responsibility. All stakeholders – including governments, NGOs, the communities and the broader cocoa industry – need to continue to address its root causes to have an impact.”
Some candy companies have made public efforts to at least make seem like they are trying to make changes – putting band-aids on a cancerous practice. MARS launched an endeavor in 2018 to “reshape the cocoa industry,” noting the child labor and forced labor practices of the cocoa farms, for example. That effort is backed by what the company says is $1 billion.
Since the cocoa industry’s use of child labor has been on the world’s radar for years, it clearly will require a large-scale public reckoning and massive revenue loss to see any real change.
We would love to tell you much more about this story from the perspective of the candy companies and the federal agencies that are supposed to seize as contraband imported products made with child labor and slave labor. The problem? Calls to Hershey’s, MARS and the Customs Border Patrol were not returned. Only Nestlé responded, as noted above.
Industrial food heavyweights like Nestlé USA, Hershey and MARS Inc., rely on cocoa grown in Côte D’Ivoire, the Ivory Coast, to make their confections. And the West African nation relies on enslaved child laborers to farm its cocoa crops, a well-known fact in the candy world that keeps the cocoa at favorably low prices for the big companies.
A class-action civil suit brought against the big chocolate companies sheds stark light on the entire candy bar industry. It outlines the relationships between the candy makers and the cocoa farms in West Africa, which provide 70% of the world’s cocoa supply. Half is grown in Ghana and Ivory Coast. Most American chocolate is made from Ivory Coast cocoa beans.
The plaintiffs are eight former enslaved children who, the court papers charge, were trafficked from their home country Mali, and sold to cocoa farms in the neighboring West African country.
“This lawsuit against the cocoa and chocolate industry is about much more than the eight Malian citizens who were trafficked and exploited as child slaves to harvest cocoa,” says Fernando Morales-de la Cruz, founder of Cacao for Change and Cartoons for Change. Both organizations in Strasbourg, France, seek to raise awareness of child labor in both the cocoa and coffee trades.
Low Price Business Model
“The business model of the chocolate industry is cruel, exploitative, and illegal because it exploits between 2.2 and 3 million children worldwide, besides exploiting millions of farmers and farmworkers, all to buy cocoa for less than one-third of the real price,” Morales-de la Cruz said.
He noted that a number of chocolate companies run their revenues through Switzerland to avoid taxes in countries, like the United States, where they earn their profits selling chocolate confections. “With their Swissploitation business model the cartel of cocoa companies ‘saves’ more than $20 billion per year buying cheap cocoa,” he said.
This is the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor as declared by the United Nation’s International Labor Organization. The time is ripe to press for an end to profiting off exploitive and forced child labor.
Make no mistake, chocolate is big business. The global chocolate market is a $136 billion business. It’s expected to grow to $182 billion by 2025.
The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Columbia just days ago, selecting the U.S. legal system for several reasons. In 2000, Congress and President Bill Clinton enacted a landmark law against human trafficking known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, or TVPA. It has been reauthorized five times, most recently in 2019 with Congress earmarking $250 million toward the effort. That law gives us extraterritorial jurisdiction.
Our Government Knows
Since the 1990s, the U.S. State Department and the Department of Labor have recognized the existence of child slavery in the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast. In 2004, State estimated there were at least 15,000 child laborers working on cocoa, coffee and cotton farms there. As the photo above shows these children wield machetes to do their dangerous harvesting.
A study conducted by Tulane University in 2015 found that the number of children engaged in the ‘Worst Forms of Child Labor’ on cocoa plantations grew substantially between 2009 and 2014.
In October 2020, a new report by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, which was funded by Labor, was released showing child labor had increased again in the cocoa production sector since the Tulane study.
In the 2018 to 2019 harvest season, the prevalence of children involved in hazardous child labor in the cocoa sector in the Ivory Coast and Ghana rose to almost 1.5 million children. That’s also 1,000 times the official U.S. estimate in 2004. The Ivory Coast has fewer than 26 million people.
Hazardous Work
The study also found that in cocoa-growing regions of Ghana and the Ivory Coast more than 43% of all children between the ages of 5 and 17 living in agricultural households are engaged in hazardous work – not just child labor, but hazardous child labor.
Comparing a 10-year span concluding with the 2018-2019 harvest season, the NORC report found a 14% increase in child labor and a 62% increase in production over the same period.
“There is a large group of extremely poor, vulnerable boys in Mali and Burkina Faso who are on the verge of starving and will do about anything for the promise of a paying job,” said Terry Collingsworth, who was arrested by the Ivory Coast police as he interviewed enslaved boys at a cocoa plantation. Collingsworth is executive director of International Rights Advocates.
Mali and Burkina Faso both border the Ivory Coast. Cacao refers to the beans harvested to make chocolate. Cocoa refers to the product after the beans are roasted.
Sweet Talk
So, what’s the U.S. government doing besides bankrolling studies?
In 2001, the House passed a bill that would require U.S. importers and manufacturers to certify and label their products “slave-free.” Have you seen those startling words on your recent candy wrappers? No? That’s because of what’s known as the Cocoa Cartel, the defendants in the lawsuit, rallied against it.
Instead, they were able to get themselves a sweet deal, the Harkin-Engel Protocol, a voluntary private inspection and enforcement system that all but guaranteed the continuance of enslaved child labor.
In fact, as part of the initial Harkin-Engel Protocol, the candy companies gave themselves an arbitrary deadline till 2005 to end their reliance on child labor for cocoa harvesting. That deadline got extended again and again.
Now the industry has a goal to stop profiting from enslaved child labor by 2025, though an industry spokesperson admitted in 2018 that the industry would fail to meet that deadline.
As the class-action suit alleges, the defendants’ “voluntary initiative is a sham, and they are getting away with and profiting from an international human rights crime while claiming they are making progress.”
Given the fact that enslaved children are still picking the beans, it’s fair to call it the Cocoa Cartel strategy “see no enslaved children.” Clearly, this willful blindless strategy worked.
The U.S. government has several agencies monitoring human trafficking, in addition to the State Department and Department of Labor, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
A Loophole Hurts Kids
There are several federal laws going back to the Tariff Act of 1930 designed to reduce the profit motive for labor trafficking by barring the import of goods made with trafficked labor.
But these laws had a loophole. All importers had to do was show that domestic production could not meet demand and the use of enslaved children was irrelevant. Since the United States is not a cocoa bean country, that was as easy as breaking off a piece of a KitKat bar.
That loophole was supposedly closed in 2015, although almost no one noticed. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 was intended to close a loophole in an earlier law that made it possible for goods produced using forced labor to still enter the United States.
The new law enhanced the Customs and Border Patrol’s ability to block such products altogether.
Clearly, the chocolate titans found a workaround. The lawsuit brought on behalf of the enslaved children asserts that the “defendants have engaged in various deceptive practices to avoid taking responsibility for their long-term profiting from various forms of child slavery.”
After the Tulane report came out, the defendants “renewed their false assurances to consumers and regulators that they would initiate programs to reduce child labor in their supply chains,” according to the suit. As the NORC study showed, child labor increased.
The suit states, “Defendants control production and could, if they wanted to, stop profiting from child labor. Instead, they chose to delay taking action by creating ineffective programs that provide public relations cover for their obviously failed efforts.”
---
Corporate Accountability
At the heart of that lawsuit is whether domestic corporations can be held accountable and liable for aiding and abetting human rights crimes committed abroad. The case could redefine the limits of corporate liability under the ATS, according to the blog Just Security.
The Trump administration tried to intervene in the case. Strangely, the acting solicitor general filed briefs on an issue none of the parties raised: whether aiding and abetting liability claims are ever permissible under the Alien Tort Statute.
“Child labor is unacceptable and goes against everything we stand for. Nestlé has explicit policies against it and is unwavering in our dedication to ending it. We remain committed to combatting child labor within the cocoa supply chain and addressing its root causes as part of the Nestlé Cocoa Plan and through collaborative efforts,” a Nestlé spokesperson said. “This lawsuit does not advance the shared goal of ending child labor in the cocoa industry.
Child labor is a complex, global problem. Tackling this issue is a shared responsibility. All stakeholders – including governments, NGOs, the communities and the broader cocoa industry – need to continue to address its root causes to have an impact.”
Some candy companies have made public efforts to at least make seem like they are trying to make changes – putting band-aids on a cancerous practice. MARS launched an endeavor in 2018 to “reshape the cocoa industry,” noting the child labor and forced labor practices of the cocoa farms, for example. That effort is backed by what the company says is $1 billion.
Since the cocoa industry’s use of child labor has been on the world’s radar for years, it clearly will require a large-scale public reckoning and massive revenue loss to see any real change.
We would love to tell you much more about this story from the perspective of the candy companies and the federal agencies that are supposed to seize as contraband imported products made with child labor and slave labor. The problem? Calls to Hershey’s, MARS and the Customs Border Patrol were not returned. Only Nestlé responded, as noted above.
How corporations try to divide and exploit America's workers
Tom Conway and Independent Media Institute - ALTERNET
February 18, 2021
Dave Dell Isola, the son and grandson of union members, grew up grateful for the family-sustaining wages and benefits that organized labor won for working people.
But he never fully grasped the might of solidarity until he and his wife, Barbara, and their two sons lost everything in an apartment fire. Dell Isola's brothers and sisters in the United Steelworkers (USW) rushed to the couple's side with financial assistance and other support to help them through the tragedy.
"They had me in tears," recalled Dell Isola, now vice president of USW Local 12012, which represents hundreds of natural gas and propane industry workers in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
The union bond is so powerful that corporate interests and their allies across the country desperately want to smash it.
Twenty-seven states already have falsely named right-to-work (RTW) laws on the books, and advocates of these union-busting measures now hope to enact them in New Hampshire and Montana.
In addition, corporations and their allies want to make another effort to ram the legislation through in Missouri, even though angry voters there rejected it by a landslide just a few years ago. And Republican lawmakers in Tennessee want to enshrine their anti-worker law in the state constitution, just to make it more difficult for wiser heads to repeal the legislation one day.
Working people only win fair wages, decent benefits and safe working conditions when they stand together. Solidarity also gives union members the grit to survive battles like the months-long lockout that Dell Isola and his coworkers at National Grid in Massachusetts endured during their successful fight for a fair contract.
Corporations want to rig the scales in their favor. They push RTW laws so they can divide workers—tear at the union bond—and exploit them more easily.
These laws allow workers to opt out of supporting unions while still reaping the benefits. Unions remain legally bound to represent workers regardless of whether they pay dues.
And just as corporations want, that erodes union activism and starves locals like Dell Isola's of the resources they need to bargain with strength, enforce contracts, build solidarity and survive labor disputes.
"It snowballs into not being able to represent people," explained Dell Isola, noting the laws' corrosive force helps employers not only depress wages but also claw back sick time and other benefits earned with the sweat, blood and unity of previous generations of union members. "It's un-American to expect people to work for you, bargain for you, and not pay them anything."
Workers call them "right-to-work-for-less" laws. That's because people in states with RTW legislation earn 3 percent lower wages, on average, than their peers in other parts of the country.
Also, workers in these states are less likely to have employer-provided health insurance and retirement plans, but more likely to die in workplace incidents, than their counterparts elsewhere.
Nobody, outside of corporations and conservative groups, wants these laws, Dell Isola said, pointing out that officials in New Hampshire rejected the legislation dozens of times over the years "because of the outrage of the people."
Yet out-of-state agitators with deep pockets are bankrolling another push, hoping they can dupe the Republican legislature and governor into enacting it.
"They're trying to weasel their way into the Northeast by starting with New Hampshire," explained Dell Isola, noting an overwhelming cross section of voters, local government officials and business owners not only adamantly opposes the bill but resents the outsiders' efforts to foist it on them.
When Republicans and corporations schemed to enact the legislation in Missouri four years ago, John "Tiny" Powell knew how much he and other workers stood to lose. So he joined a broad-based grassroots movement to overturn the law with a first-of-its-kind referendum.
Powell, vice president of USW Local 169G and an electrician at Mississippi Lime Company in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, stood at a busy intersection for hours and helped to gather 800 of the signatures needed to get the referendum on the ballot.
Ultimately, he and other activists delivered an astonishing 310,000 signatures to state election officials--more than three times the number required—and celebrated the coming referendum with a rally so large that the state Capitol "sounded like a hornet's nest."
Powell put hundreds of miles on his car as he traveled dusty rural roads and stopped at one house after another to educate voters about the importance of killing RTW through the referendum.
He explained that dues are a small price to pay for the benefits unions provide. And Powell, who takes pride in his local's bargaining power every time a member can afford to buy a house or welcome a baby, stressed that strong unions mean strong families.
"These companies are not going to give you everything out of the goodness of their hearts," Powell said. "They start sweating when they see you standing together."
Just as Missouri voters turned out in force to strike down a law they never wanted, Dell Isola and a large coalition of New Hampshire residents are working hard to defeat the legislation there.
If enacted, he said, many workers simply won't stand for it.
As soon as employers take steps to dilute union membership, drag down pay and cut corners on safety, he predicted, many will take jobs in Massachusetts or other states. They'll go where workers still stand together and fight for the wages, benefits and working conditions that sustained Dell Isola's family for generations.
"My blood's been in the union a long time," he said. "I wouldn't go any other way."
But he never fully grasped the might of solidarity until he and his wife, Barbara, and their two sons lost everything in an apartment fire. Dell Isola's brothers and sisters in the United Steelworkers (USW) rushed to the couple's side with financial assistance and other support to help them through the tragedy.
"They had me in tears," recalled Dell Isola, now vice president of USW Local 12012, which represents hundreds of natural gas and propane industry workers in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
The union bond is so powerful that corporate interests and their allies across the country desperately want to smash it.
Twenty-seven states already have falsely named right-to-work (RTW) laws on the books, and advocates of these union-busting measures now hope to enact them in New Hampshire and Montana.
In addition, corporations and their allies want to make another effort to ram the legislation through in Missouri, even though angry voters there rejected it by a landslide just a few years ago. And Republican lawmakers in Tennessee want to enshrine their anti-worker law in the state constitution, just to make it more difficult for wiser heads to repeal the legislation one day.
Working people only win fair wages, decent benefits and safe working conditions when they stand together. Solidarity also gives union members the grit to survive battles like the months-long lockout that Dell Isola and his coworkers at National Grid in Massachusetts endured during their successful fight for a fair contract.
Corporations want to rig the scales in their favor. They push RTW laws so they can divide workers—tear at the union bond—and exploit them more easily.
These laws allow workers to opt out of supporting unions while still reaping the benefits. Unions remain legally bound to represent workers regardless of whether they pay dues.
And just as corporations want, that erodes union activism and starves locals like Dell Isola's of the resources they need to bargain with strength, enforce contracts, build solidarity and survive labor disputes.
"It snowballs into not being able to represent people," explained Dell Isola, noting the laws' corrosive force helps employers not only depress wages but also claw back sick time and other benefits earned with the sweat, blood and unity of previous generations of union members. "It's un-American to expect people to work for you, bargain for you, and not pay them anything."
Workers call them "right-to-work-for-less" laws. That's because people in states with RTW legislation earn 3 percent lower wages, on average, than their peers in other parts of the country.
Also, workers in these states are less likely to have employer-provided health insurance and retirement plans, but more likely to die in workplace incidents, than their counterparts elsewhere.
Nobody, outside of corporations and conservative groups, wants these laws, Dell Isola said, pointing out that officials in New Hampshire rejected the legislation dozens of times over the years "because of the outrage of the people."
Yet out-of-state agitators with deep pockets are bankrolling another push, hoping they can dupe the Republican legislature and governor into enacting it.
"They're trying to weasel their way into the Northeast by starting with New Hampshire," explained Dell Isola, noting an overwhelming cross section of voters, local government officials and business owners not only adamantly opposes the bill but resents the outsiders' efforts to foist it on them.
When Republicans and corporations schemed to enact the legislation in Missouri four years ago, John "Tiny" Powell knew how much he and other workers stood to lose. So he joined a broad-based grassroots movement to overturn the law with a first-of-its-kind referendum.
Powell, vice president of USW Local 169G and an electrician at Mississippi Lime Company in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, stood at a busy intersection for hours and helped to gather 800 of the signatures needed to get the referendum on the ballot.
Ultimately, he and other activists delivered an astonishing 310,000 signatures to state election officials--more than three times the number required—and celebrated the coming referendum with a rally so large that the state Capitol "sounded like a hornet's nest."
Powell put hundreds of miles on his car as he traveled dusty rural roads and stopped at one house after another to educate voters about the importance of killing RTW through the referendum.
He explained that dues are a small price to pay for the benefits unions provide. And Powell, who takes pride in his local's bargaining power every time a member can afford to buy a house or welcome a baby, stressed that strong unions mean strong families.
"These companies are not going to give you everything out of the goodness of their hearts," Powell said. "They start sweating when they see you standing together."
Just as Missouri voters turned out in force to strike down a law they never wanted, Dell Isola and a large coalition of New Hampshire residents are working hard to defeat the legislation there.
If enacted, he said, many workers simply won't stand for it.
As soon as employers take steps to dilute union membership, drag down pay and cut corners on safety, he predicted, many will take jobs in Massachusetts or other states. They'll go where workers still stand together and fight for the wages, benefits and working conditions that sustained Dell Isola's family for generations.
"My blood's been in the union a long time," he said. "I wouldn't go any other way."
plantation nation, home of slave wages!!!
Government study shows taxpayers are subsidizing “starvation wages” at McDonald's, Walmart
Sen. Bernie Sanders called the findings "morally obscene"
By IGOR DERYSH - salon
DECEMBER 12, 2020 3:00PM (UTC).
The advocacy group The Other 98% posted this image as part of its campaign to raise wages for fast food workers.
Millions of Americans employed at some of the country's largest companies have had to rely on food stamps and Medicaid, with giants like Walmart and McDonald's employing the most workers whose income is subsidized by taxpayers, according to a new study.
The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, released a study commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., last month based on data provided by 11 states.
The report found that, in every state studied, Walmart was one of the top four employers whose workers rely on food stamps and Medicaid. McDonald's is among the most subsidized employers in at least nine states.
Walmart employs about 14,500 workers in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington who rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, the study showed, while McDonald's employs about 8,780 SNAP recipients in those states.
More than 2% of the Walmart workforce in states like Georgia and Oklahoma have had to rely on Medicaid benefits, a number that rises to more than 3% in Arkansas, where the company is based.
Other corporate giants who have a large number of workers relying on federal benefits included Amazon, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Subway, Uber, FedEx, Target, Dunkin' Donuts, CVS, Home Depot, and Lowe's.
The report cited data taken before the coronavirus pandemic hit, noting that the issues have likely grown worse.
"The economic effects of the covid-19 pandemic have further exacerbated conditions for these workers, increasing the importance of federal and state safety net programs to help them meet their basic needs," the report said.
Sanders said the report showed that America's largest companies are relying on "corporate welfare from the federal government by paying their workers starvation wages."
"That is morally obscene," he said in a statement. "U.S. taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America."
Sanders noted that the companies have reaped "billions in profits and giving their CEOs tens of millions of dollars a year" while failing to pay workers a "living wage."
Walmart reported more than $5 billion in net income in the last quarter while McDonald's reported more than $1.7 billion during that time frame.
Walmart spokeswoman Anne Hatfield said the company helps many workers get off government assistance.
"If not for the employment access Walmart and other companies provide, many more people would be dependent on government assistance," she told The Washington Post, which first reported the study. "A small percentage of our workforce comes to us on public assistance, and we remove employment barriers and create opportunities for individuals that too many overlook. Walmart has invested more than $5 billion in increased pay, expanded health benefits, and a debt-free college program over the past five years and our starting rate is more than 50% higher than the federal minimum wage, which Washington hasn't changed in more than a decade."
McDonald's spokeswoman Morgan O'Marra argued that the data was misleading.
"The average starting wage at U.S. corporate-owned restaurants is over $10 per hour and exceeds the federal minimum wage," she said in a statement. "McDonald's believes elected leaders have a responsibility to set, debate and change mandated minimum wages and does not lobby against or participate in any activities opposing raising the minimum wage."
The company had long opposed increases to the minimum wage but said last year that it would stop lobbying against such measures.
The GAO report shows that 70% of the 21 million SNAP or Medicaid recipients work full time.
The data dovetails with previous research.
A 2013 study from researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that 73% of people receiving government benefits were from "working families" but had "jobs that pay wages so low that their paychecks do not generate enough income to provide for life's basic necessities."
The study found that the average frontline fast-food worker earns just $8.69 per hour and that about 87% of them did not receive health benefits, leaving them to "rely on taxpayer-funded safety net programs to make ends meet."
The researchers released another report in 2015 showing that more than half of all fast-food workers were in families where at least one member relies on public benefits, costing taxpayers more than $150 billion each year.
Part of the problem is that wages have not kept up with growth in productivity and corporate profits for decades, researchers say. Another key issue is that the federal minimum wage, which is far below the rate it was for decades when adjusted for inflation, has stayed the same for over a decade and has been increased just once in the last two decades.
"Wages at the bottom and middle of the income spectrum have been essentially flat since the late 1970s," Ken Jacobs, the chairman of U.C. Berkeley's Labor Center and a co-author of the earlier reports, told the Post. "As productivity has increased, pay has stayed very low, and again, our federal minimum wage is well below where it would have been if it kept up with inflation and very far where it would have been if it kept up with productivity growth. So many families earn too little to get by on what they earn from their jobs."
There has been growing support to raise the minimum wage to $15. President-elect Joe Biden has called for a $15 federal minimum wage. The House of Representatives voted last year to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 but the proposal was shot down by Senate Republicans. Florida voters overwhelmingly voted to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 over the next six years. Companies like Amazon and Target raised their minimum pay to $15 earlier this year.
Seattle lawmakers voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2017 five years ago. Despite concerns that businesses would leave the city and workers would see their hours cut, the results have largely been positive. There has been no great business exodus from the Emerald City and while there was a rise in workers who had their hours cut, their salaries largely stayed the same while the vast majority of workers "enjoyed significantly more rapid hourly wage growth," according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2018.
Another study from Berkeley looked at minimum wage increases in Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Chicago, and Washington D.C., which ranged from $10 to $13 in 2016, found that the increases did not result in widespread job losses.
"We find that they are working just as the policymakers and voters who enacted these policies intended," Sylvia Allegretto, the co-author of the study and co-chair of Berkeley's Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, told the Seattle Times. "So far they are raising the earnings of low-wage workers without causing significant employment losses."
An analysis of 138 state-level minimum wage increases between 1979 and 2016 published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics last year found that the loss of jobs that paid below minimum wage was offset by new higher-paying jobs.
Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the University of Michigan who served on President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, argued that the best way to approach a minimum wage hike amid the coronavirus pandemic was to couple it with targeted aid for struggling small businesses.
"The federal minimum wage is currently set way too low," she told the Post. "We really don't want workers to be bearing the increases of those costs. As a society we should be sharing that."
RELATED: Almost half of all Americans work in low-wage jobs - CBS Newshttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/minimum-wage-2019...Dec 02, 2019 · Most of the 53 million Americans working in low-wage jobs are adults in their prime working years, or between about 25 to 54, they noted. Their median hourly wage is $10.22 per hour — …
The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, released a study commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., last month based on data provided by 11 states.
The report found that, in every state studied, Walmart was one of the top four employers whose workers rely on food stamps and Medicaid. McDonald's is among the most subsidized employers in at least nine states.
Walmart employs about 14,500 workers in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee and Washington who rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, the study showed, while McDonald's employs about 8,780 SNAP recipients in those states.
More than 2% of the Walmart workforce in states like Georgia and Oklahoma have had to rely on Medicaid benefits, a number that rises to more than 3% in Arkansas, where the company is based.
Other corporate giants who have a large number of workers relying on federal benefits included Amazon, Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Subway, Uber, FedEx, Target, Dunkin' Donuts, CVS, Home Depot, and Lowe's.
The report cited data taken before the coronavirus pandemic hit, noting that the issues have likely grown worse.
"The economic effects of the covid-19 pandemic have further exacerbated conditions for these workers, increasing the importance of federal and state safety net programs to help them meet their basic needs," the report said.
Sanders said the report showed that America's largest companies are relying on "corporate welfare from the federal government by paying their workers starvation wages."
"That is morally obscene," he said in a statement. "U.S. taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America."
Sanders noted that the companies have reaped "billions in profits and giving their CEOs tens of millions of dollars a year" while failing to pay workers a "living wage."
Walmart reported more than $5 billion in net income in the last quarter while McDonald's reported more than $1.7 billion during that time frame.
Walmart spokeswoman Anne Hatfield said the company helps many workers get off government assistance.
"If not for the employment access Walmart and other companies provide, many more people would be dependent on government assistance," she told The Washington Post, which first reported the study. "A small percentage of our workforce comes to us on public assistance, and we remove employment barriers and create opportunities for individuals that too many overlook. Walmart has invested more than $5 billion in increased pay, expanded health benefits, and a debt-free college program over the past five years and our starting rate is more than 50% higher than the federal minimum wage, which Washington hasn't changed in more than a decade."
McDonald's spokeswoman Morgan O'Marra argued that the data was misleading.
"The average starting wage at U.S. corporate-owned restaurants is over $10 per hour and exceeds the federal minimum wage," she said in a statement. "McDonald's believes elected leaders have a responsibility to set, debate and change mandated minimum wages and does not lobby against or participate in any activities opposing raising the minimum wage."
The company had long opposed increases to the minimum wage but said last year that it would stop lobbying against such measures.
The GAO report shows that 70% of the 21 million SNAP or Medicaid recipients work full time.
The data dovetails with previous research.
A 2013 study from researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that 73% of people receiving government benefits were from "working families" but had "jobs that pay wages so low that their paychecks do not generate enough income to provide for life's basic necessities."
The study found that the average frontline fast-food worker earns just $8.69 per hour and that about 87% of them did not receive health benefits, leaving them to "rely on taxpayer-funded safety net programs to make ends meet."
The researchers released another report in 2015 showing that more than half of all fast-food workers were in families where at least one member relies on public benefits, costing taxpayers more than $150 billion each year.
Part of the problem is that wages have not kept up with growth in productivity and corporate profits for decades, researchers say. Another key issue is that the federal minimum wage, which is far below the rate it was for decades when adjusted for inflation, has stayed the same for over a decade and has been increased just once in the last two decades.
"Wages at the bottom and middle of the income spectrum have been essentially flat since the late 1970s," Ken Jacobs, the chairman of U.C. Berkeley's Labor Center and a co-author of the earlier reports, told the Post. "As productivity has increased, pay has stayed very low, and again, our federal minimum wage is well below where it would have been if it kept up with inflation and very far where it would have been if it kept up with productivity growth. So many families earn too little to get by on what they earn from their jobs."
There has been growing support to raise the minimum wage to $15. President-elect Joe Biden has called for a $15 federal minimum wage. The House of Representatives voted last year to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025 but the proposal was shot down by Senate Republicans. Florida voters overwhelmingly voted to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 over the next six years. Companies like Amazon and Target raised their minimum pay to $15 earlier this year.
Seattle lawmakers voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2017 five years ago. Despite concerns that businesses would leave the city and workers would see their hours cut, the results have largely been positive. There has been no great business exodus from the Emerald City and while there was a rise in workers who had their hours cut, their salaries largely stayed the same while the vast majority of workers "enjoyed significantly more rapid hourly wage growth," according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2018.
Another study from Berkeley looked at minimum wage increases in Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Chicago, and Washington D.C., which ranged from $10 to $13 in 2016, found that the increases did not result in widespread job losses.
"We find that they are working just as the policymakers and voters who enacted these policies intended," Sylvia Allegretto, the co-author of the study and co-chair of Berkeley's Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, told the Seattle Times. "So far they are raising the earnings of low-wage workers without causing significant employment losses."
An analysis of 138 state-level minimum wage increases between 1979 and 2016 published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics last year found that the loss of jobs that paid below minimum wage was offset by new higher-paying jobs.
Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the University of Michigan who served on President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, argued that the best way to approach a minimum wage hike amid the coronavirus pandemic was to couple it with targeted aid for struggling small businesses.
"The federal minimum wage is currently set way too low," she told the Post. "We really don't want workers to be bearing the increases of those costs. As a society we should be sharing that."
RELATED: Almost half of all Americans work in low-wage jobs - CBS Newshttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/minimum-wage-2019...Dec 02, 2019 · Most of the 53 million Americans working in low-wage jobs are adults in their prime working years, or between about 25 to 54, they noted. Their median hourly wage is $10.22 per hour — …
CIRCA 1870: A CARTOON SATIRISING THE SWEATSHOPS OF THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY. ORIGINAL ARTIST: BY JOHN LEECH FROM PUNCH MAGAZINE. (PHOTO BY RISCHGITZ/GETTY IMAGES)
Robert Reich: Here are the 5 biggest corporate lies about unions
Robert Reich / Robert Reich's Blog - salon
September 3, 2019
Wealthy corporations and their enablers have spread 5 big lies about unions in order to stop workers from organizing and to protect their own bottom-lines. Know the truth and spread the truth.
Lie #1: Labor unions are bad for workers. Wrong. Unions are good for all workers – even those who are not unionized. In the mid-1950s, when a third of all workers in the United States were unionized, wages grew in tandem with the economy. That’s because workers across America – even those who were not unionized – had significant power to demand and get better wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions. Since then, as union membership has declined, the middle class has shrunk as well.
Lie #2: Unions hurt the economy. Wrong again. When workers are unionized they can negotiate better wages, which in turn spreads the economic gains more evenly and strengthens the middle class. This creates a virtuous cycle: Wages increase, workers have more to spend in their communities, businesses thrive, and the economy grows. Since the 1970s, the decline in unionization accounts for one-third of the increase in income
inequality. Without unions, wealth becomes concentrated at the top and the gains don’t trickle down to workers.
Lie #3: Labor unions are as powerful as big business. No way. Labor union membership in 2018 accounted for 10.5 percent of the American workforce, while large corporations account for almost three-quarters of the entire American economy. And when it comes to political power, it’s big business and small labor. In the 2018 midterms, labor unions contributed less than 70 million dollars to parties and candidates, while big corporations and their political action committees contributed 1.6 billion dollars. This enormous gulf between business and labor is a huge problem. It explains why most economic gains have been going to executives and shareholders rather than workers. But this doesn’t have to be the case.
Lie #4: Most unionized workers are in industries like steel and auto manufacturing. Untrue. Although industrial unions are still vitally important to workers, the largest part of the unionized workforce is workers in the professional and service sectors – retail, restaurant, hotel, hospital, teachers–which comprise 59% of all workers represented by a union. And these workers benefit from being in a union. In 2018, unionized service workers earned a median wage of 802 dollars a week. Non-unionized service workers made on average, $261 less. That’s almost a third less.
Lie #5: Most unionized workers are white, male, and middle-aged. Some unionized workers are, of course, but most newly-unionized workers are not. They’re women, they’re young, and a growing portion are black and brown. In fact, it’s through the power of unions that people who had been historically marginalized in the American economy because of their race, ethnicity, or gender are now gaining economic ground. In 2018, women who were in unions earned 21 percent more than non-unionized women. And African-Americans who were unionized earned nearly 20 percent more than African-Americans who were non-unionized.
Don’t believe the corporate lies. Today’s unions are growing, expanding, and boosting the wages and economic prospects of those who need them most. They’re good for workers and good for America.
Lie #1: Labor unions are bad for workers. Wrong. Unions are good for all workers – even those who are not unionized. In the mid-1950s, when a third of all workers in the United States were unionized, wages grew in tandem with the economy. That’s because workers across America – even those who were not unionized – had significant power to demand and get better wages, hours, benefits, and working conditions. Since then, as union membership has declined, the middle class has shrunk as well.
Lie #2: Unions hurt the economy. Wrong again. When workers are unionized they can negotiate better wages, which in turn spreads the economic gains more evenly and strengthens the middle class. This creates a virtuous cycle: Wages increase, workers have more to spend in their communities, businesses thrive, and the economy grows. Since the 1970s, the decline in unionization accounts for one-third of the increase in income
inequality. Without unions, wealth becomes concentrated at the top and the gains don’t trickle down to workers.
Lie #3: Labor unions are as powerful as big business. No way. Labor union membership in 2018 accounted for 10.5 percent of the American workforce, while large corporations account for almost three-quarters of the entire American economy. And when it comes to political power, it’s big business and small labor. In the 2018 midterms, labor unions contributed less than 70 million dollars to parties and candidates, while big corporations and their political action committees contributed 1.6 billion dollars. This enormous gulf between business and labor is a huge problem. It explains why most economic gains have been going to executives and shareholders rather than workers. But this doesn’t have to be the case.
Lie #4: Most unionized workers are in industries like steel and auto manufacturing. Untrue. Although industrial unions are still vitally important to workers, the largest part of the unionized workforce is workers in the professional and service sectors – retail, restaurant, hotel, hospital, teachers–which comprise 59% of all workers represented by a union. And these workers benefit from being in a union. In 2018, unionized service workers earned a median wage of 802 dollars a week. Non-unionized service workers made on average, $261 less. That’s almost a third less.
Lie #5: Most unionized workers are white, male, and middle-aged. Some unionized workers are, of course, but most newly-unionized workers are not. They’re women, they’re young, and a growing portion are black and brown. In fact, it’s through the power of unions that people who had been historically marginalized in the American economy because of their race, ethnicity, or gender are now gaining economic ground. In 2018, women who were in unions earned 21 percent more than non-unionized women. And African-Americans who were unionized earned nearly 20 percent more than African-Americans who were non-unionized.
Don’t believe the corporate lies. Today’s unions are growing, expanding, and boosting the wages and economic prospects of those who need them most. They’re good for workers and good for America.
funnies
