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Slavery 21st Century
You thought it was over, think again
Aug 20, 2019
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
*Nevada casino workers fight an uphill battle to get – and keep – their unions
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CEOs rake in 940% more than 40 years ago, while average workers earn 12% more
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘We won’t back down’: Over 50 catering workers arrested at American Airlines HQ in protest against poverty wages(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Schoolchildren in China work overnight to produce Amazon Alexa devices
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Sorry, libertarians: profit-obsessed bosses are bad for business, study finds
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Revealed: Amazon touts high wages while ignoring issues in its warehouses
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*You Think Airline Food Is Bad? The Conditions It’s Made In Are Worse.
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*'Our paychecks bounced': US workers in limbo as coalmines suddenly close
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Here’s the ugly racist history behind tipping — and how it still persists today
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*How Corporations Block Workers From Asserting Their Rights
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Disney heiress 'livid' after going to one of her family's theme parks undercover
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Whole Foods workers say conditions declined after Amazon takeover
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*“Bezos, Our Backs Are Tired”: Amazon Workers Strike on Prime Day
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘It’s a sexist and racist attack’: Trump’s regulation to weaken home health care unions takes effect
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Social security workers call new Trump administration contract ‘union-busting’
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Uber co-founder buys record-breaking LA mansion for $72.5m as drivers fight for wages
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Low-Wage Workers Are Being Sued for Unpaid Medical Bills by a Nonprofit Christian Hospital That Employs Them(ARTICLE BELOW)
*No rest for the workers: how the US is out of step on paid leave
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Airline caterers are prepping to strike. Here's what that means for travelers
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Federal minimum wage sets record with no increase since 2009
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Uber is upset that its underpaid drivers are gaming the app for better pay
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Workers With Disabilities Are Making Cents Per Hour — and It’s Legal
(ARTICLE BELOW)
funnies(at the end)
Nevada casino workers fight an uphill battle to get – and keep – their unions
Despite winning six union elections, the opposition continues through legal appeals and stalled contracts
Michael Sainato
The Guardian
Tue 20 Aug 2019 02.00 EDT
Union workers protest in front of the Palms casino-resort in Las Vegas in June. Photograph: John Locher/Associated Press
Michael Wagner has worked as a bartender at the Green Valley Ranch Casino Resort in Henderson, Nevada since it first opened in December 2001. Wagner and other workers at the casino voted to form a union in November 2017, with 78% of the vote, after years of facing union busting, intimidation, and retaliation against those participating in union organizing.
It has been a long struggle. But it is still not over. The billionaire Trump allies who own the casino – and others like it – have embarked on a campaign of stalling recognition, delaying contract negotiations and intimidation and poor working conditions, casino workers say.
Since UNITE HERE Culinary Workers Union 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 began union-organizing drives at Station Casinos in 2011, workers have successfully voted to form a union at six of the company’s properties in Nevada.
But, despite winning six union elections, the anti-union opposition from the third largest private employer in the Las Vegas area, Station Casinos, continues through legal appeals, none of which have been successful, and stalled contract negotiations.
Station Casinos executives and spokespersons have repeatedly affirmed they would respect union election results. In 2016, Station Casinos president Richard Haskins told the Las Vegas Review: “We have said all along that if a fair and lawful election is held we will abide by the results.”
According to the Culinary Union, Station Casinos is still appealing union elections at its Green Valley Ranch, Palms, and Sunset properties, while a union contract has yet to be negotiated at three other properties that have voted to unionize. The union represents nearly 4,000 workers at all six properties. Meanwhile, dozens of unfair labor practice charges filed by workers against Station Casinos remain under review by the National Labor Relations Board.
The company is owned by billionaires Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta. The Fertittas have donated $2m to Trump’s America’s First Action PAC, over $1.5m to Trump’s Victory Fund, and more than $3m to the Republican National Committee and other Republican candidates since Trump’s election.
Several casino workers have alleged wrongful terminations for engaging in union activity at Station Casino properties, and current workers report that the company continues to fire workers without just cause as Nevada is an employment “at will” state, which grants employers the right to terminate employment at anytime for any reason.
“The management hasn’t recognized the union because they do whatever they want to workers and with the union, they won’t be able to do that anymore,” said Paola Felix, a guest room attendant at Green Valley Ranch Resort. “Without a union contract to protect you, you don’t get a chance to defend yourself, they just terminate you for no reason.”
When the first Station Casinos property voted to unionize in September 2016, company management sent out memos to all its employees that health benefits would be increased for all employees except those who had unionized. As part of an NLRB settlement in March 2017, Station Casinos agreed to recognize the union at Palace Station Casino and reimburse the workers at Boulder Station for lower healthcare premiums they were denied.
“They’ve filed legal challenge after legal challenge,” said Gunaydin Milli, a uniform room attendant at Palms Resort & Casino since 2008, where around 900 workers voted to unionize in April 2018. In May 2019, the NLRB ruled the resort was violating federal labor law by refusing to bargain with the union, but a union contract has still yet to be negotiated as Station Casinos is appealing the ruling in federal court.
“They’ve refused to negotiate with us and they’re breaking the law. The hard work we do everyday makes the company successful. We deserve to have something to show for it too,” said Milli.
The most recent union elections occurred at Station Casinos’ Sunset Hotel & Casino, with 83% voting in favor of the union, and Fiesta Rancho Hotel & Casino, with 85% voting for the union.
Casino workers have held numerous protests and rallies calling on Station Casinos to negotiate with the unions and to cease union busting at properties where union organizing drives are ongoing.
“The company has been fighting these workers for a long time,” said Geoconda Argüello-Kline, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226. “What the company has been doing is sending a message to workers they do not respect the democratic way these workers voted ‘yes’ to be represented by the Culinary Union.”
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro has recently called on Station Casinos to negotiate with the six unions. Senator Bernie Sanders has also publicly called on the Trump-supporting casino owners to negotiate.
The struggle is expected to gain more attention as Democratic presidential candidates compete for support from the Culinary Union ahead of the Nevada Democratic Caucuses in February 2020.
A spokesperson for Red Rock Resorts, the parent company of Station Casinos, Michael Britt told the Guardian in an email: “With respect to both Palms and Green Valley Ranch, although the union would clearly prefer that we not exercise our legal right to challenge the National Labor Review Board’s (NLRB) decisions regarding those properties in the United States federal courts – we have every right to do so and our challenges are both legal and appropriate.”
They declined to clarify the reasons behind those challenges.
In Red Rock Resort’s most recent annual report, the company claimed, “Union organization activities could disrupt our business by discouraging patrons from visiting our properties, causing labor disputes or work stoppages, and, if successful, could significantly increase our labor costs.”
It has been a long struggle. But it is still not over. The billionaire Trump allies who own the casino – and others like it – have embarked on a campaign of stalling recognition, delaying contract negotiations and intimidation and poor working conditions, casino workers say.
Since UNITE HERE Culinary Workers Union 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 began union-organizing drives at Station Casinos in 2011, workers have successfully voted to form a union at six of the company’s properties in Nevada.
But, despite winning six union elections, the anti-union opposition from the third largest private employer in the Las Vegas area, Station Casinos, continues through legal appeals, none of which have been successful, and stalled contract negotiations.
Station Casinos executives and spokespersons have repeatedly affirmed they would respect union election results. In 2016, Station Casinos president Richard Haskins told the Las Vegas Review: “We have said all along that if a fair and lawful election is held we will abide by the results.”
According to the Culinary Union, Station Casinos is still appealing union elections at its Green Valley Ranch, Palms, and Sunset properties, while a union contract has yet to be negotiated at three other properties that have voted to unionize. The union represents nearly 4,000 workers at all six properties. Meanwhile, dozens of unfair labor practice charges filed by workers against Station Casinos remain under review by the National Labor Relations Board.
The company is owned by billionaires Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta. The Fertittas have donated $2m to Trump’s America’s First Action PAC, over $1.5m to Trump’s Victory Fund, and more than $3m to the Republican National Committee and other Republican candidates since Trump’s election.
Several casino workers have alleged wrongful terminations for engaging in union activity at Station Casino properties, and current workers report that the company continues to fire workers without just cause as Nevada is an employment “at will” state, which grants employers the right to terminate employment at anytime for any reason.
“The management hasn’t recognized the union because they do whatever they want to workers and with the union, they won’t be able to do that anymore,” said Paola Felix, a guest room attendant at Green Valley Ranch Resort. “Without a union contract to protect you, you don’t get a chance to defend yourself, they just terminate you for no reason.”
When the first Station Casinos property voted to unionize in September 2016, company management sent out memos to all its employees that health benefits would be increased for all employees except those who had unionized. As part of an NLRB settlement in March 2017, Station Casinos agreed to recognize the union at Palace Station Casino and reimburse the workers at Boulder Station for lower healthcare premiums they were denied.
“They’ve filed legal challenge after legal challenge,” said Gunaydin Milli, a uniform room attendant at Palms Resort & Casino since 2008, where around 900 workers voted to unionize in April 2018. In May 2019, the NLRB ruled the resort was violating federal labor law by refusing to bargain with the union, but a union contract has still yet to be negotiated as Station Casinos is appealing the ruling in federal court.
“They’ve refused to negotiate with us and they’re breaking the law. The hard work we do everyday makes the company successful. We deserve to have something to show for it too,” said Milli.
The most recent union elections occurred at Station Casinos’ Sunset Hotel & Casino, with 83% voting in favor of the union, and Fiesta Rancho Hotel & Casino, with 85% voting for the union.
Casino workers have held numerous protests and rallies calling on Station Casinos to negotiate with the unions and to cease union busting at properties where union organizing drives are ongoing.
“The company has been fighting these workers for a long time,” said Geoconda Argüello-Kline, secretary-treasurer for the Culinary Workers Union, Local 226. “What the company has been doing is sending a message to workers they do not respect the democratic way these workers voted ‘yes’ to be represented by the Culinary Union.”
2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro has recently called on Station Casinos to negotiate with the six unions. Senator Bernie Sanders has also publicly called on the Trump-supporting casino owners to negotiate.
The struggle is expected to gain more attention as Democratic presidential candidates compete for support from the Culinary Union ahead of the Nevada Democratic Caucuses in February 2020.
A spokesperson for Red Rock Resorts, the parent company of Station Casinos, Michael Britt told the Guardian in an email: “With respect to both Palms and Green Valley Ranch, although the union would clearly prefer that we not exercise our legal right to challenge the National Labor Review Board’s (NLRB) decisions regarding those properties in the United States federal courts – we have every right to do so and our challenges are both legal and appropriate.”
They declined to clarify the reasons behind those challenges.
In Red Rock Resort’s most recent annual report, the company claimed, “Union organization activities could disrupt our business by discouraging patrons from visiting our properties, causing labor disputes or work stoppages, and, if successful, could significantly increase our labor costs.”
CEOs rake in 940% more than 40 years ago, while average workers earn 12% more
BY KATE GIBSON - CBS News
UPDATED ON: AUGUST 14, 2019 / 11:18 AM / MONEYWATCH
- CEO compensation rose 940% from 1978 to 2018, compared with a 12% rise in pay for the average American worker during the same period, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
- In 2018, average CEO pay at the 350 biggest U.S. companies was $17.2 million.
- Chief executives at large companies make roughly $278 for every $1 a typical worker earns -- that's up from a ratio of 20-to-1 back in 1965 and a ratio of 58-to-1 in 1989.
The chasm between what the country's corporate leaders and their workers earn is widening to Grand Canyon-like proportions, according to new research that shows CEO compensation surged 940% between 1978 to 2018 while the average worker saw a meager 12% pay hike over the same 40-year period.
"CEOs are getting more because of their power to set pay, not because they are increasing productivity or possess specific, high-demand skills," economist Lawrence Mishel and research assistant Julia Wolfe said in the report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.
Depending on how it's calculated, the average pay of CEOs at the 350 biggest U.S. companies last year came to $17.2 million, the EPI research found. (Or, alternatively, about $14 million, with the smaller number valuing the stock options that make up a big chunk of CEO pay at the time they were granted rather than when they were cashed in at typically higher prices.)
Last year chief execs got $278 for every $1 a typical worker earned, according to Mishel and Wolfe. Back in 1965, top corporate chiefs earned $20 for every dollar a typical worker earned, with that ratio rising to 58-to-1 by 1989. The gap widened dramatically in the following decades, they noted, due to a shift in the 1990s and 2000s to compensate CEOs mostly with stock options, restricted shares and other incentive-based pay fueled a spike in their earnings.
Other factors that have driven income inequality in recent years: failure to raise the federal minimum wage, eroding union membership and globalization -- all of which reflect shifts in economic policy in ways that favor big corporations and the rich, Mishel said.
Pay for performance?
The EPI findings are in line with an analysis by Equilar for the Associated Press earlier this year that found that CEOs at S&P 500-listed companies made a median of $12 million last year, including salary, stock and other compensation.
Many CEOs who haul in massive stock awards aren't necessarily demonstrating their worth, EPI's Mishel told CBS MoneyWatch this week. Rather, the jump in executive compensation broadly reflects the runup in stocks in recent years.
"When every industry stock goes up, their stock goes up, and they're rewarded as though they hit a triple, Mishel said. "That's not for performance as they are sitting in the bleachers."
Excessive CEO pay is the result of a rigged system that creates the wrong incentives for top executives and is the same time terrible for company morale, observed Steven Cliffords, CEO of King Broadcasting for five years and National Mobile Television for nine.
"When people talk to me, they'll say, 'Yeah, but look at those baseball stars and all the money they make,' " Cliffords explained. "But there's a key difference: Baseball players make their money in what's essentially an auction market, where teams bid for their services. It's the same with movie stars. You know Mike Trout is going to improve any team he's on, that Meryl Streep is going to improve any movie she's in."
Conversely, a CEO is not going to improve just any company, as the knowledge it takes to perform well in the job is company-specific. That's why three-quarters of all new CEOs among S&P 500 companies involve internal promotions, said Cliffords, who has chaired numerous compensation committees for public and private companies. (He's also the author of "The CEO Pay Machine, How it Trashes America and How to Stop It.")
The pay gap between CEOs and rank-and-file workers had some members of Congress calling out bank CEOs on the pay disparity earlier this year. New York Democrat Nydia Velazquez told the heads of the nation's largest financial institutions appearing on Capitol Hill that the swelling pay gap "doesn't look good."
Disney heiress Abigail Disney has repeatedly criticized the compensation paid to public company CEOs, calling it "a moral issue" and one that leaves some low-wage earnings sleeping in their cars and rationing insulin. She and other activists contend that workers are often laid off without severance, while top executives line their own and investors' pockets through share buybacks and cash dividends.
"In the 1980s, it became all about creating money for shareholders," William Lazonick, an economist and professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said of the practice of companies spending billions of dollars to repurchase their own stock and artificially driving the price higher.
In its report, EPI called for policies including reinstating higher marginal income tax rates at the very top and setting higher corporate tax rates on companies with higher ratios of CEO-to-worker compensation.
‘We won’t back down’: Over 50 catering workers arrested at American Airlines HQ in protest against poverty wages
August 13, 2019
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams - Raw Story
More than 50 unionized catering workers were arrested at American Airlines headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas on Tuesday as hundreds rallied to protest poverty wages and meager benefits.
“American Airlines profits soar, but workers who generate its wealth by catering its planes struggle with poverty wages and unaffordable healthcare.”
—Unite Here
“Bad insurance, lousy pay, this is how your food is made,” chanted the workers, who are employed by subcontractors LSG Sky Chefs and Gate Gourmet. American Airlines is Sky Chefs’ largest customer.
Unite Here, the union that represents the protesting workers, said in a report released ahead of the demonstration that “wages for catering workers at American’s most profitable hubs are among the lowest in the country.”
“Airline food workers serving American flights in Dallas make as little as $9.85,” the report found.
As Tuesday’s demonstration kicked off, Unite Here tweeted: “American Airlines profits soar, but workers who generate its wealth by catering its planes struggle with poverty wages and unaffordable healthcare. Airline catering workers are in Dallas this week to tell the airline one job should be enough!”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, applauded the catering workers for standing up and “challenging corporate greed” in a tweet on Tuesday.
“In recent years American Airlines has made billions in profits,” said Sanders. “It is unconscionable that their workers cannot afford good healthcare or get reliable raises.”
In an act of civil disobedience, workers sat down and blocked the road leading to American Airlines’ HQ:
The protest comes just weeks after thousands of airline catering workers voted to authorize a strike as they bargain for better wages and benefits.
Tane Stover, an LSG Sky Chef employee who was arrested during Tuesday’s protest, told the Dallas WBAP, “We don’t want to go on strike, but we will if that’s what it takes for American Airlines to know that one job should be enough.”
“American Airlines profits soar, but workers who generate its wealth by catering its planes struggle with poverty wages and unaffordable healthcare.”
—Unite Here
“Bad insurance, lousy pay, this is how your food is made,” chanted the workers, who are employed by subcontractors LSG Sky Chefs and Gate Gourmet. American Airlines is Sky Chefs’ largest customer.
Unite Here, the union that represents the protesting workers, said in a report released ahead of the demonstration that “wages for catering workers at American’s most profitable hubs are among the lowest in the country.”
“Airline food workers serving American flights in Dallas make as little as $9.85,” the report found.
As Tuesday’s demonstration kicked off, Unite Here tweeted: “American Airlines profits soar, but workers who generate its wealth by catering its planes struggle with poverty wages and unaffordable healthcare. Airline catering workers are in Dallas this week to tell the airline one job should be enough!”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, applauded the catering workers for standing up and “challenging corporate greed” in a tweet on Tuesday.
“In recent years American Airlines has made billions in profits,” said Sanders. “It is unconscionable that their workers cannot afford good healthcare or get reliable raises.”
In an act of civil disobedience, workers sat down and blocked the road leading to American Airlines’ HQ:
The protest comes just weeks after thousands of airline catering workers voted to authorize a strike as they bargain for better wages and benefits.
Tane Stover, an LSG Sky Chef employee who was arrested during Tuesday’s protest, told the Dallas WBAP, “We don’t want to go on strike, but we will if that’s what it takes for American Airlines to know that one job should be enough.”
Amazon slave plantation!!!
Your iphone is built by schoolchildren slaves!!!
Schoolchildren in China work overnight to produce Amazon Alexa devices
Leaked documents show children as young as 16 recruited by Amazon supplier Foxconn work gruelling and illegal hours
Gethin Chamberlain
The Guardian
Thu 8 Aug 2019 18.37 EDT
Hundreds of schoolchildren have been drafted in to make Amazon’s Alexa devices in China as part of a controversial and often illegal attempt to meet production targets, documents seen by the Guardian reveal.
Interviews with workers and leaked documents from Amazon’s supplierFoxconn show that many of the children have been required to work nights and overtime to produce the smart-speaker devices, in breach of Chinese labour laws.
According to the documents, the teenagers – drafted in from schools and technical colleges in and around the central southern city of Hengyang – are classified as “interns”, and their teachers are paid by the factory to accompany them. Teachers are asked to encourage uncooperative pupils to accept overtime work on top of regular shifts.
Some of the pupils making Amazon’s Alexa-enabled Echo and Echo Dot devices along with Kindles have been required to work for more than two months to supplement staffing levels at the factory during peak production periods, researchers found. More than 1,000 pupils are employed, aged from 16 to 18.
Chinese factories are allowed to employ students aged 16 and older, but these schoolchildren are not allowed to work nights or overtime.
Foxconn, which also makes iPhones for Apple, admitted that students had been employed illegally and said it was taking immediate action to fix the situation.
The company said in a statement: “We have doubled the oversight and monitoring of the internship program with each relevant partner school to ensure that, under no circumstances, will interns [be] allowed to work overtime or nights.
“There have been instances in the past where lax oversight on the part of the local management team has allowed this to happen and, while the impacted interns were paid the additional wages associated with these shifts, this is not acceptable and we have taken immediate steps to ensure it will not be repeated.”
The company defended its use of schoolchildren, however, claiming that “it provides students, who are all of a legal working age, with the opportunity to gain practical work experience and on-the-job training in a number of areas that will support their efforts to find employment following their graduation.”
Foxconn said it would increase the number of regular workers and review salaries immediately.
A spokesperson for Amazon, which is headed by Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world with a furtune estimated at more than $100bn, said the company would not tolerate violations of its supplier code of conduct and regularly assessed suppliers, often using independent auditors, to monitor compliance and improvement.
“If we find violations, we take appropriate steps, including requesting immediate corrective action,” said the spokesperson.
“We are urgently investigating these allegations and addressing this with Foxconn at the most senior level. Additional teams of specialists arrived on-site yesterday to investigate, and we’ve initiated weekly audits of this issue.”
Teenagers who spoke to researchers said the factory work has no relevance to their courses and they have been pressed into working overtime.
Xiao Fang*, 17, started work at the factory on the Amazon Echo production line last month.
Fang, who is studying computing, was given the task of applying a protective film to about 3,000 Echo Dots each day. Speaking to a researcher, she said she was initially told by her teacher that she would be working eight hours a day, five days a week, but that had since changed to 10 hours a day (including two hours’ overtime) for six days a week.
“The lights in the workshop are very bright, so it gets really hot,” she said.
“In the beginning, I wasn’t very used to working at the factory, and now, after working for a month, I have reluctantly adapted to the work. But working 10 hours a day, every day, is very tiring.
“I tried telling the manager of my line that I didn’t want to work overtime. But the manager notified my teacher and the teacher said if I didn’t work overtime, I could not intern at Foxconn and that would affect my graduation and scholarship applications at the school.
“I had no choice, I could only endure this.”
According to the documents, Foxconn managers need students, who mostly stay in the factory’s dormitories, to work overtime to meet production targets; those who refuse are let go by the factory, researchers found.
A document states: “Student interns who don’t work overtime will not only affect the production goal but also affect their willingness to work. Student interns need to work overtime.”
The documents were leaked to labour rights group China Labor Watch and shared with the Guardian.
They reveal how the factory has turned to schoolchildren to fill the gaps after struggling to recruit permanent staff. One document describes how a factory needs roughly 7,000 workers to handle production from April to October, but says that it is only able to recruit an average of about 30 workers a week and needs to hire agency workers and interns to fill the gap. Interns can account for up to 15% of the workforce.
“To fulfil the shortage of the labour force and lower the cost of labour recruitment, we would like to cooperate with local schools to recruit student interns,” read one document before listing the advantages of recruiting schoolchildren.
“Low labour cost, can hire a large amount of labour at once, easier to reassign additional workers to other positions, strong ability to learn new things.”
Company documents show that Foxconn pays interns a total of 16.54 yuan an hour (£1.93) inclusive of overtime and other add-ons, with a basic salary of £1.18 an hour. Experienced agency workers, known as dispatch workers, cost the company 20.18 yuan an hour. The documents also show that Foxconn has cut the rate paid to interns since last year.
Amazon said in January that it had sold more than 100m Alexa devices which rival Google Home in the market for virtual voice assistants used to control domestic appliances and functions. They cost from around $50 in the US, £50 in the UK and A$79 in Australia, but can be three times more expensive for more sophisticated models.
The factory pays schools 500 yuan a month for each pupil they provide. One company document shows agreements with four schools to provide a total of 900 pupils to work in the factory, though other documents outline plans to recruit up to 1,800 interns this year.
Foxconn’s documents show that the company has wrestled with the issue of hiring schoolchildren as workers but decided that the benefits outweigh the risks.
Notes from a meeting to review the intern-hiring policy on 25 July this year reveal that without students the factory may not be able to hit production targets. The meeting was told that students are cheaper to hire than agency workers, which the factory also uses to cover peak production periods as an alternative to hiring regular staff.
The meeting was told that some children were refusing to work nightshifts and overtime, and there was a need for teachers to intervene.
“Nightshift line leaders should check in with student interns and teachers more often, and report back any abnormal situation so that teachers can persuade students to work nightshifts and overtime.”
If children continued to refuse to work the additional hours, the meeting was told that teachers should file a resignation letter on their behalf.
The student intern recruitment review meeting, which involved staff from the Echo production line, the production control department and the human resources department, reached an agreement to recruit student workers in large numbers. “They advised to recruit student workers to resolve the labour shortage problem during peak season,” a record of the meeting notes.
Amazon agreed a deal with Foxconn in 2017 to add 15 new production lines to the factory and hire thousands of new workers to ramp up production of its Echo and Echo Dot devices and Kindle tablets.
But last year the Observer revealed how the factory was using more agency workers than permitted by Chinese law to avoid having to recruit permanent staff to cover busy months. Many were working overtime hours far in excess of the usual legal limit of 36 hours a month.
In response, Amazon admitted that independent auditors had identified areas of concern at the factory. Foxconn promised to reduce its reliance on agency staff and said agency workers were to be offered the chance to become regular employees.
Commenting on the latest revelations, Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, called on Amazon and Foxconn to allow independent monitoring of working conditions to prevent breaches of labour law.
“It is only when the company allows independent parties to monitor the working conditions that rights violations at the factory can be effectively addressed,” he said.
“Recruiting a large number of dispatch workers and forcing student workers to work overtime and nightshifts is illegal, and Foxconn is well aware of this. However, because it increases their profits, they will continue to recruit dispatch and student workers.”
The leaked documents also reveal that Foxconn has faced problems as a result of the trade war between the US and China, with the cost of raw materials increasing and some orders lost.
Interviews with workers and leaked documents from Amazon’s supplierFoxconn show that many of the children have been required to work nights and overtime to produce the smart-speaker devices, in breach of Chinese labour laws.
According to the documents, the teenagers – drafted in from schools and technical colleges in and around the central southern city of Hengyang – are classified as “interns”, and their teachers are paid by the factory to accompany them. Teachers are asked to encourage uncooperative pupils to accept overtime work on top of regular shifts.
Some of the pupils making Amazon’s Alexa-enabled Echo and Echo Dot devices along with Kindles have been required to work for more than two months to supplement staffing levels at the factory during peak production periods, researchers found. More than 1,000 pupils are employed, aged from 16 to 18.
Chinese factories are allowed to employ students aged 16 and older, but these schoolchildren are not allowed to work nights or overtime.
Foxconn, which also makes iPhones for Apple, admitted that students had been employed illegally and said it was taking immediate action to fix the situation.
The company said in a statement: “We have doubled the oversight and monitoring of the internship program with each relevant partner school to ensure that, under no circumstances, will interns [be] allowed to work overtime or nights.
“There have been instances in the past where lax oversight on the part of the local management team has allowed this to happen and, while the impacted interns were paid the additional wages associated with these shifts, this is not acceptable and we have taken immediate steps to ensure it will not be repeated.”
The company defended its use of schoolchildren, however, claiming that “it provides students, who are all of a legal working age, with the opportunity to gain practical work experience and on-the-job training in a number of areas that will support their efforts to find employment following their graduation.”
Foxconn said it would increase the number of regular workers and review salaries immediately.
A spokesperson for Amazon, which is headed by Jeff Bezos, the richest person in the world with a furtune estimated at more than $100bn, said the company would not tolerate violations of its supplier code of conduct and regularly assessed suppliers, often using independent auditors, to monitor compliance and improvement.
“If we find violations, we take appropriate steps, including requesting immediate corrective action,” said the spokesperson.
“We are urgently investigating these allegations and addressing this with Foxconn at the most senior level. Additional teams of specialists arrived on-site yesterday to investigate, and we’ve initiated weekly audits of this issue.”
Teenagers who spoke to researchers said the factory work has no relevance to their courses and they have been pressed into working overtime.
Xiao Fang*, 17, started work at the factory on the Amazon Echo production line last month.
Fang, who is studying computing, was given the task of applying a protective film to about 3,000 Echo Dots each day. Speaking to a researcher, she said she was initially told by her teacher that she would be working eight hours a day, five days a week, but that had since changed to 10 hours a day (including two hours’ overtime) for six days a week.
“The lights in the workshop are very bright, so it gets really hot,” she said.
“In the beginning, I wasn’t very used to working at the factory, and now, after working for a month, I have reluctantly adapted to the work. But working 10 hours a day, every day, is very tiring.
“I tried telling the manager of my line that I didn’t want to work overtime. But the manager notified my teacher and the teacher said if I didn’t work overtime, I could not intern at Foxconn and that would affect my graduation and scholarship applications at the school.
“I had no choice, I could only endure this.”
According to the documents, Foxconn managers need students, who mostly stay in the factory’s dormitories, to work overtime to meet production targets; those who refuse are let go by the factory, researchers found.
A document states: “Student interns who don’t work overtime will not only affect the production goal but also affect their willingness to work. Student interns need to work overtime.”
The documents were leaked to labour rights group China Labor Watch and shared with the Guardian.
They reveal how the factory has turned to schoolchildren to fill the gaps after struggling to recruit permanent staff. One document describes how a factory needs roughly 7,000 workers to handle production from April to October, but says that it is only able to recruit an average of about 30 workers a week and needs to hire agency workers and interns to fill the gap. Interns can account for up to 15% of the workforce.
“To fulfil the shortage of the labour force and lower the cost of labour recruitment, we would like to cooperate with local schools to recruit student interns,” read one document before listing the advantages of recruiting schoolchildren.
“Low labour cost, can hire a large amount of labour at once, easier to reassign additional workers to other positions, strong ability to learn new things.”
Company documents show that Foxconn pays interns a total of 16.54 yuan an hour (£1.93) inclusive of overtime and other add-ons, with a basic salary of £1.18 an hour. Experienced agency workers, known as dispatch workers, cost the company 20.18 yuan an hour. The documents also show that Foxconn has cut the rate paid to interns since last year.
Amazon said in January that it had sold more than 100m Alexa devices which rival Google Home in the market for virtual voice assistants used to control domestic appliances and functions. They cost from around $50 in the US, £50 in the UK and A$79 in Australia, but can be three times more expensive for more sophisticated models.
The factory pays schools 500 yuan a month for each pupil they provide. One company document shows agreements with four schools to provide a total of 900 pupils to work in the factory, though other documents outline plans to recruit up to 1,800 interns this year.
Foxconn’s documents show that the company has wrestled with the issue of hiring schoolchildren as workers but decided that the benefits outweigh the risks.
Notes from a meeting to review the intern-hiring policy on 25 July this year reveal that without students the factory may not be able to hit production targets. The meeting was told that students are cheaper to hire than agency workers, which the factory also uses to cover peak production periods as an alternative to hiring regular staff.
The meeting was told that some children were refusing to work nightshifts and overtime, and there was a need for teachers to intervene.
“Nightshift line leaders should check in with student interns and teachers more often, and report back any abnormal situation so that teachers can persuade students to work nightshifts and overtime.”
If children continued to refuse to work the additional hours, the meeting was told that teachers should file a resignation letter on their behalf.
The student intern recruitment review meeting, which involved staff from the Echo production line, the production control department and the human resources department, reached an agreement to recruit student workers in large numbers. “They advised to recruit student workers to resolve the labour shortage problem during peak season,” a record of the meeting notes.
Amazon agreed a deal with Foxconn in 2017 to add 15 new production lines to the factory and hire thousands of new workers to ramp up production of its Echo and Echo Dot devices and Kindle tablets.
But last year the Observer revealed how the factory was using more agency workers than permitted by Chinese law to avoid having to recruit permanent staff to cover busy months. Many were working overtime hours far in excess of the usual legal limit of 36 hours a month.
In response, Amazon admitted that independent auditors had identified areas of concern at the factory. Foxconn promised to reduce its reliance on agency staff and said agency workers were to be offered the chance to become regular employees.
Commenting on the latest revelations, Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch, called on Amazon and Foxconn to allow independent monitoring of working conditions to prevent breaches of labour law.
“It is only when the company allows independent parties to monitor the working conditions that rights violations at the factory can be effectively addressed,” he said.
“Recruiting a large number of dispatch workers and forcing student workers to work overtime and nightshifts is illegal, and Foxconn is well aware of this. However, because it increases their profits, they will continue to recruit dispatch and student workers.”
The leaked documents also reveal that Foxconn has faced problems as a result of the trade war between the US and China, with the cost of raw materials increasing and some orders lost.
Sorry, libertarians: profit-obsessed bosses are bad for business, study finds
If your boss treats you like a work-robot from which money is extracted, your company probably isn't doing well
NICOLE KARLIS - Salon
AUGUST 7, 2019 10:00PM (UTC)
A certain breed of free market fundamentalism, spawned during the Reagan Era and upheld by President Trump and his lackeys, holds that greed is good; and hence, that all managerial decisions should bear profit and only profit in mind. But what happens when a manager outwardly leads with this naked, capitalistic attitude on their sleeve?
According to a new study by Baylor University researchers, profit-obsessed bosses could actually be hurting their bottom lines, as they lose the respect of their employees when they are solely focused on making money.
The study, “The Influence of Supervisor Bottom-Line Mentality and Employee Bottom-Line Mentality on Leader-Member Exchange and Subsequent Employee Performance,” published in the journal Human Relations, surveyed 866 people. Fifty percent of their sample were supervisors; the other half were their respective employees. The supervisors and employees worked in a range of industries, including health care, legal, education, and finance. Researchers wanted to study why employees respond with negative behaviors toward their supervisors when they believe they have a bottom-line mentality (BLM). To do this, the researchers measured the BLM of supervisors, employees, task performance, and the ratings employees gave their relationships with their supervisors.
The measurements were made on scale statements. For example, an employee would rate on a scale how much they agree or disagree with a statement like: “My supervisor treats the bottom line as more important than anything else,” or “My supervisor cares more about profits than his/her employees’ well-being.” The relationships between supervisors and employees were measured by statements like: “I like my supervisor very much as a person” and “My relationship with my supervisor is composed of comparable exchanges of giving and taking.” Conversely, the managers rated their employees by statements : “This employee meets or exceeds his/her productivity requirements,” “This employee searches for ways to be more productive” and “This employee demonstrates commitment to producing quality work.”
Researchers concluded, based on the responses, that supervisors who have a high bottom-line mentality have low-quality relationships with their employees.
“Supervisors who focus only on profits to the exclusion of caring about other important outcomes, such as employee well-being or environmental or ethical concerns, turn out to be detrimental to employees,” said lead researcher Matthew Quade, Ph.D., assistant professor of management in Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, said in a statement. “This results in relationships that are marked by distrust, dissatisfaction and lack of affection for the supervisor. And ultimately, that leads to employees who are less likely to complete tasks at a high level and less likely to go above and beyond the call of duty.”
As a result, employees withhold performance because they perceive a low-quality relationship with their supervisor. That fits with what you might expect: what worker would have respect for a boss who treated them like an automaton waiting to have their labor-value extracted?
Interestingly, even when an employee has a strong bottom-line mentality like their boss, a negative performance is still observed.
“When supervisor and employee BLM is similarly high, our research demonstrates the negative effect on performance is only buffered, not mitigated – indicating no degree of supervisor BLM seems to be particularly beneficial,” the researchers wrote. “It seems even if employees maintain a BLM, they would prefer for their managers to focus on interpersonal aspects of the job that foster healthier social exchange relationships with their employees in addition to the bottom line.”
The researchers noted that supervisors are often criticized for the performance of their employees, which might result in a search for similarly profit-driven employees. Still, that hiring strategy will not necessarily result in a better relationship with employees.
“Supervisors undoubtedly face heavy scrutiny for the performance levels of their employees, and as such they may tend to emphasize the need for employees to pursue bottom-line outcomes at the exclusion of other competing priorities, such as ethical practices, personal development or building social connections in the workplace,” the researchers wrote. “However, in doing so they may have to suffer the consequence of reduced employee respect, loyalty and even liking.”
According to a new study by Baylor University researchers, profit-obsessed bosses could actually be hurting their bottom lines, as they lose the respect of their employees when they are solely focused on making money.
The study, “The Influence of Supervisor Bottom-Line Mentality and Employee Bottom-Line Mentality on Leader-Member Exchange and Subsequent Employee Performance,” published in the journal Human Relations, surveyed 866 people. Fifty percent of their sample were supervisors; the other half were their respective employees. The supervisors and employees worked in a range of industries, including health care, legal, education, and finance. Researchers wanted to study why employees respond with negative behaviors toward their supervisors when they believe they have a bottom-line mentality (BLM). To do this, the researchers measured the BLM of supervisors, employees, task performance, and the ratings employees gave their relationships with their supervisors.
The measurements were made on scale statements. For example, an employee would rate on a scale how much they agree or disagree with a statement like: “My supervisor treats the bottom line as more important than anything else,” or “My supervisor cares more about profits than his/her employees’ well-being.” The relationships between supervisors and employees were measured by statements like: “I like my supervisor very much as a person” and “My relationship with my supervisor is composed of comparable exchanges of giving and taking.” Conversely, the managers rated their employees by statements : “This employee meets or exceeds his/her productivity requirements,” “This employee searches for ways to be more productive” and “This employee demonstrates commitment to producing quality work.”
Researchers concluded, based on the responses, that supervisors who have a high bottom-line mentality have low-quality relationships with their employees.
“Supervisors who focus only on profits to the exclusion of caring about other important outcomes, such as employee well-being or environmental or ethical concerns, turn out to be detrimental to employees,” said lead researcher Matthew Quade, Ph.D., assistant professor of management in Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, said in a statement. “This results in relationships that are marked by distrust, dissatisfaction and lack of affection for the supervisor. And ultimately, that leads to employees who are less likely to complete tasks at a high level and less likely to go above and beyond the call of duty.”
As a result, employees withhold performance because they perceive a low-quality relationship with their supervisor. That fits with what you might expect: what worker would have respect for a boss who treated them like an automaton waiting to have their labor-value extracted?
Interestingly, even when an employee has a strong bottom-line mentality like their boss, a negative performance is still observed.
“When supervisor and employee BLM is similarly high, our research demonstrates the negative effect on performance is only buffered, not mitigated – indicating no degree of supervisor BLM seems to be particularly beneficial,” the researchers wrote. “It seems even if employees maintain a BLM, they would prefer for their managers to focus on interpersonal aspects of the job that foster healthier social exchange relationships with their employees in addition to the bottom line.”
The researchers noted that supervisors are often criticized for the performance of their employees, which might result in a search for similarly profit-driven employees. Still, that hiring strategy will not necessarily result in a better relationship with employees.
“Supervisors undoubtedly face heavy scrutiny for the performance levels of their employees, and as such they may tend to emphasize the need for employees to pursue bottom-line outcomes at the exclusion of other competing priorities, such as ethical practices, personal development or building social connections in the workplace,” the researchers wrote. “However, in doing so they may have to suffer the consequence of reduced employee respect, loyalty and even liking.”
Revealed: Amazon touts high wages while ignoring issues in its warehouses
Though it offers $15 an hour, workers report injury claims denied, sweltering in warehouses and rising productivity demands
Michael Sainato
The Guardian
Wed 7 Aug 2019 08.49 EDT
Amazon won praise when it raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour in October 2018. Since then, the company has responded to criticism over its working conditions by claiming it is an industry leader in compensation, but a Guardian investigation has revealed many workers take issue with this messaging, as serious workplace issues remain that they say are still not being addressed.
They include claims workers are being punished for injuries; the elimination of bonuses and stock options, which has lessened the impact of the wage rise; poor working conditions; higher productivity demands and the hiring of temporary workers who do not have the same benefits as Amazon staff.
Jade Velez says she is one such example. She started working as a packer at an Amazon fulfillment center in Robbinsville, New Jersey, in April. On 1 July 2019, Velez was working one of her four weekly 10-hour night shifts when she injured her shoulder.
“I had many heavy items that entire work shift,” Velez told the Guardian. She left early due to the injury, getting home at 3am. “The pain was unbearable.”
Velez’s pain worsened and her arm became swollen. She showed up to her next shift and requested to be sent to AmCare, Amazon’s on-site first aid clinic, where she was given ibuprofen and ice and then told to return to work.
After trying to pack, Velez requested to be sent back to AmCare, where she was sent home. She used her unpaid time off for the remaining hours of her shift. The next day, Velez was called in for a mandatory overtime shift. She returned to AmCare and was finally referred to Amazon’s workers compensation claims insurer, Sedgwick, where she filed a claim.
On 8 July, Velez was informed her claim was denied without explanation.
“I have sustained an injury on their time, at their facility, during their work and now I’m being faulted for it as I am only liable,” said Velez. “To date, I have yet to see a doctor, since I was awaiting direction from Sedgwick and am still in pain and unable to fully utilize the weight of my shoulder area.”
She recently retained a lawyer to continue pursuing her claim.
An Amazon spokesperson told the Guardian in an email: “It’s more complicated than that and we’re not able to provide private medical information.” They added that their action had been in accordance with New Jersey state workers’ compensation laws.
Other workers have complaints about different aspects of Amazon’s working conditions.
“Amazon is leaning heavily on this compensation angle for a lot of their messaging, but they’re not addressing the core workplace issues workers are bringing up,” said William Stolz, a picker for two years at the Shakopee, Minnesota, Amazon fulfillment center who last month helped organize an employee walkout.
Stolz noted the Amazon minimum wage increase came with the eliminationof monthly bonuses and stock options for employees. He also claimed that since the beginning of this year, his fulfillment center had exclusively hired temporary workers who don’t have the same job security and benefits as direct hires.
An Amazon spokesperson said 150 out of 1,500 workers at the Shakopee fulfillment center were currently temporary employees, and 100 temporary workers at the center had been hired into full-time roles this year.
“Most people who try to work here can’t keep up with the productivity rates and wash out,” said Tyler Hamilton, another Shakopee Amazon worker, who has to work a second job when Amazon doesn’t offer or mandate overtime shifts.
Devon Fischer, a picker at an Amazon fulfillment center in San Marcos, Texas, quit a few weeks ago after two years of employment due to rising productivity demands.
“Hitting rate got harder and harder to hit so I gave up and quit,” he said. “My body would hurt 24/7 and I couldn’t take it anymore. The last three months, a computer would decide whether to give me a write up or not. A computer shouldn’t get to do that.”
Amazon claimed productivity demands had increased only once over the past two years at this site.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, Kelsi Gast has worked for about two years at an Amazon fulfillment center that does not have air conditioning.
“The only type of air circulation we have in the building are the huge industrial fans that are on the ceiling and smaller, portable ones designated for each department. It doesn’t do much, though,” Gast said.
Another worker at a different fulfillment center in the Charlotte area, Wendy Jackson, said Amazon had ignored complaints from her and other workers about lack of air circulation and air conditioning.
“We’ve all complained we need more fans,” Jackson said. “One day I almost had heat stroke. I’ve tried telling them they need to do something. They keep saying they don’t have enough money to get more fans throughout the warehouse.”
Amazon denied the air conditioning allegations at Charlotte area warehouses.
In the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, Jamie Sohn started working at an Amazon sorting center when it first opened in August 2018.
“At the beginning it was an incredible place to work,” said Sohn.
She said pallets of water were provided to workers as daily temperatures were in the 90s, but a few weeks into work, the water pallets were taken away, as a refrigerator for workers to bring their own water was to be provided but had yet to be installed.
“I was lifting, moving, and the next thing I know, I see one of the managers and I just threw myself at her because I was going to collapse. I was shaking and sweating. There was no water, no way of cooling down,” added Sohn.
An ambulance was called and she was brought to the hospital, but Sohn claimed Amazon’s workers’ compensation insurer, Sedgwick, denied her claim and refused to compensate her for the ambulance and emergency bills accrued from the incident.
She continued working at the sorting center until she was terminated in January 2019, after a box fell on her head, just weeks after she informed management the way the boxes were stacked posed a safety issue. Sohn was awarded an undisclosed settlement by Amazon for the second incident.
An Amazon spokesperson told the Guardian in an email: “We did settle with Ms Sohn but we still feel strongly that all appropriate steps were taken in accordance with state workers’ compensation laws and that we made every effort to ensure she was given accommodations and treatment for a healthy return to work.”
The spokesperson added: “Simply put, people would not want to work for Amazon if our working conditions truly were as our critics portray them to be during this period of record low unemployment and plentiful job opportunities. But 250,000 people choose to work for Amazon in our fulfillment network.”
They include claims workers are being punished for injuries; the elimination of bonuses and stock options, which has lessened the impact of the wage rise; poor working conditions; higher productivity demands and the hiring of temporary workers who do not have the same benefits as Amazon staff.
Jade Velez says she is one such example. She started working as a packer at an Amazon fulfillment center in Robbinsville, New Jersey, in April. On 1 July 2019, Velez was working one of her four weekly 10-hour night shifts when she injured her shoulder.
“I had many heavy items that entire work shift,” Velez told the Guardian. She left early due to the injury, getting home at 3am. “The pain was unbearable.”
Velez’s pain worsened and her arm became swollen. She showed up to her next shift and requested to be sent to AmCare, Amazon’s on-site first aid clinic, where she was given ibuprofen and ice and then told to return to work.
After trying to pack, Velez requested to be sent back to AmCare, where she was sent home. She used her unpaid time off for the remaining hours of her shift. The next day, Velez was called in for a mandatory overtime shift. She returned to AmCare and was finally referred to Amazon’s workers compensation claims insurer, Sedgwick, where she filed a claim.
On 8 July, Velez was informed her claim was denied without explanation.
“I have sustained an injury on their time, at their facility, during their work and now I’m being faulted for it as I am only liable,” said Velez. “To date, I have yet to see a doctor, since I was awaiting direction from Sedgwick and am still in pain and unable to fully utilize the weight of my shoulder area.”
She recently retained a lawyer to continue pursuing her claim.
An Amazon spokesperson told the Guardian in an email: “It’s more complicated than that and we’re not able to provide private medical information.” They added that their action had been in accordance with New Jersey state workers’ compensation laws.
Other workers have complaints about different aspects of Amazon’s working conditions.
“Amazon is leaning heavily on this compensation angle for a lot of their messaging, but they’re not addressing the core workplace issues workers are bringing up,” said William Stolz, a picker for two years at the Shakopee, Minnesota, Amazon fulfillment center who last month helped organize an employee walkout.
Stolz noted the Amazon minimum wage increase came with the eliminationof monthly bonuses and stock options for employees. He also claimed that since the beginning of this year, his fulfillment center had exclusively hired temporary workers who don’t have the same job security and benefits as direct hires.
An Amazon spokesperson said 150 out of 1,500 workers at the Shakopee fulfillment center were currently temporary employees, and 100 temporary workers at the center had been hired into full-time roles this year.
“Most people who try to work here can’t keep up with the productivity rates and wash out,” said Tyler Hamilton, another Shakopee Amazon worker, who has to work a second job when Amazon doesn’t offer or mandate overtime shifts.
Devon Fischer, a picker at an Amazon fulfillment center in San Marcos, Texas, quit a few weeks ago after two years of employment due to rising productivity demands.
“Hitting rate got harder and harder to hit so I gave up and quit,” he said. “My body would hurt 24/7 and I couldn’t take it anymore. The last three months, a computer would decide whether to give me a write up or not. A computer shouldn’t get to do that.”
Amazon claimed productivity demands had increased only once over the past two years at this site.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, Kelsi Gast has worked for about two years at an Amazon fulfillment center that does not have air conditioning.
“The only type of air circulation we have in the building are the huge industrial fans that are on the ceiling and smaller, portable ones designated for each department. It doesn’t do much, though,” Gast said.
Another worker at a different fulfillment center in the Charlotte area, Wendy Jackson, said Amazon had ignored complaints from her and other workers about lack of air circulation and air conditioning.
“We’ve all complained we need more fans,” Jackson said. “One day I almost had heat stroke. I’ve tried telling them they need to do something. They keep saying they don’t have enough money to get more fans throughout the warehouse.”
Amazon denied the air conditioning allegations at Charlotte area warehouses.
In the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, Jamie Sohn started working at an Amazon sorting center when it first opened in August 2018.
“At the beginning it was an incredible place to work,” said Sohn.
She said pallets of water were provided to workers as daily temperatures were in the 90s, but a few weeks into work, the water pallets were taken away, as a refrigerator for workers to bring their own water was to be provided but had yet to be installed.
“I was lifting, moving, and the next thing I know, I see one of the managers and I just threw myself at her because I was going to collapse. I was shaking and sweating. There was no water, no way of cooling down,” added Sohn.
An ambulance was called and she was brought to the hospital, but Sohn claimed Amazon’s workers’ compensation insurer, Sedgwick, denied her claim and refused to compensate her for the ambulance and emergency bills accrued from the incident.
She continued working at the sorting center until she was terminated in January 2019, after a box fell on her head, just weeks after she informed management the way the boxes were stacked posed a safety issue. Sohn was awarded an undisclosed settlement by Amazon for the second incident.
An Amazon spokesperson told the Guardian in an email: “We did settle with Ms Sohn but we still feel strongly that all appropriate steps were taken in accordance with state workers’ compensation laws and that we made every effort to ensure she was given accommodations and treatment for a healthy return to work.”
The spokesperson added: “Simply put, people would not want to work for Amazon if our working conditions truly were as our critics portray them to be during this period of record low unemployment and plentiful job opportunities. But 250,000 people choose to work for Amazon in our fulfillment network.”
You Think Airline Food Is Bad? The Conditions It’s Made In Are Worse.
July 26, 2019 |
s.e. smith & Pat Garofalo - Talk Poverty
On Tuesday evening, passengers at Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport (DCA) were greeted with shouts of “one job should be enough!” and “when we fight, we win!” by airline catering workers holding an informational picket and rally. The UNITE HERE union members were out in force to draw attention to the conditions they’re experiencing on the job, and to warn that 15,000 fed up airline catering workers across 32 U.S. airports just voted to authorize a strike.
They want a $15 wage floor and reasonably-priced health care, and they’re united across the industry: The DCA demonstrators work for LSG Sky Chefs, which serves American Airlines at DCA. Employees at Gate Gourmet, another major industry player, joined the strike authorization; Delta Airlines and United Airlines could also be affected. Together, they account for three of the top four airlines in the United States, carrying nearly 400 million people in 2017.
Eyerusalem Retta has been working in the bowels of DCA as an airline caterer since 1989, preparing beverages for customers like American Airlines. She said her starting wage was $5.15 an hour. After 30 years of service, she makes $13.35. “Our job is hard, we need better insurance, and for many, we want better retirements. We’re almost retired!,” she told TalkPoverty. The $15 minimum wage workers are demanding would result in a wage increase for “the majority” of airline catering workers, according to the union.
American Airlines made $1.9 billion in 2018.
Organizers are also contending with the high price of employee health insurance, especially for families; Retta pays $131 dollars weekly for her five-person family, a hardship on low pay. The health care situation is especially acute for workers with a long history of service. They are facing low wages paired with growing health issues caused by a working life of demanding physical labor that need attention. Sonia Toledo, who has worked for LSG Sky Chefs in Miami for 16 years, told TalkPoverty “I don’t have it, I don’t have any health care.”
“I’m paying for one bedroom, $1,700 a month. I have to work overtime. And sometimes, I don’t want to do it, but sometimes I need to work for Uber for extra money. It’s very tough. I’m a diabetic, I have to get medicine, I have to eat certain foods. So I gotta pay for this stuff,” said Nelson Robinson, a DCA worker who pays $50 weekly for his employer health insurance but adds that the copays are a burden.
Getting to this point has been a challenge. According to UNITE HERE, workers began negotiating a contract with Gate Gourmet in October 2017 — a company spokesperson told TalkPoverty the company “continues to work in good faith with the union” — and Sky Chefs in October 2018. But collective bargaining is difficult for airline and railway workers thanks to the Railway Labor Act of 1926, which guarantees bargaining rights in these industries with limitations. Specifically, workers can’t strike without permission from the National Mediation Board.
The union requested mediation in its negotiations with Gate Gourmet and Sky Chefs in June 2018 and January 2019 respectively as it moved into the next phase of its negotiations. Now, workers are requesting a release to strike this week, hoping the Board agrees that the parties involved are unable to agree to arbitration. Workers have signaled that they are ready to strike as soon as the 30-day cooling period is up. Passengers in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and more would notice very quickly. Several affected airports are major regional hubs, like Atlanta, where a labor disruption could be costly for airlines.
It’s not just about the pay and health insurance. Working conditions for catering crews are extremely poor. Airline food is the subject of many a late-night comedy routine, but a flight without even the basics — like water and tea — can quickly turn into an unpleasant one. In fact, airlines are legally required to provide food and waterto passengers stranded in tarmac delays. Fully cleaning out and resupplying a plane from the moment it arrives at the gate to the time it pushes back is a delicate but high-speed dance; every minute counts.
The work behind that turnaround, tiny bags of pretzels, plastic-wrapped swizzle sticks, and all, can be grueling. Those working at the airport must contend with blazing tarmac heat in summer and frigid conditions in winter. Offsite locations, where food is prepared and readied for catering, are often poorly temperature-controlled as well. For those in refrigerated work environments, the cold is constant. Retta described two years with no air conditioning in the notoriously swampy climate of D.C.
Caterers also work with caustic cleaning chemicals, sharp knives, and boiling-hot industrial dishwashers, all of which expose them to the risk of occupational injuries. In 2015, a Centers for Disease Control report documented high levels of carbon dioxide in refrigerated workspaces along with lack of access to water, and noted that most entries on injury logs were “acute traumatic injuries” like knife wounds.
Gate Gourmet and Sky Chefs have both run afoul of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), most notably in cases involving the deaths of airport truck and lift operators or nearby employees, the people passengers are most likely to see while peering impatiently out the window to see if their planes are ready. In 2017, SkyChefs faced thousands of dollars in OSHA penalties for failing to maintain safe and operable exit routes.
Poor conditions are bad news for passengers, too. In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration cited Gate Gourmet for “dead apparent nymph and adult cockroaches too numerous to count” in one Kentucky catering facility. It is the tip of a moldy, poorly temperature-controlled, cross-contaminated iceberg.
Without strike authorization, workers can and will continue trying to negotiate with their employers. The unions has not announced any plans to leverage slowdowns, stoppages, or sickouts — such as the large number of illnesses seen among flight traffic controllers during the 2018-2019 government shutdown.
(The union made it clear that they did not “condone or endorse” such activity.) It has indicated that it will continue to pursue all legal means for resolving the labor dispute. But, the union noted in reference to the DCA action, “while we will continue this process it’s important to know that American Airlines can end this dispute right now, without the need for a strike,” by setting standards for pay and health insurance for catering workers.
In the meantime, the next time you open a stroopwafel on United, think about the hands that packaged it.
They want a $15 wage floor and reasonably-priced health care, and they’re united across the industry: The DCA demonstrators work for LSG Sky Chefs, which serves American Airlines at DCA. Employees at Gate Gourmet, another major industry player, joined the strike authorization; Delta Airlines and United Airlines could also be affected. Together, they account for three of the top four airlines in the United States, carrying nearly 400 million people in 2017.
Eyerusalem Retta has been working in the bowels of DCA as an airline caterer since 1989, preparing beverages for customers like American Airlines. She said her starting wage was $5.15 an hour. After 30 years of service, she makes $13.35. “Our job is hard, we need better insurance, and for many, we want better retirements. We’re almost retired!,” she told TalkPoverty. The $15 minimum wage workers are demanding would result in a wage increase for “the majority” of airline catering workers, according to the union.
American Airlines made $1.9 billion in 2018.
Organizers are also contending with the high price of employee health insurance, especially for families; Retta pays $131 dollars weekly for her five-person family, a hardship on low pay. The health care situation is especially acute for workers with a long history of service. They are facing low wages paired with growing health issues caused by a working life of demanding physical labor that need attention. Sonia Toledo, who has worked for LSG Sky Chefs in Miami for 16 years, told TalkPoverty “I don’t have it, I don’t have any health care.”
“I’m paying for one bedroom, $1,700 a month. I have to work overtime. And sometimes, I don’t want to do it, but sometimes I need to work for Uber for extra money. It’s very tough. I’m a diabetic, I have to get medicine, I have to eat certain foods. So I gotta pay for this stuff,” said Nelson Robinson, a DCA worker who pays $50 weekly for his employer health insurance but adds that the copays are a burden.
Getting to this point has been a challenge. According to UNITE HERE, workers began negotiating a contract with Gate Gourmet in October 2017 — a company spokesperson told TalkPoverty the company “continues to work in good faith with the union” — and Sky Chefs in October 2018. But collective bargaining is difficult for airline and railway workers thanks to the Railway Labor Act of 1926, which guarantees bargaining rights in these industries with limitations. Specifically, workers can’t strike without permission from the National Mediation Board.
The union requested mediation in its negotiations with Gate Gourmet and Sky Chefs in June 2018 and January 2019 respectively as it moved into the next phase of its negotiations. Now, workers are requesting a release to strike this week, hoping the Board agrees that the parties involved are unable to agree to arbitration. Workers have signaled that they are ready to strike as soon as the 30-day cooling period is up. Passengers in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and more would notice very quickly. Several affected airports are major regional hubs, like Atlanta, where a labor disruption could be costly for airlines.
It’s not just about the pay and health insurance. Working conditions for catering crews are extremely poor. Airline food is the subject of many a late-night comedy routine, but a flight without even the basics — like water and tea — can quickly turn into an unpleasant one. In fact, airlines are legally required to provide food and waterto passengers stranded in tarmac delays. Fully cleaning out and resupplying a plane from the moment it arrives at the gate to the time it pushes back is a delicate but high-speed dance; every minute counts.
The work behind that turnaround, tiny bags of pretzels, plastic-wrapped swizzle sticks, and all, can be grueling. Those working at the airport must contend with blazing tarmac heat in summer and frigid conditions in winter. Offsite locations, where food is prepared and readied for catering, are often poorly temperature-controlled as well. For those in refrigerated work environments, the cold is constant. Retta described two years with no air conditioning in the notoriously swampy climate of D.C.
Caterers also work with caustic cleaning chemicals, sharp knives, and boiling-hot industrial dishwashers, all of which expose them to the risk of occupational injuries. In 2015, a Centers for Disease Control report documented high levels of carbon dioxide in refrigerated workspaces along with lack of access to water, and noted that most entries on injury logs were “acute traumatic injuries” like knife wounds.
Gate Gourmet and Sky Chefs have both run afoul of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), most notably in cases involving the deaths of airport truck and lift operators or nearby employees, the people passengers are most likely to see while peering impatiently out the window to see if their planes are ready. In 2017, SkyChefs faced thousands of dollars in OSHA penalties for failing to maintain safe and operable exit routes.
Poor conditions are bad news for passengers, too. In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration cited Gate Gourmet for “dead apparent nymph and adult cockroaches too numerous to count” in one Kentucky catering facility. It is the tip of a moldy, poorly temperature-controlled, cross-contaminated iceberg.
Without strike authorization, workers can and will continue trying to negotiate with their employers. The unions has not announced any plans to leverage slowdowns, stoppages, or sickouts — such as the large number of illnesses seen among flight traffic controllers during the 2018-2019 government shutdown.
(The union made it clear that they did not “condone or endorse” such activity.) It has indicated that it will continue to pursue all legal means for resolving the labor dispute. But, the union noted in reference to the DCA action, “while we will continue this process it’s important to know that American Airlines can end this dispute right now, without the need for a strike,” by setting standards for pay and health insurance for catering workers.
In the meantime, the next time you open a stroopwafel on United, think about the hands that packaged it.
CIRCA 1870: A CARTOON SATIRISING THE SWEATSHOPS OF THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY. ORIGINAL ARTIST: BY JOHN LEECH FROM PUNCH MAGAZINE. (PHOTO BY RISCHGITZ/GETTY IMAGES)
'Our paychecks bounced': US workers in limbo as coalmines suddenly close
Blackjewel files for chapter 11 in a move critics say is increasingly used to avoid paying workers what they are owed
Michael Sainato
The Guardian
Mon 22 Jul 2019 07.00 BST
On 1 July, Missy Cole was notified by her bank that her husband’s most recent paycheck had bounced, leaving their account more than $1,000 in the red. Her husband had worked as a coalminer for nearly three years at one of the eastern Kentucky mines operated by Revelation Energy affiliate Blackjewel mining.
But both companies had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a financial move that has implications far beyond just laying off staff as the ex-workers now wait for the bankruptcy proceedings to play out. Critics say the move is a ploy increasingly used in the struggling industry to avoid paying workers what they are owed.
“A layoff is always expected with miners. It’s always in the back of your mind and it’s no surprise when it happens in the coal industry. But, this is much more than a layoff,” Cole told the Guardian.
“We have absolutely no access to our bank accounts. Those accounts are still negative, and falling deeper into the negative daily. We cannot even touch his 401(k) to withdraw money to survive on without the signature of the Blackjewel mining CEO or his personnel.”
One of the largest coalmining operators in the United States, Blackjewel abruptly shut its mines after filing for bankruptcy, jeopardizing the jobs of about 1,700 workers in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming.
Workers are still unsure if they will be permitted to return to work and for how long, if they will be paid for bounced checks and what will happen to their health insurance and benefits.
“It’s been very hard, not knowing if your going to be able to put food on the table for your three kids,” said Mark Turner, a Kentucky miner at a Blackjewel-operated mine. He’s unsure how he is going to afford his upcoming house payment, electric bill or buy clothes and supplies for his children with the new school year approaching.
Jimmy Justus, 22, a mine worker for Blackjewel in Virginia, owes his bank more than $1,400 because his last paycheck bounced.
“Now my account has been closed,” he said. On 1 July, Justus was sent home under the impression work would restart the next day, but then heard from co-workers the company had filed for bankruptcy. “The day shift foreman had no intention of telling anyone anything”
Another coal worker in Virginia, Mark Atwell, was on vacation with his family at Dollywood when he discovered his last paycheck had bounced. “I had no money to feed my family or even gas to get back home on,” Atwell said, who has three children and a disabled wife.
According to the bankruptcy filing, Blackjewel mining has at least $500mowed in liabilities. A worker in Wyoming has filed a class action lawsuit against the company, which claims the company failed to give employees’ proper notice, and wages and benefits earned before and after the bankruptcy filing.
Blackjewel is the third large US coal company to declare bankruptcy since May 2019, despite promises from Donald Trump that he would save the coal industry and its jobs.
Since Trump took office, about 2,000 jobs have been added to the coal industry, which currently employs an estimated 53,000 workers. The industry has shed more than 30,000 jobs in the past decade, driven by automation, and changes in the energy industry as renewable energy production recently surpassed coal production for the first time ever in the US and natural gas production hit a record high in 2018.
Through filing bankruptcies, attorneys who have represented coalminers argue current laws allow operators to avoid obligations they have to workers.
“It is especially egregious where Blackjewel bounces paychecks to the employees. This compounds with the loss of health insurance and other benefits,” said Jack Jacobs, an Alabama-based attorney who has represented workers in black lung cases. “The miners work very hard and sacrifice a lot for these operators. Very frustrating to see how their loyalty is repaid.”
Attorney Shannon Anderson with the Powder River Basin Resource Council in Wyoming condemned the management of Blackjewel by its CEO, Jeff Hoops, who was recently forced to resign.
Hoops did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
“Hoops was buying up distressed assets from bankruptcies and companies trying to offload mines that were no longer economically viable, and basically created a coal company with those assets,” said Anderson. She noted several Blackjewel-operated mines in Appalachia racked up various environmental violations and citations as the company operated at a loss and tried to keep costs as low as possible.
“None of these mines were making money and he was paying himself before any of the lenders, and basically running these mines at very low cost,” she added.
Because Blackjewel LLC is privately owned, Anderson noted there is less public disclosure into what’s going on with the company, leaving many questions unanswered for workers, their communities and if Hoops will be held accountable.
“All the information we’re getting is more or less off of social media and other co-workers in other states,” said Joe Williamson, a Blackjewel coal worker in Virginia.
Hoops resigned as a condition for a $5m emergency loan, though his multimillion-dollar plans to build a resort in West Virginia will reportedly not be impacted by the bankruptcy. In a letter to workers, Hoops claimed “no one is hurting more than me” as a result of the bankruptcy.
Few workers agree.
“Our paychecks bounced,” said Jeffery Cochran, a coalminer in Kentucky who has worked at a Blackjewel-operated mine for nearly four years.
“Some people have been denied unemployment which is owed to us. He didn’t pay into it for some people, but yet he can build a $30m resort, and doesn’t have to pay us.”
A representative for Blackjewel shared a press release issued on 10 July that noted about 140 employees have returned to work, and they would be paid for prior and future work, but did not address bounced checks for employees outside of Wyoming or the fees workers are accruing due to bounced checks and late bill payments.
But both companies had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a financial move that has implications far beyond just laying off staff as the ex-workers now wait for the bankruptcy proceedings to play out. Critics say the move is a ploy increasingly used in the struggling industry to avoid paying workers what they are owed.
“A layoff is always expected with miners. It’s always in the back of your mind and it’s no surprise when it happens in the coal industry. But, this is much more than a layoff,” Cole told the Guardian.
“We have absolutely no access to our bank accounts. Those accounts are still negative, and falling deeper into the negative daily. We cannot even touch his 401(k) to withdraw money to survive on without the signature of the Blackjewel mining CEO or his personnel.”
One of the largest coalmining operators in the United States, Blackjewel abruptly shut its mines after filing for bankruptcy, jeopardizing the jobs of about 1,700 workers in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming.
Workers are still unsure if they will be permitted to return to work and for how long, if they will be paid for bounced checks and what will happen to their health insurance and benefits.
“It’s been very hard, not knowing if your going to be able to put food on the table for your three kids,” said Mark Turner, a Kentucky miner at a Blackjewel-operated mine. He’s unsure how he is going to afford his upcoming house payment, electric bill or buy clothes and supplies for his children with the new school year approaching.
Jimmy Justus, 22, a mine worker for Blackjewel in Virginia, owes his bank more than $1,400 because his last paycheck bounced.
“Now my account has been closed,” he said. On 1 July, Justus was sent home under the impression work would restart the next day, but then heard from co-workers the company had filed for bankruptcy. “The day shift foreman had no intention of telling anyone anything”
Another coal worker in Virginia, Mark Atwell, was on vacation with his family at Dollywood when he discovered his last paycheck had bounced. “I had no money to feed my family or even gas to get back home on,” Atwell said, who has three children and a disabled wife.
According to the bankruptcy filing, Blackjewel mining has at least $500mowed in liabilities. A worker in Wyoming has filed a class action lawsuit against the company, which claims the company failed to give employees’ proper notice, and wages and benefits earned before and after the bankruptcy filing.
Blackjewel is the third large US coal company to declare bankruptcy since May 2019, despite promises from Donald Trump that he would save the coal industry and its jobs.
Since Trump took office, about 2,000 jobs have been added to the coal industry, which currently employs an estimated 53,000 workers. The industry has shed more than 30,000 jobs in the past decade, driven by automation, and changes in the energy industry as renewable energy production recently surpassed coal production for the first time ever in the US and natural gas production hit a record high in 2018.
Through filing bankruptcies, attorneys who have represented coalminers argue current laws allow operators to avoid obligations they have to workers.
“It is especially egregious where Blackjewel bounces paychecks to the employees. This compounds with the loss of health insurance and other benefits,” said Jack Jacobs, an Alabama-based attorney who has represented workers in black lung cases. “The miners work very hard and sacrifice a lot for these operators. Very frustrating to see how their loyalty is repaid.”
Attorney Shannon Anderson with the Powder River Basin Resource Council in Wyoming condemned the management of Blackjewel by its CEO, Jeff Hoops, who was recently forced to resign.
Hoops did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
“Hoops was buying up distressed assets from bankruptcies and companies trying to offload mines that were no longer economically viable, and basically created a coal company with those assets,” said Anderson. She noted several Blackjewel-operated mines in Appalachia racked up various environmental violations and citations as the company operated at a loss and tried to keep costs as low as possible.
“None of these mines were making money and he was paying himself before any of the lenders, and basically running these mines at very low cost,” she added.
Because Blackjewel LLC is privately owned, Anderson noted there is less public disclosure into what’s going on with the company, leaving many questions unanswered for workers, their communities and if Hoops will be held accountable.
“All the information we’re getting is more or less off of social media and other co-workers in other states,” said Joe Williamson, a Blackjewel coal worker in Virginia.
Hoops resigned as a condition for a $5m emergency loan, though his multimillion-dollar plans to build a resort in West Virginia will reportedly not be impacted by the bankruptcy. In a letter to workers, Hoops claimed “no one is hurting more than me” as a result of the bankruptcy.
Few workers agree.
“Our paychecks bounced,” said Jeffery Cochran, a coalminer in Kentucky who has worked at a Blackjewel-operated mine for nearly four years.
“Some people have been denied unemployment which is owed to us. He didn’t pay into it for some people, but yet he can build a $30m resort, and doesn’t have to pay us.”
A representative for Blackjewel shared a press release issued on 10 July that noted about 140 employees have returned to work, and they would be paid for prior and future work, but did not address bounced checks for employees outside of Wyoming or the fees workers are accruing due to bounced checks and late bill payments.
Here’s the ugly racist history behind tipping — and how it still persists today
July 20, 2019
By Matthew Chapman - Raw Story
On Saturday, writing for Politico, minister and civil rights activist Rev. Dr. William Barber applauded House Democrats’ plans to not only raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024, but eliminate the much lower “tipped wage” of $2.13 an hour and require tipped workers to also be paid at least the minimum.
This is important, wrote Barber, because the roots of businesses forcing their workers to rely on tips for a proper wage is deeply rooted in America’s history of racial tension.
“You might not think of tipping as a legacy of slavery, but it has a far more racialized history than most Americans realize,” wrote Barber. “Tipping originated in feudal Europe and was imported back to the United States by American travelers eager to seem sophisticated. The practice spread throughout the country after the Civil War as U.S. employers, largely in the hospitality sector, looked for ways to avoid paying formerly enslaved workers.”
A particularly egregious example, Barber wrote, was the Pullman Company, which manufactured railroad cars around the turn of the 20th century, and which hired African Americans newly freed from slavery as porters — but paid them virtually nothing and forced them to rely on tips from white customers.
“Tipping further entrenched a unique and often racialized class structure in service jobs, in which workers must please both customer and employer to earn anything at all,” wrote Barber. “A journalist quoted in Kerry Segrave’s 2009 book, Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities, wrote in 1902 that he was embarrassed to offer a tip to a white man. ‘Negroes take tips, of course; one expects that of them — it is a token of their inferiority,’ he wrote. ‘Tips go with servility, and no man who is a voter in this country is in the least justified in being in service.'”
“Several states sought to end the practice in the early 1900s, often in recognition of its racist roots,” continued Barber. “But the restaurant industry fought back and was powerful enough to roll back local bans on tipping. And tipped workers — along with most others, as the act applied to industries that together made up only one-fifth of the labor force — were excluded from the first, limited federal minimum wage law passed in 1938.”
Eventually a tipped subminimum wage was created in the 1960s, noted Barber, but thanks to a bargain cut by the National Restaurant Association, it has been frozen at $2.13 since 1996. (That deal was cut by the association’s then-president Herman Cain, who went on to become a Republican presidential candidate and President Donald Trump’s failed pick for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.)
It is worth noting that even today, the racial disparities caused by tipping persist. According to one study, black waitstaff receive less in tips than white waitstaff, which might be why when Washington, D.C. held a referendum on eliminating the tipped minimum wage, black neighborhoods overwhelmingly voted for it and white neighborhoods overwhelmingly against. (That referendum passed but was swiftly repealed by the city council.) Furthermore, 38 percent of black workers would benefit from the House Democrats’ new law, compared with 23 percent of white workers.
“With a Republican Senate and president, the Raise the Wage Act might not become national law in the immediate future,” concluded Barber. “But a vote by the House to end the subminimum tipped wage would send an unmistakable signal to the several states considering similar legislation: The days of these racist tiered wage systems are coming to an end.”
RELATED: The Racist History of TippingBy REV. DR. WILLIAM J. BARBER II
This is important, wrote Barber, because the roots of businesses forcing their workers to rely on tips for a proper wage is deeply rooted in America’s history of racial tension.
“You might not think of tipping as a legacy of slavery, but it has a far more racialized history than most Americans realize,” wrote Barber. “Tipping originated in feudal Europe and was imported back to the United States by American travelers eager to seem sophisticated. The practice spread throughout the country after the Civil War as U.S. employers, largely in the hospitality sector, looked for ways to avoid paying formerly enslaved workers.”
A particularly egregious example, Barber wrote, was the Pullman Company, which manufactured railroad cars around the turn of the 20th century, and which hired African Americans newly freed from slavery as porters — but paid them virtually nothing and forced them to rely on tips from white customers.
“Tipping further entrenched a unique and often racialized class structure in service jobs, in which workers must please both customer and employer to earn anything at all,” wrote Barber. “A journalist quoted in Kerry Segrave’s 2009 book, Tipping: An American Social History of Gratuities, wrote in 1902 that he was embarrassed to offer a tip to a white man. ‘Negroes take tips, of course; one expects that of them — it is a token of their inferiority,’ he wrote. ‘Tips go with servility, and no man who is a voter in this country is in the least justified in being in service.'”
“Several states sought to end the practice in the early 1900s, often in recognition of its racist roots,” continued Barber. “But the restaurant industry fought back and was powerful enough to roll back local bans on tipping. And tipped workers — along with most others, as the act applied to industries that together made up only one-fifth of the labor force — were excluded from the first, limited federal minimum wage law passed in 1938.”
Eventually a tipped subminimum wage was created in the 1960s, noted Barber, but thanks to a bargain cut by the National Restaurant Association, it has been frozen at $2.13 since 1996. (That deal was cut by the association’s then-president Herman Cain, who went on to become a Republican presidential candidate and President Donald Trump’s failed pick for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.)
It is worth noting that even today, the racial disparities caused by tipping persist. According to one study, black waitstaff receive less in tips than white waitstaff, which might be why when Washington, D.C. held a referendum on eliminating the tipped minimum wage, black neighborhoods overwhelmingly voted for it and white neighborhoods overwhelmingly against. (That referendum passed but was swiftly repealed by the city council.) Furthermore, 38 percent of black workers would benefit from the House Democrats’ new law, compared with 23 percent of white workers.
“With a Republican Senate and president, the Raise the Wage Act might not become national law in the immediate future,” concluded Barber. “But a vote by the House to end the subminimum tipped wage would send an unmistakable signal to the several states considering similar legislation: The days of these racist tiered wage systems are coming to an end.”
RELATED: The Racist History of TippingBy REV. DR. WILLIAM J. BARBER II
How Corporations Block Workers From Asserting Their Rights
Trump’s Packed Supreme Court Backs ‘Forced Arbitration’ that Bars Workers From Taking Abusive Bosses to Court
By Bill Schleicher - DC Report
7/18/19
Corporations are rapidly rendering sexual harassment, race and gender discrimination, life-threatening workplaces and wage theft immune to employee legal action.
They achieve this by forcing the vast majority of non-union private-sector workers to sign away their rights to go to court or use class or collective arbitration. Instead many millions of workers are being forced to forgo these efficient legal ways to resolve issues and to file individual arbitration claims.
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy says that by 2024 more than 80% of non-union private-sector workers will find courthouse doors chained shut by forced arbitration clauses that ban lawsuits and collective actions. (EPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank created in 1986 to press the needs of low- and middle-income workers in economic policy discussions.)
Hardest hit will be women, African-Americans, immigrants and low-wage workers as bosses compel employees to sign forced arbitration clauses to keep their jobs. The dense legalese giving up these rights is often hidden deep in the fine print of job application forms and new-hire paperwork, says the report titled “Unchecked corporate power: Forced arbitration, the enforcement crisis and how workers are fighting back.”
Enforcement of these clauses was validated by the Supreme Court in the Epic Systems v. Lewis decision. Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch provided the decisive vote and wrote the majority opinion in the May 2018 decision.
The 5-4 Epicruling lets individual arbitration clauses and waivers of collective action trump the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. That New Deal law gives workers the right to “concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”
The high court decision shows how Donald Trump, who campaigned as a champion of workers and whose inaugural address promised to always look out for the “Forgotten Man,” has used his powers to hurt workers. His campaign speeches, read carefully, show his concern for corporations and profits and his love of tariffs more than workers.
No Right to Sue
According to an earlier EPI study, 56% of workers had already lost their right to sue their employers when the Trump court’s Epic decision intensified the trend, kicking off “a surge in corporate use of forced arbitration.”
Lower courts had split on the issue. By nominating Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, Trump swung the weight of the government toward management. Although the National Labor Relations Board had previously backed workers’ rights to collective action, Trump’s appointees gave it a new Republican majority.
The labor board also got a new, and anti-labor, general counsel, Peter Robb, a former partner at a Philadelphia union-busting law firm who promptly issued an amicus curiae brief supporting the employers’ position in the case. Robb has started a hunt for pro-labor rulings that can be overturned, Bloomberg reported in May.
The forced arbitration clauses backed by the Epic decision may let management select the arbitrators, crimp the amount of relief they can grant, and impose daunting fees and short filing periods on workers. No wonder businesses win the overwhelming majority of arbitration cases and when workers do win their awards are small. This individual arbitration process bears no resemblance to the voluntary bilateral arbitration used to resolve grievances, disputes under collective bargaining agreements and disciplinary issues in unionized workplaces.
At an Applebee’s in Bend, Ore., managers regularly forced Mike Swisher and his coworkers to work off the clock without pay. When he went to the Northwest Workers’ Justice Project for help, he discovered that among the paperwork required for the job they had signed an arbitration clause banning class actions. Thus the employees have been unable to recover any of the pay they are owed and Applebee’s has not been held accountable for the wage theft.
Mike is not alone: 93% of the workers who sign forced arbitration clauses don’t realize they are giving up their right to sue, the Center for Popular Democracy found.
Amy, an immigrant from Vietnam who does manicures and fingernails, was paid below the minimum wage for working 11 hours a day, seven days a week in suburban Seattle. She often saw a manager inappropriately touching her coworkers. Construction worker Carlos Jiménez suffered wage theft totaling $10,000 in Queens, N.Y.
Mike, Amy and Carlos are among the many workers whose stories of unremedied injustice were collected by the center.
60 Million Banned from Courts
Forced arbitration regimes already ban 60 million U.S. workers from protecting their employment rights through the judicial system. The practice is more prevalent in low-paid jobs, with an estimated two thirds of low-wage employers blocking the courthouse doors. The industries that use such tools to deny justice disproportionately employ women and African-Americans.
With the deck stacked against them, an estimated 98% of workers who would otherwise go to court give up the effort when their only option is forced individual arbitration, according to the report. In the banned class and collective actions, workers aggregate their claims and make litigation cost-effective, and under union contracts, management is often required to bear half the cost, but individual arbitration cases and lawsuits are unrealistic for most working people.
Corporate use of forced arbitration combines with cutbacks at enforcement agencies to severely erode workers’ rights. Budget cuts have left state and federal worker protection agencies that deal with race and gender discrimination, safety abuses and wage and hour violations underfunded and understaffed.
Enforcement divisions of the U.S. Labor Dept. lost $9.6 million in the last seven years alone during a time when the number of workers they are responsible for grew by 13 percent. The number of workers per federal wage and hour inspector has climbed to 175,000, more than double the ratio in the 1970s. Employees per safety and health compliance officer tripled.
Fightback legislation to override Epic Systems has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, introduced a companion Senate bill.
The Restoring Justice for Workers Act would prohibit mandatory arbitration and class action waivers in labor disputes and the Forced Arbitration Repeal Act would eliminate the clauses in employment, consumer and civil rights cases. Neither bill is likely to pass the Senate, however, and even if it did the White House would be opposed.
State “whistleblower enforcement laws” introduced in Oregon, Washington, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine and modeled on California’s Private Attorney General Act would let workers sue law-breaking employers on behalf of the state and all injured employees, even if they are covered by forced arbitration clauses, with penalty proceeds split between workers and underfunded state enforcement agencies.
They achieve this by forcing the vast majority of non-union private-sector workers to sign away their rights to go to court or use class or collective arbitration. Instead many millions of workers are being forced to forgo these efficient legal ways to resolve issues and to file individual arbitration claims.
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Popular Democracy says that by 2024 more than 80% of non-union private-sector workers will find courthouse doors chained shut by forced arbitration clauses that ban lawsuits and collective actions. (EPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank created in 1986 to press the needs of low- and middle-income workers in economic policy discussions.)
Hardest hit will be women, African-Americans, immigrants and low-wage workers as bosses compel employees to sign forced arbitration clauses to keep their jobs. The dense legalese giving up these rights is often hidden deep in the fine print of job application forms and new-hire paperwork, says the report titled “Unchecked corporate power: Forced arbitration, the enforcement crisis and how workers are fighting back.”
Enforcement of these clauses was validated by the Supreme Court in the Epic Systems v. Lewis decision. Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch provided the decisive vote and wrote the majority opinion in the May 2018 decision.
The 5-4 Epicruling lets individual arbitration clauses and waivers of collective action trump the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. That New Deal law gives workers the right to “concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.”
The high court decision shows how Donald Trump, who campaigned as a champion of workers and whose inaugural address promised to always look out for the “Forgotten Man,” has used his powers to hurt workers. His campaign speeches, read carefully, show his concern for corporations and profits and his love of tariffs more than workers.
No Right to Sue
According to an earlier EPI study, 56% of workers had already lost their right to sue their employers when the Trump court’s Epic decision intensified the trend, kicking off “a surge in corporate use of forced arbitration.”
Lower courts had split on the issue. By nominating Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, Trump swung the weight of the government toward management. Although the National Labor Relations Board had previously backed workers’ rights to collective action, Trump’s appointees gave it a new Republican majority.
The labor board also got a new, and anti-labor, general counsel, Peter Robb, a former partner at a Philadelphia union-busting law firm who promptly issued an amicus curiae brief supporting the employers’ position in the case. Robb has started a hunt for pro-labor rulings that can be overturned, Bloomberg reported in May.
The forced arbitration clauses backed by the Epic decision may let management select the arbitrators, crimp the amount of relief they can grant, and impose daunting fees and short filing periods on workers. No wonder businesses win the overwhelming majority of arbitration cases and when workers do win their awards are small. This individual arbitration process bears no resemblance to the voluntary bilateral arbitration used to resolve grievances, disputes under collective bargaining agreements and disciplinary issues in unionized workplaces.
At an Applebee’s in Bend, Ore., managers regularly forced Mike Swisher and his coworkers to work off the clock without pay. When he went to the Northwest Workers’ Justice Project for help, he discovered that among the paperwork required for the job they had signed an arbitration clause banning class actions. Thus the employees have been unable to recover any of the pay they are owed and Applebee’s has not been held accountable for the wage theft.
Mike is not alone: 93% of the workers who sign forced arbitration clauses don’t realize they are giving up their right to sue, the Center for Popular Democracy found.
Amy, an immigrant from Vietnam who does manicures and fingernails, was paid below the minimum wage for working 11 hours a day, seven days a week in suburban Seattle. She often saw a manager inappropriately touching her coworkers. Construction worker Carlos Jiménez suffered wage theft totaling $10,000 in Queens, N.Y.
Mike, Amy and Carlos are among the many workers whose stories of unremedied injustice were collected by the center.
60 Million Banned from Courts
Forced arbitration regimes already ban 60 million U.S. workers from protecting their employment rights through the judicial system. The practice is more prevalent in low-paid jobs, with an estimated two thirds of low-wage employers blocking the courthouse doors. The industries that use such tools to deny justice disproportionately employ women and African-Americans.
With the deck stacked against them, an estimated 98% of workers who would otherwise go to court give up the effort when their only option is forced individual arbitration, according to the report. In the banned class and collective actions, workers aggregate their claims and make litigation cost-effective, and under union contracts, management is often required to bear half the cost, but individual arbitration cases and lawsuits are unrealistic for most working people.
Corporate use of forced arbitration combines with cutbacks at enforcement agencies to severely erode workers’ rights. Budget cuts have left state and federal worker protection agencies that deal with race and gender discrimination, safety abuses and wage and hour violations underfunded and understaffed.
Enforcement divisions of the U.S. Labor Dept. lost $9.6 million in the last seven years alone during a time when the number of workers they are responsible for grew by 13 percent. The number of workers per federal wage and hour inspector has climbed to 175,000, more than double the ratio in the 1970s. Employees per safety and health compliance officer tripled.
Fightback legislation to override Epic Systems has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, introduced a companion Senate bill.
The Restoring Justice for Workers Act would prohibit mandatory arbitration and class action waivers in labor disputes and the Forced Arbitration Repeal Act would eliminate the clauses in employment, consumer and civil rights cases. Neither bill is likely to pass the Senate, however, and even if it did the White House would be opposed.
State “whistleblower enforcement laws” introduced in Oregon, Washington, New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and Maine and modeled on California’s Private Attorney General Act would let workers sue law-breaking employers on behalf of the state and all injured employees, even if they are covered by forced arbitration clauses, with penalty proceeds split between workers and underfunded state enforcement agencies.
Disney heiress 'livid' after going to one of her family's theme parks undercover
Nicole Lyn Pesce - Marketwatch - msn.com
7/15/19
So much for the “Happiest Place on Earth.” The heiress to the Disney fortune recently went to one of its theme parks undercover and says the visit made her livid.
Abigail Disney told the Yahoo News show “Through Her Eyes” that a worker sent her a Facebook message expressing how tragic being employed at the Magic Kingdom has become. So she went to Disneyland to see it for herself.
“Every single one of these people I talked to were saying, ‘I don’t know how I can maintain this face of joy and warmth when I have to go home and forage for food in other people’s garbage,’” Disney, 59, told Yahoo News host and human rights activist Zainab Salbi in an interview posted Monday.
Disney is the granddaughter of the late Roy Disney, who co-founded The Walt Disney Co. with his brother, Walt Disney. She does not have an active role in the company. Disney said that her grandfather would not approve of the current working conditions at the parks he helped create.
She added that “these people are much of the recipe for success. . . . When my grandfather worked there, he hired people there to have a job for life.”
This isn’t the first time that Abigail Disney has criticized how the Mickey Mouse company and its CEO, Bob Iger, are treating its lowest-paid employees. The Walt Disney Co. employs more than 200,000 people worldwide.
In April, she said that Iger’s $65 million pay package is insane at a Fast Company Impact Council discussion of human capitalism, noting his compensation is 1,424 times that of the median Disney employee. She also told CNBC that “Jesus Christ himself isn’t worth 500 times his median worker’s pay.”
A 2018 survey conducted by on behalf of a group of unions found that nearly three-quarters of full- and part-time employees (73%) said that they didn’t earn enough money working at Disneyland Resort to pay for basic expenses each month. More than half were worried about being evicted, and about one-tenth reported being homeless in the previous two years.
Disney, whose own net worth is $120 million, joined a group of 19 ultrawealthy Americans, including George Soros, who signed an open letter to the 2020 presidential candidates last month calling for a moderate wealth tax on the richest 1% to help reduce inequality. She recently told The Cut that she has donated $70 million to charity over the past 30 years.
She also told Yahoo in the new interview that she’d emailed Iger her concerns, telling him he was “a great CEO by any measure, perhaps even the greatest CEO in the country right now,” and urging him to “be known as the guy who led to a better place, because that is what you have the power to do.” She said she was referred to the HR department.
The Walt Disney Co. responded in an email statement to MarketWatch that the company offers a starting minimum wage of $15 an hour, as well as free education opportunities, and healthcare benefits for hourly workers starting at $6 a week.
“Our Disney Aspire initiative is the most comprehensive employee education program in the country, covering 100% of all tuition costs, books and fees so our hourly workers can pursue higher education free of charge, and graduate free of debt. Under Bob Iger’s leadership, Disney has made an initial commitment of $150 million to fund this program in the first five years, and will continue to make significant investments to make Disney Aspire available to as many employees as possible,” the statement continued. “Disney also provides flexible schedules and subsidized childcare to make it easier for employees to take advantage of this opportunity — and we’re proud that more than 40% of our 88,000-plus hourly employees have already signed up to participate.”
Abigail Disney told the Yahoo News show “Through Her Eyes” that a worker sent her a Facebook message expressing how tragic being employed at the Magic Kingdom has become. So she went to Disneyland to see it for herself.
“Every single one of these people I talked to were saying, ‘I don’t know how I can maintain this face of joy and warmth when I have to go home and forage for food in other people’s garbage,’” Disney, 59, told Yahoo News host and human rights activist Zainab Salbi in an interview posted Monday.
Disney is the granddaughter of the late Roy Disney, who co-founded The Walt Disney Co. with his brother, Walt Disney. She does not have an active role in the company. Disney said that her grandfather would not approve of the current working conditions at the parks he helped create.
She added that “these people are much of the recipe for success. . . . When my grandfather worked there, he hired people there to have a job for life.”
This isn’t the first time that Abigail Disney has criticized how the Mickey Mouse company and its CEO, Bob Iger, are treating its lowest-paid employees. The Walt Disney Co. employs more than 200,000 people worldwide.
In April, she said that Iger’s $65 million pay package is insane at a Fast Company Impact Council discussion of human capitalism, noting his compensation is 1,424 times that of the median Disney employee. She also told CNBC that “Jesus Christ himself isn’t worth 500 times his median worker’s pay.”
A 2018 survey conducted by on behalf of a group of unions found that nearly three-quarters of full- and part-time employees (73%) said that they didn’t earn enough money working at Disneyland Resort to pay for basic expenses each month. More than half were worried about being evicted, and about one-tenth reported being homeless in the previous two years.
Disney, whose own net worth is $120 million, joined a group of 19 ultrawealthy Americans, including George Soros, who signed an open letter to the 2020 presidential candidates last month calling for a moderate wealth tax on the richest 1% to help reduce inequality. She recently told The Cut that she has donated $70 million to charity over the past 30 years.
She also told Yahoo in the new interview that she’d emailed Iger her concerns, telling him he was “a great CEO by any measure, perhaps even the greatest CEO in the country right now,” and urging him to “be known as the guy who led to a better place, because that is what you have the power to do.” She said she was referred to the HR department.
The Walt Disney Co. responded in an email statement to MarketWatch that the company offers a starting minimum wage of $15 an hour, as well as free education opportunities, and healthcare benefits for hourly workers starting at $6 a week.
“Our Disney Aspire initiative is the most comprehensive employee education program in the country, covering 100% of all tuition costs, books and fees so our hourly workers can pursue higher education free of charge, and graduate free of debt. Under Bob Iger’s leadership, Disney has made an initial commitment of $150 million to fund this program in the first five years, and will continue to make significant investments to make Disney Aspire available to as many employees as possible,” the statement continued. “Disney also provides flexible schedules and subsidized childcare to make it easier for employees to take advantage of this opportunity — and we’re proud that more than 40% of our 88,000-plus hourly employees have already signed up to participate.”
Whole Foods workers say conditions declined after Amazon takeover
Employees described increasing pressure to push Amazon Prime deals and memberships, understaffing and increased workloads
Michael Sainato
The Guardian
Tue 16 Jul 2019 07.00 BST
Since being bought by Amazon two years ago, employees at Whole Foods say their working conditions have declined markedly amid pressure to push Amazon Prime deals and memberships, plus widespread understaffing, increased workloads and labor budget cuts.
Amazon announced in June 2017 it would buy Whole Foods. In interviews with 24 Whole Foods employees across the US, workers described an increasingly pressured environment and the erosion of Whole Foods’ corporate culture.
Workers interviewed were reluctant to speak on the record for fear of retaliation.
“Amazon has changed the company so much to the point where I can’t recognize Whole Foods any more,” said one Whole Foods worker in California. “It sends chills down my spine every day to see the store I love bombarded with everything and anything Amazon, from the Prime signs, Amazon lockers, Amazon meal kits and the Prime shoppers.”
In September 2018, a group of current and former Whole Foods workers organized Whole Worker, a group for workers to organize collectively to push for improved working conditions.
In a mass email sent to Whole Foods employees by over a dozen current and former workers with Whole Worker on 21 June, the group characterized Whole Foods’ relationship with Amazon as a subordinate to Amazon, where workers are primarily used to sell Amazon Prime memberships and deals.
A Whole Foods team member in the south-west US said: “Cashiers are currently trained to ask each customer if they have Prime. In the fall, they are rolling out signing up for it at the guest service desk. They are aiming for 35% of product purchases to be items on Amazon Prime sales, even if the guest doesn’t have Prime.”
A Whole Foods team leader who runs a meat department in the north-east US noted training for new employees now include sections about Prime benefits for customers. “It had nothing to do with customer service, expectations or requirements. Simply just the benefits of Prime, from everything to answering questions on Kindle, Amazon tablets, Amazon Fire Stick and Amazon music,” they said.
A Whole Foods worker in the Pacific north-west region claimed Amazon kiosks are replacing Prime lockers in Whole Foods stores throughout the region, where Prime customers can drop off and pick up Amazon orders.
“Whole Foods is not an independent company that has an investment or something from Amazon. It is a grocery retail outpost for Amazon, and it’s there to push online sales, Prime memberships and Prime devices,” they said.
A Whole Foods representative told the Guardian in an email: “Our Team Members are the heart of Whole Foods Market, and we are proud to continue to have one of the highest ratios of full-time/part-time employment and hourly starting wages in the industry. We have not cut labor hours as a result of increasing minimum starting wage to $15 per hour.”
However, numerous workers in different Whole Foods departments said they’re pushed to prioritize Amazon-related tasks over everything else.
“We must have large signs over our Prime deals, additional signs on the displays and samples or we get asked about it constantly,” said a Whole Foods team member who works in a specialty department in the Rocky Mountains region.
Several Whole Foods workers told how one of the Amazon-related changes is that understaffing has become the norm. Full-time workers said their hours have regularly been reduced from 40 a week to 35 to 37 in the wake of Amazon enacting a $15 minimum wage for all its employees – thus rendering any rises in pay almost non-existent.
“I have worked for the company for over a decade and have seen the most recent crunch of labor since the $15 hour minimum was implemented,” said a Whole Foods employee in the midwest.
The worker claimed their schedule was cut to 27 hours a week, despite being a full-time employee and working in an understaffed department. “They continue to give us more and more tasks and more checklists and things that need to be done, but our hours continue to be cut.”
A full-time Whole Foods team member in the mid-Atlantic region noted: “Now I’m usually scheduled 36 to 37 hours a week” since the Amazon minimum wage increase.
Another Whole Foods worker in California told the Guardian: “Our store has been labor deficient or compressed since the winter of 2018. We were successful, busy and a great environment. Then we stopped hiring, cut hours, moved people around to patch holes.”
A buyer and supervisor for Whole Foods on the west coast said: “We don’t have the manpower to get product on the shelves for customers, and we don’t have time for customer service because we are constantly playing catch-up.”
Amazon announced in June 2017 it would buy Whole Foods. In interviews with 24 Whole Foods employees across the US, workers described an increasingly pressured environment and the erosion of Whole Foods’ corporate culture.
Workers interviewed were reluctant to speak on the record for fear of retaliation.
“Amazon has changed the company so much to the point where I can’t recognize Whole Foods any more,” said one Whole Foods worker in California. “It sends chills down my spine every day to see the store I love bombarded with everything and anything Amazon, from the Prime signs, Amazon lockers, Amazon meal kits and the Prime shoppers.”
In September 2018, a group of current and former Whole Foods workers organized Whole Worker, a group for workers to organize collectively to push for improved working conditions.
In a mass email sent to Whole Foods employees by over a dozen current and former workers with Whole Worker on 21 June, the group characterized Whole Foods’ relationship with Amazon as a subordinate to Amazon, where workers are primarily used to sell Amazon Prime memberships and deals.
A Whole Foods team member in the south-west US said: “Cashiers are currently trained to ask each customer if they have Prime. In the fall, they are rolling out signing up for it at the guest service desk. They are aiming for 35% of product purchases to be items on Amazon Prime sales, even if the guest doesn’t have Prime.”
A Whole Foods team leader who runs a meat department in the north-east US noted training for new employees now include sections about Prime benefits for customers. “It had nothing to do with customer service, expectations or requirements. Simply just the benefits of Prime, from everything to answering questions on Kindle, Amazon tablets, Amazon Fire Stick and Amazon music,” they said.
A Whole Foods worker in the Pacific north-west region claimed Amazon kiosks are replacing Prime lockers in Whole Foods stores throughout the region, where Prime customers can drop off and pick up Amazon orders.
“Whole Foods is not an independent company that has an investment or something from Amazon. It is a grocery retail outpost for Amazon, and it’s there to push online sales, Prime memberships and Prime devices,” they said.
A Whole Foods representative told the Guardian in an email: “Our Team Members are the heart of Whole Foods Market, and we are proud to continue to have one of the highest ratios of full-time/part-time employment and hourly starting wages in the industry. We have not cut labor hours as a result of increasing minimum starting wage to $15 per hour.”
However, numerous workers in different Whole Foods departments said they’re pushed to prioritize Amazon-related tasks over everything else.
“We must have large signs over our Prime deals, additional signs on the displays and samples or we get asked about it constantly,” said a Whole Foods team member who works in a specialty department in the Rocky Mountains region.
Several Whole Foods workers told how one of the Amazon-related changes is that understaffing has become the norm. Full-time workers said their hours have regularly been reduced from 40 a week to 35 to 37 in the wake of Amazon enacting a $15 minimum wage for all its employees – thus rendering any rises in pay almost non-existent.
“I have worked for the company for over a decade and have seen the most recent crunch of labor since the $15 hour minimum was implemented,” said a Whole Foods employee in the midwest.
The worker claimed their schedule was cut to 27 hours a week, despite being a full-time employee and working in an understaffed department. “They continue to give us more and more tasks and more checklists and things that need to be done, but our hours continue to be cut.”
A full-time Whole Foods team member in the mid-Atlantic region noted: “Now I’m usually scheduled 36 to 37 hours a week” since the Amazon minimum wage increase.
Another Whole Foods worker in California told the Guardian: “Our store has been labor deficient or compressed since the winter of 2018. We were successful, busy and a great environment. Then we stopped hiring, cut hours, moved people around to patch holes.”
A buyer and supervisor for Whole Foods on the west coast said: “We don’t have the manpower to get product on the shelves for customers, and we don’t have time for customer service because we are constantly playing catch-up.”
“Bezos, Our Backs Are Tired”: Amazon Workers Strike on Prime Day
BY SARAH LAHM - In These Times
MONDAY, JUL 15, 2019, 4:07 PM
On Monday afternoon, in the blistering heat of a 95-degree day, approximately 50 Amazon workers and community supporters rallied outside of a suburban Minnesota Amazon warehouse chanting, “We work, We sweat, Amazon workers need a rest!” That chant was followed by, “Hey Jeff Bezos! Our backs are tired and our funds are low!"
The crowd was picketing to support workers at the Shakopee, Minnesota warehouse (or “fulfillment center”), who timed their strike to coincide with "Prime Day," one of the company’s key online sales events. Prime Day is being promoted on Amazon’s website as a “two-day parade of epic deals,” when monthly subscribers to the company’s Prime service can shop for discounted items and expect fast home delivery.
Workers say these deals are taking a toll on those tasked with fulfilling customer orders at a breakneck pace. From 2:00 p.m. to at least 8:00 p.m. on July 15, approximately 100 warehouse employees at the Amazon facility in Minnesota are expected to walk off the job in hopes of calling attention to what they say are unfair working conditions, as well as the company’s reliance on temporary employees.
They are joined by workers at Amazon facilities across Europe who are also be walking off the job, according to Mike Murphy of Quartz, to call attention to labor issues such as stagnant pay and unrealistic work quotas.
The majority of workers at the warehouse are East African immigrants, according to an event announcement for the July 15 strike. There are more than 100 such centers in the United States, but this is the only known facility participating in the walkout. These workers are being assisted by a Minneapolis-based labor rights group called the Awood Center, whose stated mission is to “build economic and political power amongst workers in the East African community of Minnesota.”
Meg Brady has worked at the Shakopee fulfillment center for nearly 18 months, although she says she is currently off the job due to a workplace injury. She joined coworkers and local labor activists on the picket line outside the Amazon facility. As a hot, blustery wind took hold, Brady described the stress fracture in her foot that is keeping her from her work as a “rebinner,” or someone tasked with grabbing items off a conveyor belt and putting them in a cubbyhole.
“I group items for orders,” she said, noting that she has to pull 600 products off the conveyor belt per hour. A big screen mounted in front of her keeps tabs of her work speed. There is pressure to keep up, Brady insisted, as she has seen fellow warehouse workers get written up and sometimes fired for being unable to meet Amazon’s requirements. All of this has led to a repetitive stress injury—one she says she had to fight to get recognized as job-related.
She joined the walkout in solidarity, hoping the workers’ actions will lead to reduced work rates, as well as an investment from Amazon in ergonomics. “Right now, we have poorly designed workstations,” Brady said.
Bryan Menegus of Gizmodo notes that workers at this “infamous” Amazon facility have spent the past year engaging in walk-outs and other actions on behalf of religious freedom and other labor concerns. Thus far, workers have won some concessions, including the right, in 2018, to honor the Muslim holiday of Ramadan during that year’s Prime Day event.
William Stolz also works in the Shakopee fulfillment center and helped organize the strike. In a July 9 interview with National Public Radio, Stolz described his work as a “picker”—someone who works in tandem with robots to put customer orders together, at a rapid pace dictated by Amazon.
Workers want to be treated like “human beings, not machines,” Stolz told NPR, before citing other labor concerns—such as Amazon’s use of temporary workers—as reasons for the planned walk-out. Currently, around 1,500 employees work at the Shakopee facility.
As the strike got underway at 2:00 p.m., a small but growing group of workers and labor activists began to hold picket signs demanding workplace concessions from Amazon, including reduced work rates and allowing more temporary employees to become permanent workers with access to benefits. In response to news of the planned action, Amazon has insisted that it provides competitive wages and benefits in Minnesota.
Still, the July 15 strike comes amid a year of increasing pressure on Amazon to alter its business practices and put labor, climate and human rights first. In 2018, thousands of Amazon workers in Europe mounted their own Prime Day strike, citing such concerns as unfair labor practices and union-busting. Similarly, the company backed off plans for a proposed second headquarters in New York City, thanks in part to union-led pressure.
Amazon began doing business in 1994 and has grown to become a global company with billions in annual earnings. In 2018, the company raked in over $232 billion in revenue and paid zero dollars in federal income taxes, according to sources such as CNBC. First-quarter earnings for 2019 have come in at close to $60 billion, putting Amazon on track to surpass last year’s revenue totals.
One of the company’s central income-boosting strategies has been increasing speed of its product-delivery rate, especially through its fee-based Prime service. The company recently announced plans to pour $800 million into making one-day delivery the standard for Prime members, who pay a monthly fee in exchange for free shipping on millions of products.
Amazon has said that its quick order-turnaround system is accomplished not just by human labor but also by technological advances, including its own Amazon Robotics design.
While Amazon’s earnings continue to grow, however, workers charged with filling orders at faster speeds are working under “endlessly brutal and punishing conditions,” as reporter Ravie Lakshmanan put it. The Guardian has described warehouse workers being injured on the job and then denied benefits or help. In another case, a former Amazon employee said he was fired for supporting unionization efforts.
These conditions led Amazon workers across Europe to go on strike on Prime Day in 2018. This year, Amazon workers at the Shakopee fulfillment center will take up the mantle and engage in a six-hour work stoppage.
So far, this is the only known action planned by Amazon employees in the United States. The striking Minnesota workers were joined, however, by a handful of engineers from Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, who reportedly flew to Minnesota to join the protest and pressure the retail behemoth to take a more active role in addressing climate justice concerns.
The crowd was picketing to support workers at the Shakopee, Minnesota warehouse (or “fulfillment center”), who timed their strike to coincide with "Prime Day," one of the company’s key online sales events. Prime Day is being promoted on Amazon’s website as a “two-day parade of epic deals,” when monthly subscribers to the company’s Prime service can shop for discounted items and expect fast home delivery.
Workers say these deals are taking a toll on those tasked with fulfilling customer orders at a breakneck pace. From 2:00 p.m. to at least 8:00 p.m. on July 15, approximately 100 warehouse employees at the Amazon facility in Minnesota are expected to walk off the job in hopes of calling attention to what they say are unfair working conditions, as well as the company’s reliance on temporary employees.
They are joined by workers at Amazon facilities across Europe who are also be walking off the job, according to Mike Murphy of Quartz, to call attention to labor issues such as stagnant pay and unrealistic work quotas.
The majority of workers at the warehouse are East African immigrants, according to an event announcement for the July 15 strike. There are more than 100 such centers in the United States, but this is the only known facility participating in the walkout. These workers are being assisted by a Minneapolis-based labor rights group called the Awood Center, whose stated mission is to “build economic and political power amongst workers in the East African community of Minnesota.”
Meg Brady has worked at the Shakopee fulfillment center for nearly 18 months, although she says she is currently off the job due to a workplace injury. She joined coworkers and local labor activists on the picket line outside the Amazon facility. As a hot, blustery wind took hold, Brady described the stress fracture in her foot that is keeping her from her work as a “rebinner,” or someone tasked with grabbing items off a conveyor belt and putting them in a cubbyhole.
“I group items for orders,” she said, noting that she has to pull 600 products off the conveyor belt per hour. A big screen mounted in front of her keeps tabs of her work speed. There is pressure to keep up, Brady insisted, as she has seen fellow warehouse workers get written up and sometimes fired for being unable to meet Amazon’s requirements. All of this has led to a repetitive stress injury—one she says she had to fight to get recognized as job-related.
She joined the walkout in solidarity, hoping the workers’ actions will lead to reduced work rates, as well as an investment from Amazon in ergonomics. “Right now, we have poorly designed workstations,” Brady said.
Bryan Menegus of Gizmodo notes that workers at this “infamous” Amazon facility have spent the past year engaging in walk-outs and other actions on behalf of religious freedom and other labor concerns. Thus far, workers have won some concessions, including the right, in 2018, to honor the Muslim holiday of Ramadan during that year’s Prime Day event.
William Stolz also works in the Shakopee fulfillment center and helped organize the strike. In a July 9 interview with National Public Radio, Stolz described his work as a “picker”—someone who works in tandem with robots to put customer orders together, at a rapid pace dictated by Amazon.
Workers want to be treated like “human beings, not machines,” Stolz told NPR, before citing other labor concerns—such as Amazon’s use of temporary workers—as reasons for the planned walk-out. Currently, around 1,500 employees work at the Shakopee facility.
As the strike got underway at 2:00 p.m., a small but growing group of workers and labor activists began to hold picket signs demanding workplace concessions from Amazon, including reduced work rates and allowing more temporary employees to become permanent workers with access to benefits. In response to news of the planned action, Amazon has insisted that it provides competitive wages and benefits in Minnesota.
Still, the July 15 strike comes amid a year of increasing pressure on Amazon to alter its business practices and put labor, climate and human rights first. In 2018, thousands of Amazon workers in Europe mounted their own Prime Day strike, citing such concerns as unfair labor practices and union-busting. Similarly, the company backed off plans for a proposed second headquarters in New York City, thanks in part to union-led pressure.
Amazon began doing business in 1994 and has grown to become a global company with billions in annual earnings. In 2018, the company raked in over $232 billion in revenue and paid zero dollars in federal income taxes, according to sources such as CNBC. First-quarter earnings for 2019 have come in at close to $60 billion, putting Amazon on track to surpass last year’s revenue totals.
One of the company’s central income-boosting strategies has been increasing speed of its product-delivery rate, especially through its fee-based Prime service. The company recently announced plans to pour $800 million into making one-day delivery the standard for Prime members, who pay a monthly fee in exchange for free shipping on millions of products.
Amazon has said that its quick order-turnaround system is accomplished not just by human labor but also by technological advances, including its own Amazon Robotics design.
While Amazon’s earnings continue to grow, however, workers charged with filling orders at faster speeds are working under “endlessly brutal and punishing conditions,” as reporter Ravie Lakshmanan put it. The Guardian has described warehouse workers being injured on the job and then denied benefits or help. In another case, a former Amazon employee said he was fired for supporting unionization efforts.
These conditions led Amazon workers across Europe to go on strike on Prime Day in 2018. This year, Amazon workers at the Shakopee fulfillment center will take up the mantle and engage in a six-hour work stoppage.
So far, this is the only known action planned by Amazon employees in the United States. The striking Minnesota workers were joined, however, by a handful of engineers from Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, who reportedly flew to Minnesota to join the protest and pressure the retail behemoth to take a more active role in addressing climate justice concerns.
‘It’s a sexist and racist attack’: Trump’s regulation to weaken home health care unions takes effect
A subtle, but important technical change.
AMANDA MICHELLE GOMEZ- Thinkprogress
JUL 5, 2019, 8:00 AM
Adarra Benjamin earns $13.48 an hour as a home health worker — a wage that includes a 48-cent-per hour raise thanks to her union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare Illinois.
Benjamin, who’s 25 years old and lives in Chicago, also received $1,200 in backpay this year after Illinois agreed to the raises back in 2017. She was one of more than 49,000 employees statewide to receive this long-overdue backpay.
“After becoming a member… I truly understood what it meant,” said Benjamin, “We are the union — the workers in general are the union — and understanding that if we don’t come together, we don’t have a voice. If we don’t have a voice, no one understands where the hard work and the dedication is coming from… no one understands what it takes to take care of yourself and other people.”
When she’s isn’t caring for her great-grandmother — cooking and cleaning — Benjamin assists a client with cerebral palsy — brushing her teeth or physically putting her to bed. Her two jobs demand that she work roughly 52 hours per week.
But a regulation that takes effect on Friday would bar someone like Benjamin, whose work is paid directly by Medicaid, from having her union dues automatically deducted from her paycheck. It’s a subtle but important technical change, as it’ll likely load more administrative burden onto workers who assist older adults and people with disabilities in their homes.
“I don’t like it,” said Benjamin, of the regulation. “It’s a sexist and racist attack.”
The regulation makes life more difficult for a specific sect of public-sector workers, said Caitlin Connolly, of the workers’ rights advocacy group, National Employment Law Project.
“We can’t ignore the fact that this regulation — this attack — on these workers has racist implications,” Connolly told ThinkProgress. “This is a workforce that’s majority women of color and the fact that this administration thinks that they can take their rights away from them by creating a false scenario is blatantly racist.”
In the more typical arrangement, the deduction of union dues, much like similar deductions by which employees pay into their health insurance or retirement savings, are automatically taken out of a worker’s paycheck once they agree to participate. (The Supreme Court decision, Harris v. Quinn, requires workers to opt in and explicitly state they want to participate in a union before the organization can collect dues.) Other public sector workers who are part of a union, such as firefighters or police officers, pay their dues through payroll deductions of earnings.
But the Trump administration is banning this practice for some home health aides and is requiring them to pay dues separately, in some instances by mail. People of color make up 60% of all home care workers; over one-quarter are immigrants; and roughly half have completed no formal education beyond high school, according to research by the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI).
The Trump administration maintains that federal law does not permit Medicaid dollars to be diverted in this fashion. Groups like National Federation of Independent Businesses argue that this rule prevents unions from using taxpayer dollars to pay for lobbying.
“People don’t get to choose the source of their pay,” said Connolly. “And the fact that, as a society, we make investments through our Medicaid-funded programs to make sure that individuals with disabilities and older adults can remain in their homes — that should not and does not at all detract from these workers rights.”
The regulation is just the latest example of the administration undermining the efforts of organized labor. Last year, President Donald Trump issued executive orders that make it easier to fire federal employees and weaken their ability to collectively bargain. When a federal court struck down key provisions of those orders, the administration achieved similar goals through workarounds.
The benefits that have accrued to home health aides through unionizing are well-documented: home care workers helped create the nation’s first social insurance for long-term care in Washington state; workers negotiated a wage increase to $16.10 per hour by July 2021 in Massachusetts; and workers secured training programs for improved delivery of care in Washington state, Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, and some counties in California.
“If these policymakers were serious about making home care accessible and available to all people with disabilities and all older adults, they would be investing in this workforce right now not attacking them because turnover is a huge,” said Connolly.
The median annual income for home care workers is $15,100 in 2017, and the turnover rate ballooned to 82 percent in 2018. Over 2.1 million home care workers provide health care, and the demand will likely grow as the population of people 65 and older will double; the elderly population is projected to be 88 million in 2050.
States where workers are unionized are fighting back. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with attorneys general in four other states, are suing the administration in federal court to block the rule. The case is pending. It’s unclear if the changes to how fees are collected will impact union membership or finances, but workers remain optimistic.
“This is a way to break us, and to not only show us how little they truly care about us but show us how little they think we care about ourselves,” said Benjamin. “But I’m sure the union will come out strong and members understand how valuable it is to still come together.”
Benjamin, who’s 25 years old and lives in Chicago, also received $1,200 in backpay this year after Illinois agreed to the raises back in 2017. She was one of more than 49,000 employees statewide to receive this long-overdue backpay.
“After becoming a member… I truly understood what it meant,” said Benjamin, “We are the union — the workers in general are the union — and understanding that if we don’t come together, we don’t have a voice. If we don’t have a voice, no one understands where the hard work and the dedication is coming from… no one understands what it takes to take care of yourself and other people.”
When she’s isn’t caring for her great-grandmother — cooking and cleaning — Benjamin assists a client with cerebral palsy — brushing her teeth or physically putting her to bed. Her two jobs demand that she work roughly 52 hours per week.
But a regulation that takes effect on Friday would bar someone like Benjamin, whose work is paid directly by Medicaid, from having her union dues automatically deducted from her paycheck. It’s a subtle but important technical change, as it’ll likely load more administrative burden onto workers who assist older adults and people with disabilities in their homes.
“I don’t like it,” said Benjamin, of the regulation. “It’s a sexist and racist attack.”
The regulation makes life more difficult for a specific sect of public-sector workers, said Caitlin Connolly, of the workers’ rights advocacy group, National Employment Law Project.
“We can’t ignore the fact that this regulation — this attack — on these workers has racist implications,” Connolly told ThinkProgress. “This is a workforce that’s majority women of color and the fact that this administration thinks that they can take their rights away from them by creating a false scenario is blatantly racist.”
In the more typical arrangement, the deduction of union dues, much like similar deductions by which employees pay into their health insurance or retirement savings, are automatically taken out of a worker’s paycheck once they agree to participate. (The Supreme Court decision, Harris v. Quinn, requires workers to opt in and explicitly state they want to participate in a union before the organization can collect dues.) Other public sector workers who are part of a union, such as firefighters or police officers, pay their dues through payroll deductions of earnings.
But the Trump administration is banning this practice for some home health aides and is requiring them to pay dues separately, in some instances by mail. People of color make up 60% of all home care workers; over one-quarter are immigrants; and roughly half have completed no formal education beyond high school, according to research by the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI).
The Trump administration maintains that federal law does not permit Medicaid dollars to be diverted in this fashion. Groups like National Federation of Independent Businesses argue that this rule prevents unions from using taxpayer dollars to pay for lobbying.
“People don’t get to choose the source of their pay,” said Connolly. “And the fact that, as a society, we make investments through our Medicaid-funded programs to make sure that individuals with disabilities and older adults can remain in their homes — that should not and does not at all detract from these workers rights.”
The regulation is just the latest example of the administration undermining the efforts of organized labor. Last year, President Donald Trump issued executive orders that make it easier to fire federal employees and weaken their ability to collectively bargain. When a federal court struck down key provisions of those orders, the administration achieved similar goals through workarounds.
The benefits that have accrued to home health aides through unionizing are well-documented: home care workers helped create the nation’s first social insurance for long-term care in Washington state; workers negotiated a wage increase to $16.10 per hour by July 2021 in Massachusetts; and workers secured training programs for improved delivery of care in Washington state, Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, and some counties in California.
“If these policymakers were serious about making home care accessible and available to all people with disabilities and all older adults, they would be investing in this workforce right now not attacking them because turnover is a huge,” said Connolly.
The median annual income for home care workers is $15,100 in 2017, and the turnover rate ballooned to 82 percent in 2018. Over 2.1 million home care workers provide health care, and the demand will likely grow as the population of people 65 and older will double; the elderly population is projected to be 88 million in 2050.
States where workers are unionized are fighting back. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with attorneys general in four other states, are suing the administration in federal court to block the rule. The case is pending. It’s unclear if the changes to how fees are collected will impact union membership or finances, but workers remain optimistic.
“This is a way to break us, and to not only show us how little they truly care about us but show us how little they think we care about ourselves,” said Benjamin. “But I’m sure the union will come out strong and members understand how valuable it is to still come together.”
Social security workers call new Trump administration contract ‘union-busting’
New contract will reduce the time allotted to employees for union activity from 250,000 hours annually to 50,000
Michael Sainato
The Guardian
Wed 3 Jul 2019 02.03 EDT
Workers at the Social Security Administration (SSA) say that the Trump administration has imposed a new contract on their 45,000 workers that could effectively shut down their union and are warning that the same thing could be tried elsewhere in the federal government as part of a crackdown on the labor movement.
A federal panel, consisting mainly of Trump-appointed members, issued a decision in May to impose a new union contract for the 45,000 federal employees at the SSA. The move came despite a federal judge’s decision last year to strike down most provisions in similarly issued orders for violating collective bargaining rights for federal employees.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), says the new contract the panel decided to impose chronically hampers its work at the agency, which mainly pays out retirement and disability benefits. The SSA is the first major federal agency up for a union contract renewal since Donald Trump’s executive orders were issued last year, and it is the AFGE’s second-largest bargaining unit.
“If the agency is successful in implementing this panel order, it will decimate our ability to represent workers all over the country,” said Rich Couture, an agency employee for more than 30 years and the union’s chief negotiator.
The provisions in the new contract will reduce the time allotted to SSA employees for union activity from 250,000 hours annually to 50,000 hours and ban all workers from using government property to conduct union activities, such as office spaces and government emails and holding files on government computers or in offices. It will also grant management the discretion to eliminate remote work.
“It’s union-busting,” said Damion Barco, a SSA employee in Maryland. “The official time is what we need to have a successful and productive union. A union is only effective if you can supply it.”
The contract will also eliminate over 1,400 memorandums of understanding that were agreed upon in collective bargaining over the past decade.
According to AFGE, the union is currently evaluating all of their legal options and plans to take the matter to court.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said David Cann, director of bargaining for the AFGE. “As we’ve been in negotiation with the Trump administration, we’ve seen a level of hostility toward labor unions that is unique and more coordinated from what we’ve seen with other administrations, even Republican administrations that are philosophically opposed to the mission of labor and the empowerment of workers.”
Federal workers are not legally permitted to strike, but the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act mandates collective bargaining and union rights for federal employees. Federal employees at the SSA, who also conduct work as union representatives, explained they will no longer have the time or resources to continue exercising those rights.
“Once Trump signed those executive orders, all employees who were union representatives lost the right to hold files in their offices, lost the right to represent employees unless we used our own personal leave or leave without pay and even with that management wouldn’t approve leave to represent people,” said Sherry Jackson, a social security field office employee in Connecticut who also works as a union representative in her region.
SSA workers noted the new provisions in the union contract will further hurt working conditions at the agency, which they say is already suffering low morale.
Jackson said: “If the government is going to be a premier place to work, employees are going to have to be treated more than indentured servants and have working conditions comparable to private industry, where freedom is not going to be restricted by a few, or otherwise the government is not going to be able to hold and sustain employees.”
Judith Browning, a social security employee in West Virginia, said the provisions will prevent whistleblowers from coming forward, as they will no longer have union protection, provide management with authoritarian power over employees, and set a dangerous anti-union precedent for all federal employees. In 2013, workers at Browning’s office exposed the biggest social security disability fraud scheme in US history. She noted the only time she has now to assist workers with union representation is on the weekends at home, taking time away from her family.
“President Trump issued the executive orders targeting our union in order to target all federal employees,” Browning said. “Trump is going to allow management to basically fire us for no reason. We’re an at-will agency now. It gives the discretion to the supervisors to terminate employees without representation, without a reason.”
The SSA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
A federal panel, consisting mainly of Trump-appointed members, issued a decision in May to impose a new union contract for the 45,000 federal employees at the SSA. The move came despite a federal judge’s decision last year to strike down most provisions in similarly issued orders for violating collective bargaining rights for federal employees.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), says the new contract the panel decided to impose chronically hampers its work at the agency, which mainly pays out retirement and disability benefits. The SSA is the first major federal agency up for a union contract renewal since Donald Trump’s executive orders were issued last year, and it is the AFGE’s second-largest bargaining unit.
“If the agency is successful in implementing this panel order, it will decimate our ability to represent workers all over the country,” said Rich Couture, an agency employee for more than 30 years and the union’s chief negotiator.
The provisions in the new contract will reduce the time allotted to SSA employees for union activity from 250,000 hours annually to 50,000 hours and ban all workers from using government property to conduct union activities, such as office spaces and government emails and holding files on government computers or in offices. It will also grant management the discretion to eliminate remote work.
“It’s union-busting,” said Damion Barco, a SSA employee in Maryland. “The official time is what we need to have a successful and productive union. A union is only effective if you can supply it.”
The contract will also eliminate over 1,400 memorandums of understanding that were agreed upon in collective bargaining over the past decade.
According to AFGE, the union is currently evaluating all of their legal options and plans to take the matter to court.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said David Cann, director of bargaining for the AFGE. “As we’ve been in negotiation with the Trump administration, we’ve seen a level of hostility toward labor unions that is unique and more coordinated from what we’ve seen with other administrations, even Republican administrations that are philosophically opposed to the mission of labor and the empowerment of workers.”
Federal workers are not legally permitted to strike, but the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act mandates collective bargaining and union rights for federal employees. Federal employees at the SSA, who also conduct work as union representatives, explained they will no longer have the time or resources to continue exercising those rights.
“Once Trump signed those executive orders, all employees who were union representatives lost the right to hold files in their offices, lost the right to represent employees unless we used our own personal leave or leave without pay and even with that management wouldn’t approve leave to represent people,” said Sherry Jackson, a social security field office employee in Connecticut who also works as a union representative in her region.
SSA workers noted the new provisions in the union contract will further hurt working conditions at the agency, which they say is already suffering low morale.
Jackson said: “If the government is going to be a premier place to work, employees are going to have to be treated more than indentured servants and have working conditions comparable to private industry, where freedom is not going to be restricted by a few, or otherwise the government is not going to be able to hold and sustain employees.”
Judith Browning, a social security employee in West Virginia, said the provisions will prevent whistleblowers from coming forward, as they will no longer have union protection, provide management with authoritarian power over employees, and set a dangerous anti-union precedent for all federal employees. In 2013, workers at Browning’s office exposed the biggest social security disability fraud scheme in US history. She noted the only time she has now to assist workers with union representation is on the weekends at home, taking time away from her family.
“President Trump issued the executive orders targeting our union in order to target all federal employees,” Browning said. “Trump is going to allow management to basically fire us for no reason. We’re an at-will agency now. It gives the discretion to the supervisors to terminate employees without representation, without a reason.”
The SSA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
while the slaves drive, the master resides in luxury!!!
Uber co-founder buys record-breaking LA mansion for $72.5m as drivers fight for wages
Los Angeles sees a spike in the homelessness population while homes the size of football fields are selling for more than $100m
Sam Levin in Los Angeles
The Guardian
Tue 2 Jul 2019 18.12 EDT
This 56,500 sq ft Holmby Hills mansion, once belonging to television producer Aaron Spelling, has sold for $120m. Photograph: Mark Terrill/AP
Two massive luxury real estate deals in Los Angeles have shone a harsh light on the wealth gap in a region where tens of thousands of people live on the streets while mansions the size of football fields sell for more than $100m.
On Monday, Variety reported that the Uber co-founder Garrett Camp and his partner Eliza Nguyen have purchased a Beverly Hills mansion for a record-breaking $72.5m, in what is believed to be the largest-ever sale of a home in the neighborhood.
It wasn’t even the biggest Los Angeles luxury real estate deal reported this week. A 56,500-square-foot Holmby Hills chateau, once home to television producer Aaron Spelling, sold for $120m, according to the Los Angeles Times, making it the highest home price in Los Angeles county history.
The extraordinary mega-mansion sales come at a time when Los Angeles is faced with widening inequality and escalating concerns about the housing crisis and a dramatic rise in homelessness, prompting intense debate about who gets to benefit from the growing economy.
The Holmby Hills property, known as the Manor, is 4.7 acres and is considered the largest single-family home in Los Angeles. It was built in 1991 for the television producer Aaron Spelling and now has 123 rooms, according to the LA Times’ report on the sale, which has not yet been made public. It’s the fourth sale of $100m or more in LA history, the paper reported.
The Beverly Hills mansion purchase by Camp was completed mere weeks after Uber’s IPO further enriched its wealthy investors and founders. Camp, a Canadian entrepreneur with an estimated net worth of $4.2bn, already owns a portfolio of luxury properties in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Manhattan.
Camp’s purchase has drawn the ire of activists and drivers who have long been protesting about Uber’s labor practices and advocating for better working conditions
“This is a perfect example of the 1% stealing from the rest of us,” Nicole Moore, a ride-share driver in Los Angeles, said of Camp’s $72.5m purchase. “Drivers are living in their cars. We’re fighting for fair wages. At least share that wealth with the people who have actually built your company.”
Moore, who is also an organizer with Rideshare Drivers United, told the Guardian she works as a part-time driver in addition to a full-time job in healthcare because housing costs are so expensive in Los Angeles: “It’s an abomination. Income inequality has gone rampant.”
“This guy is buying lavish houses with our money, our hard-earned money that they are unjustly taking from us,” added Karim Bayumi, another Los Angeles Uber driver and organizer. “It’s exploitation.”
The purchase by Camp is particularly eye-popping given that Uber continues to lose money and has also aggressively opposed drivers’ efforts to organize and improve their working conditions, said Veena Dubal, an associate law professor at the University of California, Hastings, who is an expert on labor rights in the gig economy.
“It’s a slap in everyone’s face,” she said, arguing that Uber was built on the idea of breaking labor laws and violating existing regulations. “The capitalist system we have has unduly rewarded him with extraordinary, in-your-face wealth.”
Citing drivers’ ongoing fights for workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, minimum wages and other rights, Dubal said that $72m could go along way: “This amount of money could change people’s lives.” She also noted that many Uber drivers rely on public benefits and government assistance since their wages are so low, meaning taxpayers in effect contribute to Camp’s exorbitant wealth.
“It’s our money that went into that house,” she said.
News of the $120m Holmby Hills sale came the same day that officials carried out another major sweep of a homeless encampment in downtown Los Angeles, the epicenter of the humanitarian crisis of people living on the streets. Last month, authorities revealed that Los Angeles has experienced a 16% increase in the homeless population over the last year, with more than 36,000 people now homeless in the city.
The Rev Andy Bales, CEO of Union Rescue Mission, a Los Angeles homeless organization, said $120m could be used to shelter thousands of people living on LA’s streets.
“Everyone just wants to sweep human beings away,” said Bales, noting that he encountered four homeless families desperate for shelter on Monday, including a pregnant mother with three young children. “It doesn’t do any good to sweep people, when there is nowhere to sweep them to. There are no shelters, no services where we can direct people.”
Pete White, executive director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, a housing rights group, said it was painful to read articles glorifying the huge mansion sale: “There is definitely a crisis of values in Los Angeles.”
Camp’s Beverly Hills estate is now reportedly home to a 12,000-square-foot residence with seven bedrooms and a new guesthouse. The Manor in Holmby Hills is said to include a large aquarium in a study, a nightclub in a basement level, a tanning room, a solarium, a spa, a tennis court, koi ponds, rose gardens and more.
On Monday, Variety reported that the Uber co-founder Garrett Camp and his partner Eliza Nguyen have purchased a Beverly Hills mansion for a record-breaking $72.5m, in what is believed to be the largest-ever sale of a home in the neighborhood.
It wasn’t even the biggest Los Angeles luxury real estate deal reported this week. A 56,500-square-foot Holmby Hills chateau, once home to television producer Aaron Spelling, sold for $120m, according to the Los Angeles Times, making it the highest home price in Los Angeles county history.
The extraordinary mega-mansion sales come at a time when Los Angeles is faced with widening inequality and escalating concerns about the housing crisis and a dramatic rise in homelessness, prompting intense debate about who gets to benefit from the growing economy.
The Holmby Hills property, known as the Manor, is 4.7 acres and is considered the largest single-family home in Los Angeles. It was built in 1991 for the television producer Aaron Spelling and now has 123 rooms, according to the LA Times’ report on the sale, which has not yet been made public. It’s the fourth sale of $100m or more in LA history, the paper reported.
The Beverly Hills mansion purchase by Camp was completed mere weeks after Uber’s IPO further enriched its wealthy investors and founders. Camp, a Canadian entrepreneur with an estimated net worth of $4.2bn, already owns a portfolio of luxury properties in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Manhattan.
Camp’s purchase has drawn the ire of activists and drivers who have long been protesting about Uber’s labor practices and advocating for better working conditions
“This is a perfect example of the 1% stealing from the rest of us,” Nicole Moore, a ride-share driver in Los Angeles, said of Camp’s $72.5m purchase. “Drivers are living in their cars. We’re fighting for fair wages. At least share that wealth with the people who have actually built your company.”
Moore, who is also an organizer with Rideshare Drivers United, told the Guardian she works as a part-time driver in addition to a full-time job in healthcare because housing costs are so expensive in Los Angeles: “It’s an abomination. Income inequality has gone rampant.”
“This guy is buying lavish houses with our money, our hard-earned money that they are unjustly taking from us,” added Karim Bayumi, another Los Angeles Uber driver and organizer. “It’s exploitation.”
The purchase by Camp is particularly eye-popping given that Uber continues to lose money and has also aggressively opposed drivers’ efforts to organize and improve their working conditions, said Veena Dubal, an associate law professor at the University of California, Hastings, who is an expert on labor rights in the gig economy.
“It’s a slap in everyone’s face,” she said, arguing that Uber was built on the idea of breaking labor laws and violating existing regulations. “The capitalist system we have has unduly rewarded him with extraordinary, in-your-face wealth.”
Citing drivers’ ongoing fights for workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, minimum wages and other rights, Dubal said that $72m could go along way: “This amount of money could change people’s lives.” She also noted that many Uber drivers rely on public benefits and government assistance since their wages are so low, meaning taxpayers in effect contribute to Camp’s exorbitant wealth.
“It’s our money that went into that house,” she said.
News of the $120m Holmby Hills sale came the same day that officials carried out another major sweep of a homeless encampment in downtown Los Angeles, the epicenter of the humanitarian crisis of people living on the streets. Last month, authorities revealed that Los Angeles has experienced a 16% increase in the homeless population over the last year, with more than 36,000 people now homeless in the city.
The Rev Andy Bales, CEO of Union Rescue Mission, a Los Angeles homeless organization, said $120m could be used to shelter thousands of people living on LA’s streets.
“Everyone just wants to sweep human beings away,” said Bales, noting that he encountered four homeless families desperate for shelter on Monday, including a pregnant mother with three young children. “It doesn’t do any good to sweep people, when there is nowhere to sweep them to. There are no shelters, no services where we can direct people.”
Pete White, executive director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, a housing rights group, said it was painful to read articles glorifying the huge mansion sale: “There is definitely a crisis of values in Los Angeles.”
Camp’s Beverly Hills estate is now reportedly home to a 12,000-square-foot residence with seven bedrooms and a new guesthouse. The Manor in Holmby Hills is said to include a large aquarium in a study, a nightclub in a basement level, a tanning room, a solarium, a spa, a tennis court, koi ponds, rose gardens and more.
PROFITING FROM THE POOR
PAY STARVATION WAGES THEN SUE WHEN THEY CAN'T PAY!!!
Low-Wage Workers Are Being Sued for Unpaid Medical Bills by a Nonprofit Christian Hospital That Employs Them
Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare has sued many of its own employees over unpaid medical bills and garnishes their wages; its health care plan prevents them from going to competitors with better financial assistance.
by Wendi C. Thomas, MLK50 - Pro Publica
June 28, 7 a.m. EDT
MEMPHIS, Tennessee — This year, a Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare housekeeper left her job just three hours into her shift and caught a bus to Shelby County General Sessions Court.
Wearing her black and gray uniform, she had a different kind of appointment with her employer: The hospital was suing her for unpaid medical bills.
In 2017, the nonprofit hospital system based in Memphis sued the woman for the cost of hospital stays to treat chronic abdominal pain she experienced before the hospital hired her.
She now owes Methodist more than $23,000, including around $5,800 in attorney’s fees.
It’s surreal, she said, to be sued by the organization that pays her $12.25 an hour. “You know how much you pay me. And the money you’re paying, I can’t live on,” said the housekeeper, who asked that her name not be used for fear that the hospital would fire her for talking to a reporter.
From 2014 through 2018, the hospital system affiliated with the United Methodist Church has filed more than 8,300 lawsuits against patients, including its own workers. After winning judgments, it has sought to garnish the wages of more than 160 Methodist workers and has actually done so in more than 70 instances over that time, according to an MLK50-ProPublica analysis of Shelby County General Sessions Court records, online docket reports and case files.
Some of the debts were accrued while the employees worked at Methodist; others predated their time there. The figures do not include debts incurred by onetime Methodist employees who have since moved on.
Between January and mid-June, a reporter observed more than a dozen Methodist employees in court to defend themselves in suits brought by the hospital over hospital bills.
That includes a Methodist Le Bonheur employee who owes more than $1,200. In January, she proposed paying $100 a month, even though her sworn affidavit listed monthly expenses that exceeded her $1,650 monthly income. After conferring with an attorney for Methodist, Judge Betty Thomas Moore agreed to the worker’s proposal, but she has already missed a payment.
A few weeks later, a Methodist employee appeared for an initial hearing wearing hospital scrubs. The hospital had sued her for more than $4,000. When she left the courtroom, she was annoyed. Her employer knew where she worked, she said, and should have contacted her before suing her. “I don’t know why they can’t come upstairs,” she said outside the courtroom.
And in May, an employee who has worked for Methodist for more than four years carried a large envelope full of bills with her into the courtroom. She owed more than $5,400, which included a 2017 hospital charge from the newborn unit. That is the same year that her daughter was born, according to her sworn affidavit, which also listed a checking account balance of less than $4. She offered to pay $10 biweekly, or $20 most months, but Methodist’s attorney wanted $200 per month. The judge ordered her to pay $100 per month.
It’s not uncommon for hospitals to sue patients over unpaid debts, but what is striking at Methodist, the largest hospital system in the Memphis region, is how many of those patients end up being its own employees. Hardly a week goes by in which Methodist workers aren’t on the court docket fighting debt lawsuits filed by their employer.
Making matters worse, employees say, is that Methodist’s health insurance benefits only allow employees to seek medical care at Methodist facilities, even though the financial assistance policies at its competitors are more generous.
An expert in hospital billing practices said that if the hospital is suing a fair number of its own employees, it’s time to look both at the insurance provided to workers and the pay scale.
“One would hope that if this is an action being taken against a significant amount of employees, the hospital would look at the insurance they provide workers,” said Mark Rukavina, an expert in nonprofit hospitals and a manager at Community Catalyst, a health care advocacy organization.
Methodist declined requests for an interview. It did not respond to specific written questions about the lawsuits it files against its workers or about how its policies reflect the values of the United Methodist Church. Instead, in a statement, it said it is committed to working with patients who are having trouble paying their medical bills.
“As the second largest private employer in Shelby County, we recognize the responsibility we have as an organization to contribute to the success of the diverse communities we serve and are purposeful about creating jobs in our community — intentionally choosing to keep services like printing, laundry and others in-house that are typically outsourced by the healthcare industry,” the hospital said.
Methodist also declined to answer a question about whether it has any policy that prohibits employees being sued by Methodist from talking to a reporter about the lawsuits filed against them by the hospital.
Employer and Legal Adversary
On a single January day, there were 10 defendants on the docket whose place of employment was listed in court records as Methodist.
Employees in scrubs sat just feet away from the attorneys in dress suits whom their employer hired to sue them. The hospital’s role as a tax-exempt organization that both employs the defendants and is suing them went unremarked upon by judges, attorneys and the defendants themselves.
Methodist’s financial assistance policy stands out from peers in Memphis and across the country, MLK50 and ProPublica found. The policy offers no assistance for patients with any form of health insurance, no matter their out-of-pocket costs. Under Methodist’s insurance plan, employees are responsible for a $750 individual deductible and then 20% of inpatient and outpatient costs, up to a maximum out-of-pocket cost of $4,100 per year.[...]
Wearing her black and gray uniform, she had a different kind of appointment with her employer: The hospital was suing her for unpaid medical bills.
In 2017, the nonprofit hospital system based in Memphis sued the woman for the cost of hospital stays to treat chronic abdominal pain she experienced before the hospital hired her.
She now owes Methodist more than $23,000, including around $5,800 in attorney’s fees.
It’s surreal, she said, to be sued by the organization that pays her $12.25 an hour. “You know how much you pay me. And the money you’re paying, I can’t live on,” said the housekeeper, who asked that her name not be used for fear that the hospital would fire her for talking to a reporter.
From 2014 through 2018, the hospital system affiliated with the United Methodist Church has filed more than 8,300 lawsuits against patients, including its own workers. After winning judgments, it has sought to garnish the wages of more than 160 Methodist workers and has actually done so in more than 70 instances over that time, according to an MLK50-ProPublica analysis of Shelby County General Sessions Court records, online docket reports and case files.
Some of the debts were accrued while the employees worked at Methodist; others predated their time there. The figures do not include debts incurred by onetime Methodist employees who have since moved on.
Between January and mid-June, a reporter observed more than a dozen Methodist employees in court to defend themselves in suits brought by the hospital over hospital bills.
That includes a Methodist Le Bonheur employee who owes more than $1,200. In January, she proposed paying $100 a month, even though her sworn affidavit listed monthly expenses that exceeded her $1,650 monthly income. After conferring with an attorney for Methodist, Judge Betty Thomas Moore agreed to the worker’s proposal, but she has already missed a payment.
A few weeks later, a Methodist employee appeared for an initial hearing wearing hospital scrubs. The hospital had sued her for more than $4,000. When she left the courtroom, she was annoyed. Her employer knew where she worked, she said, and should have contacted her before suing her. “I don’t know why they can’t come upstairs,” she said outside the courtroom.
And in May, an employee who has worked for Methodist for more than four years carried a large envelope full of bills with her into the courtroom. She owed more than $5,400, which included a 2017 hospital charge from the newborn unit. That is the same year that her daughter was born, according to her sworn affidavit, which also listed a checking account balance of less than $4. She offered to pay $10 biweekly, or $20 most months, but Methodist’s attorney wanted $200 per month. The judge ordered her to pay $100 per month.
It’s not uncommon for hospitals to sue patients over unpaid debts, but what is striking at Methodist, the largest hospital system in the Memphis region, is how many of those patients end up being its own employees. Hardly a week goes by in which Methodist workers aren’t on the court docket fighting debt lawsuits filed by their employer.
Making matters worse, employees say, is that Methodist’s health insurance benefits only allow employees to seek medical care at Methodist facilities, even though the financial assistance policies at its competitors are more generous.
An expert in hospital billing practices said that if the hospital is suing a fair number of its own employees, it’s time to look both at the insurance provided to workers and the pay scale.
“One would hope that if this is an action being taken against a significant amount of employees, the hospital would look at the insurance they provide workers,” said Mark Rukavina, an expert in nonprofit hospitals and a manager at Community Catalyst, a health care advocacy organization.
Methodist declined requests for an interview. It did not respond to specific written questions about the lawsuits it files against its workers or about how its policies reflect the values of the United Methodist Church. Instead, in a statement, it said it is committed to working with patients who are having trouble paying their medical bills.
“As the second largest private employer in Shelby County, we recognize the responsibility we have as an organization to contribute to the success of the diverse communities we serve and are purposeful about creating jobs in our community — intentionally choosing to keep services like printing, laundry and others in-house that are typically outsourced by the healthcare industry,” the hospital said.
Methodist also declined to answer a question about whether it has any policy that prohibits employees being sued by Methodist from talking to a reporter about the lawsuits filed against them by the hospital.
Employer and Legal Adversary
On a single January day, there were 10 defendants on the docket whose place of employment was listed in court records as Methodist.
Employees in scrubs sat just feet away from the attorneys in dress suits whom their employer hired to sue them. The hospital’s role as a tax-exempt organization that both employs the defendants and is suing them went unremarked upon by judges, attorneys and the defendants themselves.
Methodist’s financial assistance policy stands out from peers in Memphis and across the country, MLK50 and ProPublica found. The policy offers no assistance for patients with any form of health insurance, no matter their out-of-pocket costs. Under Methodist’s insurance plan, employees are responsible for a $750 individual deductible and then 20% of inpatient and outpatient costs, up to a maximum out-of-pocket cost of $4,100 per year.[...]
400 years of slavery!!!
No rest for the workers: how the US is out of step on paid leave
A survey of the 21 wealthiest countries has found that the US is the only one not to guarantee paid vacation time
Mona Chalabi in New York
The Guardian
Tue 18 Jun 2019 01.00 EDT
When it comes to paid leave, the US stands alone among ‘advanced economies’. Illustration: Mona Chalabi/The Guardian
Of the 21 wealthiest countries, the US is the only one not to guarantee workers paid leave, according to a recent report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research which dubbed it “no vacation nation”.
The lack of a federal policy on the issue particularly affects part-time workers, only 40% of whom receive paid vacation. Overall, close to one in four Americans have no paid vacation whatsoever.
The report looked at 21 countries that it described as “advanced economies” and found that the US was the only one to have zero days of mandatory paid leave.
The lack of a federal policy on the issue particularly affects part-time workers, only 40% of whom receive paid vacation. Overall, close to one in four Americans have no paid vacation whatsoever.
The report looked at 21 countries that it described as “advanced economies” and found that the US was the only one to have zero days of mandatory paid leave.
Airline caterers are prepping to strike. Here's what that means for travelers
The three biggest airlines made $50 billion in profit in 5 years. Why do many airline caterers make poverty wages?
NICOLE KARLIS - Salon
JUNE 18, 2019 11:00PM (UTC)
Long a staple of stand-up comedy, airplane food doesn't have a great public reputation. Hence, as nearly 11,000 airplane caterers move forward to vote on a strike, one might think that many customers won't miss it.
Yet especially for longer flights, being able to have a drink, snack or meal can mean the difference between an irritable customer and a happy, satisfied one. That has airline industry executives biting their nails at the prospect of an airline food caterer's strike, which seems increasingly likely.
Last week, airline food caterers in Miami and San Francisco voted to authorize their union, Unite Here, to request a strike. Workers who vote to request a strike need to be released by the National Mediation Board (NMB), which governs airline workers, to issue a formal release of Unite Here members to allow them to strike legally. Unite Here anticipates that if a strike were to happen, which could come at the end of this summer or later in the year, it would include 11,000 airline food workers who prepare, pack, and deliver food and drinks served on American Airline, Delta, and United flights. Airline workers are covered under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) instead of The National Labor Relations Board, which means that when workers under the RLA authorize a strike, they must be approved for release in a parallel process by the NMB.
“The three biggest airlines in the country, American, Delta, and United, made $50 billion in combined profits in just the past five years alone — so why do workers who serve their food earn under $10 an hour in some cities?” said D. Taylor, International President of Unite Here. “The airline industry is making record profits on the backs of deeply exploited kitchen workers who are forced to choose between paying their bills, relying on government assistance or even forfeiting medical care even while working overtime.”
Workers' demands include increased hourly wages and more affordable health insurance. Less than 50 percent of food service workers at San Francisco International Airport had company health insurance in 2018; only 10 percent had a child or family covered. The median wage is $18.86 per hour at that airport, barely above the $15 per hour minimum wage in a region with one of the highest costs of living in the United States.
“One job should be enough for me and my daughter,” said Mohammed Rahman, a single dad who prepares beverages for United Airlines flights, in a media statement. “I do the drinks for United, one of the biggest airlines in the world, and I still make so little that my 14-year-old daughter and I have to share a single room in a house with three other roommates. I’m voting to strike because I think my daughter deserves better.”
Jeffrey Price, a professor in the Department of Aviation and Aerospace at Metropolitan State University of Denver, told Salon via email that while it is hard to quantify the precise impact of a strike on airlines, such a labor action will likely be felt by customers as the operations of air travel would be severely affected.
“While the airline will likely, temporarily, switch to a Southwest, or other low-cost carrier model, where you pretty much bring your own food, there will still be some basic need for water on board if nothing else,” Price says.
Temporarily replacing catering crews would mean that airlines would have to contract with off-site — meaning off the airport — providers. This is not an easy fix, as tedious arrangements would have to be made with new contractors.
“For the airlines to temporarily replace the catering crews, they would need to contract with off-site providers and make arrangements for the deliveries to be escorted through screening areas or across the airfield apron to the aircraft,” Price explained. “Accessing secured areas of an airport requires extensive work ahead of time with the airport security department to ensure individuals are background checked, properly badged (airport ID cards), and airfield safety issues for vehicles not normally on an airport to be on the apron areas, such as insurance, and airfield driver training.”
The cost could be millions, Price added, depending on how much the airline wants to continue to provide in terms of food and beverages.
A former catering executive at a U.S. airline, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Salon most passengers have no idea of the complexity of the airline industry.
“Airline catering employees are among the thousands of people air travelers never see,” the former executive said. “But they would if they couldn’t get a Coke or beer on their flight.”
The former executive said that a big part of the problem is that airline catering is a duopoly.
“A big part of the problem is that airline catering is essentially a duopoly between the LSG SkyChefs, a subsidiary of the German airline Lufthansa, and Gate Gourmet, based in Switzerland and owned by private equity firms,” the former executive said. “The duopoly obviously means airlines can choose caterer A or caterer B, and contracts for catering services at large airports like New York Kennedy and Chicago O’Hare alternate every several years, from LSG to Gate or vice-versa.”
Despite the bureaucracy innate to airline catering operations, the bottom line is that food service workers are overworked and underpaid.
“Almost all food service workers do not earn much, despite their hard work,” the former executive said.
Unite Here is requesting at least a $15 wage baseline for catering employees nationwide, but some workers are saying even that is not enough.
Yet especially for longer flights, being able to have a drink, snack or meal can mean the difference between an irritable customer and a happy, satisfied one. That has airline industry executives biting their nails at the prospect of an airline food caterer's strike, which seems increasingly likely.
Last week, airline food caterers in Miami and San Francisco voted to authorize their union, Unite Here, to request a strike. Workers who vote to request a strike need to be released by the National Mediation Board (NMB), which governs airline workers, to issue a formal release of Unite Here members to allow them to strike legally. Unite Here anticipates that if a strike were to happen, which could come at the end of this summer or later in the year, it would include 11,000 airline food workers who prepare, pack, and deliver food and drinks served on American Airline, Delta, and United flights. Airline workers are covered under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) instead of The National Labor Relations Board, which means that when workers under the RLA authorize a strike, they must be approved for release in a parallel process by the NMB.
“The three biggest airlines in the country, American, Delta, and United, made $50 billion in combined profits in just the past five years alone — so why do workers who serve their food earn under $10 an hour in some cities?” said D. Taylor, International President of Unite Here. “The airline industry is making record profits on the backs of deeply exploited kitchen workers who are forced to choose between paying their bills, relying on government assistance or even forfeiting medical care even while working overtime.”
Workers' demands include increased hourly wages and more affordable health insurance. Less than 50 percent of food service workers at San Francisco International Airport had company health insurance in 2018; only 10 percent had a child or family covered. The median wage is $18.86 per hour at that airport, barely above the $15 per hour minimum wage in a region with one of the highest costs of living in the United States.
“One job should be enough for me and my daughter,” said Mohammed Rahman, a single dad who prepares beverages for United Airlines flights, in a media statement. “I do the drinks for United, one of the biggest airlines in the world, and I still make so little that my 14-year-old daughter and I have to share a single room in a house with three other roommates. I’m voting to strike because I think my daughter deserves better.”
Jeffrey Price, a professor in the Department of Aviation and Aerospace at Metropolitan State University of Denver, told Salon via email that while it is hard to quantify the precise impact of a strike on airlines, such a labor action will likely be felt by customers as the operations of air travel would be severely affected.
“While the airline will likely, temporarily, switch to a Southwest, or other low-cost carrier model, where you pretty much bring your own food, there will still be some basic need for water on board if nothing else,” Price says.
Temporarily replacing catering crews would mean that airlines would have to contract with off-site — meaning off the airport — providers. This is not an easy fix, as tedious arrangements would have to be made with new contractors.
“For the airlines to temporarily replace the catering crews, they would need to contract with off-site providers and make arrangements for the deliveries to be escorted through screening areas or across the airfield apron to the aircraft,” Price explained. “Accessing secured areas of an airport requires extensive work ahead of time with the airport security department to ensure individuals are background checked, properly badged (airport ID cards), and airfield safety issues for vehicles not normally on an airport to be on the apron areas, such as insurance, and airfield driver training.”
The cost could be millions, Price added, depending on how much the airline wants to continue to provide in terms of food and beverages.
A former catering executive at a U.S. airline, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Salon most passengers have no idea of the complexity of the airline industry.
“Airline catering employees are among the thousands of people air travelers never see,” the former executive said. “But they would if they couldn’t get a Coke or beer on their flight.”
The former executive said that a big part of the problem is that airline catering is a duopoly.
“A big part of the problem is that airline catering is essentially a duopoly between the LSG SkyChefs, a subsidiary of the German airline Lufthansa, and Gate Gourmet, based in Switzerland and owned by private equity firms,” the former executive said. “The duopoly obviously means airlines can choose caterer A or caterer B, and contracts for catering services at large airports like New York Kennedy and Chicago O’Hare alternate every several years, from LSG to Gate or vice-versa.”
Despite the bureaucracy innate to airline catering operations, the bottom line is that food service workers are overworked and underpaid.
“Almost all food service workers do not earn much, despite their hard work,” the former executive said.
Unite Here is requesting at least a $15 wage baseline for catering employees nationwide, but some workers are saying even that is not enough.
Federal minimum wage sets record with no increase since 2009
- *Baseline wage has remained unchanged at $7.25 an hour
- *Inflation has raised cost of living by 18% since last raise
Victoria Bekiempis in New York
The Guardian
Sun 16 Jun 2019 14.16 EDT
The US federal minimum wage has gone a record length of time without an increase, with the $7.25-an-hour base, remaining unchanged for nearly a decade as of Sunday.
For minimum-wage workers who have a 40-hour work week, and work 52 weeks without having any unpaid time off, this equates to just $15,080 annually, according to a CNN calculation.
Twenty-one states reportedly use the federal minimum wage as their base. Lawmakers approved the last increase on 24 July 2009.
The number stands in sharp contrast to what some researchers believe is an average living wage. Two working parents in a family of four would need to earn $67,146 to cover expenses. That equates to $16.14 an hour for each parent, CNN reported.
The record delay comes amid potentially significant economic growth.
The US has enjoyed roughly 10 years of economic expansion, which may soon become the longest such expansion in this country’s history, according to USA Today. Inflation, meanwhile, has led to a loss of purchasing power.
CBS reported that $7.25 in 2009 is valued at only about $6 in 2019. The cost of living has soared 18% since the last increase, per CBS’s report.
More than 24 cities and states have enacted higher minimum wages, however. In Massachusetts, for example, the baseline is $12 an hour. In New York City, workplaces with more than 11 employees must pay at least $15 an hour, per CBS.
Nearly every Democrat vying for their party’s nomination in the 2020 presidential election supports almost doubling the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Some hopefuls have been visiting picket lines alongside McDonald’s workers, who were key to launching the Fight for $15 initiative that helped boost the minimum wage across some US states, CNBC said.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, reportedly vowed in 2017 that if Democrats regained control of the house, they would greenlight a $15 minimum “in the first 100 hours”.
The Raise the Wage Act, which would require a $15 minimum, has had neither a full House vote nor undergone a vote in the appropriate Senate committee, CNN points out.
The US minimum wage was first approved by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1938, to bolster the economy. At the time, it was 25 cents an hour, or about $4.45 in 2019 dollars. It has since been raised 22 times, CNN notes.
The second-largest time lapse in such an increase was marked in July 2007, after Congress failed to approve any increases since September 1997, CNN reported.
For minimum-wage workers who have a 40-hour work week, and work 52 weeks without having any unpaid time off, this equates to just $15,080 annually, according to a CNN calculation.
Twenty-one states reportedly use the federal minimum wage as their base. Lawmakers approved the last increase on 24 July 2009.
The number stands in sharp contrast to what some researchers believe is an average living wage. Two working parents in a family of four would need to earn $67,146 to cover expenses. That equates to $16.14 an hour for each parent, CNN reported.
The record delay comes amid potentially significant economic growth.
The US has enjoyed roughly 10 years of economic expansion, which may soon become the longest such expansion in this country’s history, according to USA Today. Inflation, meanwhile, has led to a loss of purchasing power.
CBS reported that $7.25 in 2009 is valued at only about $6 in 2019. The cost of living has soared 18% since the last increase, per CBS’s report.
More than 24 cities and states have enacted higher minimum wages, however. In Massachusetts, for example, the baseline is $12 an hour. In New York City, workplaces with more than 11 employees must pay at least $15 an hour, per CBS.
Nearly every Democrat vying for their party’s nomination in the 2020 presidential election supports almost doubling the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Some hopefuls have been visiting picket lines alongside McDonald’s workers, who were key to launching the Fight for $15 initiative that helped boost the minimum wage across some US states, CNBC said.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, reportedly vowed in 2017 that if Democrats regained control of the house, they would greenlight a $15 minimum “in the first 100 hours”.
The Raise the Wage Act, which would require a $15 minimum, has had neither a full House vote nor undergone a vote in the appropriate Senate committee, CNN points out.
The US minimum wage was first approved by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1938, to bolster the economy. At the time, it was 25 cents an hour, or about $4.45 in 2019 dollars. It has since been raised 22 times, CNN notes.
The second-largest time lapse in such an increase was marked in July 2007, after Congress failed to approve any increases since September 1997, CNN reported.
Uber is upset that its underpaid drivers are gaming the app for better pay
Uber prefers to exploit its drivers (and customers) on its own terms; now, it's mad that they're fighting back
NICOLE KARLIS - Salon
JUNE 13, 2019 11:00PM (UTC)
A News station ABC7 in Arlington, Virginia, published a special report in May on how local Uber drivers were manipulating the Uber app while in the vicinity of Reagan National Airport, in order to artificially create "surge pricing" events — in which the rate for a rideshare spontaneously rises due to a lack of supply of drivers. Now, a second report published this week claims that more drivers from all across the country have come forward to share similar stories of organized rideshare price manipulation.
The reports explain that drivers manipulate the fares by turning off their rideshare apps at the same time — a collective effort that decreases supply when demand at the airport is high. When the apps are turned back on, the drivers all get a price surge on rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft. Drivers say they can time this correctly by knowing when flights are arriving, according to the reports.
ABC7 says that drivers they spoke to publicly revealed the technique for the first time; according to the new report, other drivers around the country are upset the secret is out. In an Uber driver thread on Reddit, commenters say “Surge Club” is like “Fight Club,” meaning that the first rule is that you don’t talk about it.
Uber sent ABC7 a statement saying they “have taken steps to address fraudulent behavior ... engaging in this behavior may result in removal." The company said it can also be difficult to decipher what is a natural spike in prices, and a manipulated one.
There is, of course, an irony in Uber's words: typically, the company and its opaque algorithms control how much drivers get paid and how frequently a surge will occur, and the company can manipulate its own rules as much as it wants — yet it gets mad when drivers, the company's backbone, attempt to do the same on their own terms through a solidarity action.
It is unclear where else this is happening, but ABC7 said they had not found any evidence that it was happening at the D.C. area’s other two major airports, Dulles International Airport and Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
Some experts tell Salon such an idea is not that surprising, considering how little drivers make.
“Although hard to prove that drivers are intentionally manipulating the app to enjoy price surges, it is not surprising that they would,” Maria Figueroa, Director of Labor and Policy Research at The Worker Institute at Cornell’s ILR School, told Salon via email. “Based on findings from our research on platform drivers in New York, app rates are not high enough for drivers to make adequate earnings after covering all their expenses.”
Figueroa said lack of transparency is one of the biggest complaints from drivers, who sometimes argue that the companies Uber and Lyft can manipulate the platform to lower driver pay.
“It is possible to manipulate the app to trigger surge prices,” Figueroa said. “Surge pricing occurs when supply of drivers is low, or when demand for rides is very high. So, workers can reduce the supply of drivers by turning off the apps. When the surge pricing is triggered they can turn it back on.”
Moira Muntz, a spokeswoman for The Independent Drivers Guild, tells Salon the bigger picture is that drivers aren’t paid enough.
“Drivers across the country are struggling with pay that is often well below minimum wage while the app companies charge as much as they want and pocket the difference,” Muntz said. “App-based drivers in Washington DC make as little as $5 per hour, far less than the minimum wage.”
Muntz said these companies are often overcharging riders, underpaying drivers, and pocketing the difference.
“They are extracting that hard-earned money out of our communities to benefit wealthy investors,” Muntz said. “Drivers and riders need to organize together to win legislation to make this industry fair for everyone by requiring fair pay for drivers and capping the app commissions charged to riders.”
The reports explain that drivers manipulate the fares by turning off their rideshare apps at the same time — a collective effort that decreases supply when demand at the airport is high. When the apps are turned back on, the drivers all get a price surge on rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft. Drivers say they can time this correctly by knowing when flights are arriving, according to the reports.
ABC7 says that drivers they spoke to publicly revealed the technique for the first time; according to the new report, other drivers around the country are upset the secret is out. In an Uber driver thread on Reddit, commenters say “Surge Club” is like “Fight Club,” meaning that the first rule is that you don’t talk about it.
Uber sent ABC7 a statement saying they “have taken steps to address fraudulent behavior ... engaging in this behavior may result in removal." The company said it can also be difficult to decipher what is a natural spike in prices, and a manipulated one.
There is, of course, an irony in Uber's words: typically, the company and its opaque algorithms control how much drivers get paid and how frequently a surge will occur, and the company can manipulate its own rules as much as it wants — yet it gets mad when drivers, the company's backbone, attempt to do the same on their own terms through a solidarity action.
It is unclear where else this is happening, but ABC7 said they had not found any evidence that it was happening at the D.C. area’s other two major airports, Dulles International Airport and Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
Some experts tell Salon such an idea is not that surprising, considering how little drivers make.
“Although hard to prove that drivers are intentionally manipulating the app to enjoy price surges, it is not surprising that they would,” Maria Figueroa, Director of Labor and Policy Research at The Worker Institute at Cornell’s ILR School, told Salon via email. “Based on findings from our research on platform drivers in New York, app rates are not high enough for drivers to make adequate earnings after covering all their expenses.”
Figueroa said lack of transparency is one of the biggest complaints from drivers, who sometimes argue that the companies Uber and Lyft can manipulate the platform to lower driver pay.
“It is possible to manipulate the app to trigger surge prices,” Figueroa said. “Surge pricing occurs when supply of drivers is low, or when demand for rides is very high. So, workers can reduce the supply of drivers by turning off the apps. When the surge pricing is triggered they can turn it back on.”
Moira Muntz, a spokeswoman for The Independent Drivers Guild, tells Salon the bigger picture is that drivers aren’t paid enough.
“Drivers across the country are struggling with pay that is often well below minimum wage while the app companies charge as much as they want and pocket the difference,” Muntz said. “App-based drivers in Washington DC make as little as $5 per hour, far less than the minimum wage.”
Muntz said these companies are often overcharging riders, underpaying drivers, and pocketing the difference.
“They are extracting that hard-earned money out of our communities to benefit wealthy investors,” Muntz said. “Drivers and riders need to organize together to win legislation to make this industry fair for everyone by requiring fair pay for drivers and capping the app commissions charged to riders.”
Workers With Disabilities Are Making Cents Per Hour — and It’s Legal
BY Jack Delaney, Truthout
PUBLISHED June 7, 2019
Imagine making cents on the dollar to toil in a warehouse, separated from the broader society, while repeatedly piecing together widgets or engaging in manual labor for some multinational corporation with which you’ve never interacted. For many Americans, the concept of making nickels and dimes for your labor in the richest nation in human history is incomprehensible. But for the tens of thousands of Americans making far less than minimum wage due to their disabilities, it is an all too familiar reality.
In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), a monumental piece of legislation, was ratified and signed into law. Earning scorn from the business community and elitist politicians alike, the law created the right to a minimum wage, required overtime pay for some workers, and curtailed child labor. Yet, despite the law’s worker-conscious stipulations, it contains an antiquated provision that is being used by business executives today to pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities.
Section 214(c) of the FLSA, which is known in disability policy circles as 14(c), allows employers that hire people with disabilities to pay their workers a subminimum wage. Section 214(c) of the FLSA states that workers “whose earning or productive capacity is impaired by age, physical or mental deficiency, or injury” can be paid based on their “productivity” or on the “quality and quantity” of their labor. The underlying assumption is that workers with disabilities are less valuable than workers without disabilities and should thus be paid based on their productivity to incentivize employers to hire them.
Originally, 14(c) was intended to reduce the barriers to employment for people with disabilities, but over time employers have taken advantage of this provision. It certainly has not yielded equality for people with disabilities. Although some advocates say 14(c) advances employment outcomes, people with disabilities are disproportionately underemployed, unemployed or forced to live in poverty compared to the rates of the general population.
A Pipeline for Cheap Labor
Currently, there are over 1,400 firms holding 14(c) certificates in the US,collectively employing over 320,000 workers with disabilities. Certificate holders range from small operations with a sole employee working under 14(c) to large-scale operations with several hundred workers, and in a few cases, over a thousand. 14(c) certificate holders are known as Community Rehabilitation Programs, or more commonly, sheltered workshops. These organizations seek and receive contracts from large corporations to generate products and services that fund their operations.
Sheltered workshops also receive government funding through the AbilityOne Program, a program used to provide federal contracts for people with disabilities, while also receiving reimbursements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Almost half of 14(c) certificate holders participate in the AbilityOne Program. In other words, while sheltered workshops pay workers as little as a dollar an hour, taxpayer dollars through CMS reimbursements and AbilityOne government contracts are funding their operations.
At face value these organizations seem like a harmless force in American communities, but they are exploiting many vulnerable people. Many sheltered workshops’ workers make extraordinarily less than the minimum wage, sometimes even as low as 36 cents an hour. While their workers are compensated at sweatshop rates, sheltered workshop executives are often compensated to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. PRIDE Industries, a Sacramento-based sheltered workshop, pays its CEO a salary of $792,132, while 906 workers are employed at subminimum wages.
14(c) is being used as a pipeline for cheap labor under the guise of “job creation” for an underserved population. Certificate holders act as a vessel for larger corporations to obtain inexpensive labor and form a symbiotic relationship based on revenue generation and exploitation masquerading as philanthropy. Unjustly, in addition to receiving little compensation, workers with disabilities are often held back from receiving promotions or placement at jobs with competitive wages in integrated settings.
Subminimum wages not only unjustly impact workers with disabilities — they also have an effect on total wages for all workers in a labor market. When labor’s costs are driven down, the wages of all workers are decreased and businesses yield higher profits. 14(c) is not only inequitable for the workers with disabilities, but also for the total labor force in a given market. Workers who are not categorized as having disabilities have to compete against labor that is almost costless for a corporation. Subminimum wages impact all workers’ wages.
Large multinational corporations like Firestone, Home Depot, Kohler, Kroger, Mary Kay, Raytheon, Time Warner Cable, Walmart and Honda, are heavily invested in 14(c). They are able to secure contracts where labor is only paid a dollar an hour. People with disabilities pay the economic price so corporations and executives can continue amassing wealth.
Sheltered workshops that hold 14(c) certificates are segregated in nature. At a glance, businesses holding 14(c) certificates may seem philanthropic, but people with disabilities, especially those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, have historically been segregated from the rest of society.
The use of subminimum wages is inherently inequitable and contradicts the very mission of the FLSA. The FLSA’s purpose was to promote worker protections and guarantee a minimum standard for labor.
Unfortunately, workers with disabilities are excluded from that guarantee.
14(c) is paternalistic and does not account for the skills and contributions of workers with disabilities. Social and scientific understandings of disability have certainly progressed since the inception of 14(c) in 1938. The disability service system in America is not only outdated, but also is skewed toward profit-generation, rather than community inclusion and fair compensation.
Proponents of the subminimum wage try to frame it as a civil rights issue and claim that the provision offers more choices to people with disabilities. Yet for many workers with disabilities, working for subminimum wages is not a choice. Because for-profit corporations only see people with disabilities as profitable when working for subminimum wages, 14(c) employment is often their only option for work.
The champions of the subminimum wage also argue that sheltered workshops and their executives do not have enough funds to pay their workers a decent wage and remain competitive, yet the sheltered workshop industry employs dozens of D.C. and state lobbyists to peddle influence in favor of this very issue.
Subminimum wage advocates also argue that 14(c) is used as a training program to get people with disabilities into the workforce. Yet a National Council on Disability report, citing an audit by the Government Accountability Office, found that less than 5 percent of 14(c) workers ever transitioned to a job found in the broader community or earned competitive wages.
No other classification or grouping of labor in the US is paid based on employees’ productivity or at a wage significantly lower than the minimum wage. Subminimum wages are a violation of the civil rights of people with disabilities. They amount to government-endorsed and corporate-sponsored discrimination.
Challenging Workplace Exploitation of People With Disabilities
The FLSA has been amended over 20 times since its ratification in the late 1930s, and yet 14(c) remains unaltered. Is a change coming? It’s possible: Advocates and organizers with disabilities are leading the way in challenging these harmful practices. Disability rights organizations and self-advocates (activists with disabilities) are pursuing litigation against corporations that are profiting off of overtly exploited labor. Cutting off the pipeline of cheap labor that allows multinationals to reap exuberant profits is an effective strategy and has the apologists for subminimum wages on their heels.
However, advocates and disability rights organizations should not be solely responsible for confronting these unjust labor practices. An enormous responsibility also lies with legislators, regulators, and the public. Policymakers must ensure that people with disabilities are not segregated and economically marginalized, while also ensuring disability services are appropriately funded. To promote fair wages and community integration, lawmakers must work to eliminate 14(c).
Solutions that reduce economic disparities and eliminate exploitation and segregation for workers with disabilities are long overdue. The public and members of Congress must support the Raise the Wage Act and the Transition to Competitive Employment Act, both of which would phase out subminimum wages over time and are meaningful steps in the moral direction. Policymakers and the public must also be aware that the euphemistically titled Workplace Choice and Flexibility for Individuals with Disabilities Act, or H.R. 5658, would promote state agency referrals to many 14(c) certificate holders that participate in the AbilityOne Program and continue to place people with disabilities in organizations that use 14(c) certificates. The holders of 14(c) certificates should not be allowed to receive government contracts while they pay out subminimum wages. H.R. 5658 has not yet been reintroduced in this Congress, but it is expected to make a return later this congressional session.
Another responsibility lies with employers: 14(c) certificate holders must discontinue the practice of subminimum wages. A vast majority of these organizations, funded by wealthy donors, taxpayers, and corporate contracts, certainly possess the funds to pay their workers with disabilities a respectable wage. For those that don’t, CEOs and executive staff should take a pay cut to promote the fulfillment and dignity for all of their workers, especially those with disabilities. The large for-profit corporations that fund 14(c) contracts must also discontinue the practice and work to include people with disabilities at fair wages and full employment.
The era of certificate holders and for-profit corporations benefiting from federally endorsed discrimination and poverty wages is rightfully coming to a head, and the capabilities of workers with disabilities are being realized. All working people must strive for a system that fully integrates workers with disabilities and workers without disabilities, with both receiving more equitable wages and benefits.
In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), a monumental piece of legislation, was ratified and signed into law. Earning scorn from the business community and elitist politicians alike, the law created the right to a minimum wage, required overtime pay for some workers, and curtailed child labor. Yet, despite the law’s worker-conscious stipulations, it contains an antiquated provision that is being used by business executives today to pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities.
Section 214(c) of the FLSA, which is known in disability policy circles as 14(c), allows employers that hire people with disabilities to pay their workers a subminimum wage. Section 214(c) of the FLSA states that workers “whose earning or productive capacity is impaired by age, physical or mental deficiency, or injury” can be paid based on their “productivity” or on the “quality and quantity” of their labor. The underlying assumption is that workers with disabilities are less valuable than workers without disabilities and should thus be paid based on their productivity to incentivize employers to hire them.
Originally, 14(c) was intended to reduce the barriers to employment for people with disabilities, but over time employers have taken advantage of this provision. It certainly has not yielded equality for people with disabilities. Although some advocates say 14(c) advances employment outcomes, people with disabilities are disproportionately underemployed, unemployed or forced to live in poverty compared to the rates of the general population.
A Pipeline for Cheap Labor
Currently, there are over 1,400 firms holding 14(c) certificates in the US,collectively employing over 320,000 workers with disabilities. Certificate holders range from small operations with a sole employee working under 14(c) to large-scale operations with several hundred workers, and in a few cases, over a thousand. 14(c) certificate holders are known as Community Rehabilitation Programs, or more commonly, sheltered workshops. These organizations seek and receive contracts from large corporations to generate products and services that fund their operations.
Sheltered workshops also receive government funding through the AbilityOne Program, a program used to provide federal contracts for people with disabilities, while also receiving reimbursements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Almost half of 14(c) certificate holders participate in the AbilityOne Program. In other words, while sheltered workshops pay workers as little as a dollar an hour, taxpayer dollars through CMS reimbursements and AbilityOne government contracts are funding their operations.
At face value these organizations seem like a harmless force in American communities, but they are exploiting many vulnerable people. Many sheltered workshops’ workers make extraordinarily less than the minimum wage, sometimes even as low as 36 cents an hour. While their workers are compensated at sweatshop rates, sheltered workshop executives are often compensated to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. PRIDE Industries, a Sacramento-based sheltered workshop, pays its CEO a salary of $792,132, while 906 workers are employed at subminimum wages.
14(c) is being used as a pipeline for cheap labor under the guise of “job creation” for an underserved population. Certificate holders act as a vessel for larger corporations to obtain inexpensive labor and form a symbiotic relationship based on revenue generation and exploitation masquerading as philanthropy. Unjustly, in addition to receiving little compensation, workers with disabilities are often held back from receiving promotions or placement at jobs with competitive wages in integrated settings.
Subminimum wages not only unjustly impact workers with disabilities — they also have an effect on total wages for all workers in a labor market. When labor’s costs are driven down, the wages of all workers are decreased and businesses yield higher profits. 14(c) is not only inequitable for the workers with disabilities, but also for the total labor force in a given market. Workers who are not categorized as having disabilities have to compete against labor that is almost costless for a corporation. Subminimum wages impact all workers’ wages.
Large multinational corporations like Firestone, Home Depot, Kohler, Kroger, Mary Kay, Raytheon, Time Warner Cable, Walmart and Honda, are heavily invested in 14(c). They are able to secure contracts where labor is only paid a dollar an hour. People with disabilities pay the economic price so corporations and executives can continue amassing wealth.
Sheltered workshops that hold 14(c) certificates are segregated in nature. At a glance, businesses holding 14(c) certificates may seem philanthropic, but people with disabilities, especially those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, have historically been segregated from the rest of society.
The use of subminimum wages is inherently inequitable and contradicts the very mission of the FLSA. The FLSA’s purpose was to promote worker protections and guarantee a minimum standard for labor.
Unfortunately, workers with disabilities are excluded from that guarantee.
14(c) is paternalistic and does not account for the skills and contributions of workers with disabilities. Social and scientific understandings of disability have certainly progressed since the inception of 14(c) in 1938. The disability service system in America is not only outdated, but also is skewed toward profit-generation, rather than community inclusion and fair compensation.
Proponents of the subminimum wage try to frame it as a civil rights issue and claim that the provision offers more choices to people with disabilities. Yet for many workers with disabilities, working for subminimum wages is not a choice. Because for-profit corporations only see people with disabilities as profitable when working for subminimum wages, 14(c) employment is often their only option for work.
The champions of the subminimum wage also argue that sheltered workshops and their executives do not have enough funds to pay their workers a decent wage and remain competitive, yet the sheltered workshop industry employs dozens of D.C. and state lobbyists to peddle influence in favor of this very issue.
Subminimum wage advocates also argue that 14(c) is used as a training program to get people with disabilities into the workforce. Yet a National Council on Disability report, citing an audit by the Government Accountability Office, found that less than 5 percent of 14(c) workers ever transitioned to a job found in the broader community or earned competitive wages.
No other classification or grouping of labor in the US is paid based on employees’ productivity or at a wage significantly lower than the minimum wage. Subminimum wages are a violation of the civil rights of people with disabilities. They amount to government-endorsed and corporate-sponsored discrimination.
Challenging Workplace Exploitation of People With Disabilities
The FLSA has been amended over 20 times since its ratification in the late 1930s, and yet 14(c) remains unaltered. Is a change coming? It’s possible: Advocates and organizers with disabilities are leading the way in challenging these harmful practices. Disability rights organizations and self-advocates (activists with disabilities) are pursuing litigation against corporations that are profiting off of overtly exploited labor. Cutting off the pipeline of cheap labor that allows multinationals to reap exuberant profits is an effective strategy and has the apologists for subminimum wages on their heels.
However, advocates and disability rights organizations should not be solely responsible for confronting these unjust labor practices. An enormous responsibility also lies with legislators, regulators, and the public. Policymakers must ensure that people with disabilities are not segregated and economically marginalized, while also ensuring disability services are appropriately funded. To promote fair wages and community integration, lawmakers must work to eliminate 14(c).
Solutions that reduce economic disparities and eliminate exploitation and segregation for workers with disabilities are long overdue. The public and members of Congress must support the Raise the Wage Act and the Transition to Competitive Employment Act, both of which would phase out subminimum wages over time and are meaningful steps in the moral direction. Policymakers and the public must also be aware that the euphemistically titled Workplace Choice and Flexibility for Individuals with Disabilities Act, or H.R. 5658, would promote state agency referrals to many 14(c) certificate holders that participate in the AbilityOne Program and continue to place people with disabilities in organizations that use 14(c) certificates. The holders of 14(c) certificates should not be allowed to receive government contracts while they pay out subminimum wages. H.R. 5658 has not yet been reintroduced in this Congress, but it is expected to make a return later this congressional session.
Another responsibility lies with employers: 14(c) certificate holders must discontinue the practice of subminimum wages. A vast majority of these organizations, funded by wealthy donors, taxpayers, and corporate contracts, certainly possess the funds to pay their workers with disabilities a respectable wage. For those that don’t, CEOs and executive staff should take a pay cut to promote the fulfillment and dignity for all of their workers, especially those with disabilities. The large for-profit corporations that fund 14(c) contracts must also discontinue the practice and work to include people with disabilities at fair wages and full employment.
The era of certificate holders and for-profit corporations benefiting from federally endorsed discrimination and poverty wages is rightfully coming to a head, and the capabilities of workers with disabilities are being realized. All working people must strive for a system that fully integrates workers with disabilities and workers without disabilities, with both receiving more equitable wages and benefits.
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