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      They’re lobbying for Ukraine pro bono – and making millions from arms firms

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      They’re lobbying for Ukraine pro bono – and making millions from arms firmsSome of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists are providing their services to Ukraine for free, but they also have financial incentives for aiding the countryThis article was co-published with Responsible Statecraft.Some of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists are providing their services to Ukraine for free – but at the same time, they are taking in millions in fees from Pentagon contractors who stand to benefit from the country’s war with Russia.Following Russian president Vladimir Putin’s internationally condemned decision to invade Ukraine there was an outpouring of support to the besieged nation from seemingly every industry in America. But, arguably, one of the most crucial industries coming to Ukraine’s aid has been Washington’s powerful lobbying industry.The invasion has led some of the lobbying industry’s biggest players to do the unthinkable – lobby for free. While the influence industry may have altruistic reasons for representing Ukraine pro bono, some lobbying firms also have financial incentives for aiding Ukraine: they’ve made millions lobbying for arms manufacturers that could profit from the war.The surge in pro-bono Ukraine lobbyingUS law requires agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities to make periodic public disclosures of their relationship under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara). Twenty-five registrants have agreed to represent Ukrainian interests pro bono since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Before the war, just 11 Fara registrants were working on behalf of Ukrainian interests.“I don’t recall a comparable surge in pro-bono work for any foreign principal,” said David Laufman, a partner at the law firm Wiggin and Dana, who previously oversaw Fara enforcement at the justice department.Many of these new pro-bono Ukrainian lobbyists are pushing for greater US military support for the Ukrainian military. As one registrant explained in a Fara filing, they intend “to lobby members of the US government to increase US Department of Defense spending on contracts related to equipment and other efforts which will aid the ability of the Ukrainian military to succeed in its fight against the Russian military”.While many of these pro-bono lobbyists may be doing this work purely out of solidarity with Ukraine, some of the firms working free of charge for Ukraine have an added incentive.Hogan LovellsBefore winning the speakership in the new Republican Congress, Representative Kevin McCarthy warned that Republicans wouldn’t approve a “blank check” for Ukraine aid once they took power. But, just last week the GOP’s biggest fundraiser agreed to provide pro-bono assistance in loosening Congress’s purse strings when it comes to Ukraine.On 16 February, former senator Norm Coleman, senior counsel with the law firm Hogan Lovells, filed Fara paperwork revealing that he is pro-bono lobbyist for a foundation controlled by the Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. Coleman oversaw the raising and spending of over $260m in funds supporting Republican congressional candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.Coleman, who has extensive experience as a lobbyist for foreign interests via his longstanding role as an agent for Saudi Arabia, was already busy at work for Ukraine. Emails from 4 February disclosed as part of Coleman’s Fara disclosures, revealed him requesting assistance from senators Lindsey Graham and Thom Tillis’s chiefs of staff in hosting an event at the Capitol “to give members of Congress a better understanding of the horrific loss of life and the tragic agony that the people of Ukraine have experienced over the course of the last year as a direct result of Russian war crimes” and “do as much as possible to ensure continued, strong, bipartisan support for the truly heroic efforts that this administration and Congress have made to provide the essential military and economic assistance to Ukraine”.While Hogan Lovells conducts this work pro bono, two of the firm’s paying clients, Looking Glass Cyber Solutions and HawkEye 360, have extensive defense department contracts and an interest in the conflict in Ukraine.Looking Glass, which paid Hogan Lovells $200,000 in 2022, holds a five-year contract with the Department of Defense to “to provide tailored cyber threat intelligence data and enhance the mission effectiveness of US military cyber threat analysts and operators” and writes on its website about the role of such threats in Russia’s military strategy.HawkEye 360, which also paid $200,000 to Hogan Lovells in 2022, similarly is a defense department contractor, specializing in detection and geolocation of radio signals. Their detection network conducted analysis in Ukraine and their website boasts of identifying GPS interference in Ukraine, appearing to be part of Moscow’s “integration of electronic warfare tactics into Russian military operation to further degrade Ukraine’s ability for self-defense”.Hogan Lovells did not respond to multiple requests for comment.BGRBGR Government Affairs (BGR), a lobbying and communications firm, began working pro bono for two Ukrainian interests last May. The contracts are with Vadym Ivchenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, and Elena Lipkivska Ergul, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.In 2022 BGR made more than half a million dollars lobbying for Pentagon contractors, some of whom are already profiting from the Ukraine war. Raytheon, for example, which paid BGR $240,000 to lobby on its behalf in 2022, according to OpenSecrets, has already been awarded more than $2bn in government contracts related to the Ukraine war.Indeed, two days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a BGR adviser was publicly calling for increased military aid to Ukraine in the face of Putin’s recognition of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics as independent states.“Militarily, the United States and Nato allies need to get far more serious about helping Ukraine defend itself,” wrote Kurt Volker, BGR senior adviser and former US Nato ambassador, in an article published by the Center for European Policy Analysis (Cepa).His article, “Buckle Up: This is Just the First Step”, was promoted on the BGR website. Cepa did not disclose Volker’s BGR affiliation in the article.“BGR has no conflict of interest and is proud of its work on behalf of Ukraine and all of its clients,” said BGR’s president, Jeffrey H Birnbaum, in a statement responding to questions about whether their work posed any such conflict.MercuryMercury Public Affairs (Mercury), a lobbying, public affairs and political strategy consultancy, began working pro bono for GloBee International Agency for Regional Development (“GloBee”), a Ukrainian NGO, in mid-March 2022. The firm made headlines for agreeing to work for a Ukrainian client pro bono. The firm’s Fara filing later in the year shows that Mercury’s work consisted of sending just four emails on Globee’s behalf in the first three and a half months of this arrangement.Mercury, like BGR, was also working on behalf of Pentagon contractors in 2022, while working for a Ukrainian client pro bono. All told, Mercury reported being paid more than $180,000 for lobbying on behalf of Pentagon contractors in 2022.Mercury’s work for a Ukrainian client is also notable because before the Ukraine war the firm had, for years, been working on behalf of Russian interests. This work included lobbying on behalf of Russia’s Sovcombank, as well as a Russian energy company founded by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska was recently implicated in a scheme to bribe an FBI agent that was investigating him. Mercury dropped both of these Russian clients when the Ukraine war began, but not before earning nearly $3m from these Russian interests in the five years before the firm agreed to work for a Ukrainian client pro bono, according to Fara filings.Mercury did not respond to multiple requests for comment.Navigators GlobalOn 29 April 2022 Navigators Global, which describes itself as an “issues management, government relations and strategic communications” firm, registered under Fara to represent the committee on national security, defence and intelligence of the Ukrainian parliament. According to the firm’s Fara filing, they reached out to dozens of key members of Congress on behalf of the Ukrainian parliament – including eight phone calls, texts and emails with McCarthy – and contacted the House and Senate armed services committees two dozen times.As Navigators Global was doing this pro-bono lobbying of the policymakers in Congress with, arguably, the greatest sway over US military assistance to Ukraine, the firm was also raking in revenue from Pentagon contractors. Specifically, in 2022 Navigators Global made $830,000 working on behalf of defense contractors, according to lobbying data compiled by OpenSecrets. The firms’ lobbying filings also show that their work for these contractors was directed, among other issues, at the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act, the defense policy bill that increased spending on the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative by half a billion dollars.Navigators Global did not respond to multiple requests for comment.OgilvyOn 26 August 2022 Ogilvy Group, a giant advertising and public relations agency, registered under Fara to work with the ministry of culture and information policy of Ukraine on the ministry’s Advantage Ukraine Initiative. The initiative’s website describes it as the “Investment initiative of the Government of Ukraine”. The top listed investment option is Ukraine’s defense industry. Ogilvy is joined in this endeavor by fellow Fara registrants Group M and Hill & Knowlton Strategies, as well as the marketing company Hogarth Worldwide, which has not registered under Fara.While the Ogilvy Group spread “the message that Ukraine is still open for business”, as its statement of work with the ministry explains, Ogilvy Government Relations was lobbying for Pentagon contractors who paid the firm nearly half a million dollars in 2022. These two Ogilvy organizations are technically separate entities. They are owned by the same parent company, WPP.At least one of the contractors that Ogilvy Government Relations lobbies for, Fluor, would appear to directly benefit from increased US military support for Ukraine and heightened US military presence in Europe more generally. In 2020, the US army’s seventh army training command awarded Fluor with a five-year Logistics Support Services contract, which a Fluor spokesman explained, “positions Fluor for future work with the US European Command and the US Africa Command headquarters located in Germany”. Fluor paid Ogilvy Government Relations $200,000 for lobbying in 2022, according to OpenSecrets.Ogilvy did not respond to a request to comment on the record.As the war in Ukraine heads into its second year, US defense spending continues to balloon. Weapons and defense contractors received nearly half – $400bn – of the $858bn in the 2023 defense budget.“There’s high demand for weapons to transfer to Ukraine and to replenish shrinking US stockpiles … contractors are seeing billions of dollars in Ukraine-related contracts.” said Julia Gledhill, who investigates defense spending at the government watchdog the Project On Government Oversight.TopicsUkraineLobbyingUS politicsArms tradefeaturesReuse this content More

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      ‘Crafting an illusion’: US rail firms’ multimillion-dollar PR push

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      ‘Crafting an illusion’: US rail firms’ multimillion-dollar PR pushNorfolk Southern, the company behind the Ohio train crash, and other rail firms spent millions on marketing and lobbyingSix children, smiling and laughing, sit at a table with lunch boxes open in front of them. “Hey guys! My dad can stop a train with his finger,” one brags. “My mom can see into the future,” another says, holding up her hands as binoculars. “My mom? She speaks train,” a third claims.‘Nobody has answers’: Ohio residents fearful of health risks near train siteRead moreJust then, her mom walks into the room. Another child asks if it’s true that she can talk to trains. “You betcha,” she says with a wink, as she stands in front of a sky-blue sign emblazoned with the logo of the Norfolk Southern Corporation.The kids’ conversation takes place in “Everyday Superheroes”, a 2018 video created for Norfolk Southern, the $12.7bn operator of the train carrying toxic chemicals that derailed earlier this month in East Palestine, Ohio, causing an environmental disaster of still unknown proportions.The video, part of an ad campaign called “Reimagine Possible”, was produced by RP3, a Maryland-based public relations agency. RP3 said the campaign was designed to reach “policymakers and opinion elites… whose perceptions are vital to Norfolk Southern’s success.” The people targeted by the campaign “tend to support companies whose leadership helps spur innovation and growth”, the agency wrote, explaining in a case study how the campaign was designed to “convince people they’re actually innovative”.The PR push is a window into a years-long, multimillion-dollar campaign by America’s biggest railroad corporations to win favor among federal regulators and policymakers and push back against calls for tougher regulation – a successful campaign that is coming under closer scrutiny following the Ohio disaster.Another video, set to its own version of School House Rock’s Conjunction Junction, starts with the lyrics: “Norfolk Southern, what’s your function? Hooking up the country, helping business run. Trains! They haul everything, safely and on time.”Between 2015 and 2022, the Association of American Railroads (AAR), the trade organization representing large train companies, spent more than $39.4m lobbying the federal government, according to data compiled by the nonprofit OpenSecrets. The AAR and its dues-paying members, who include Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific, BNSF and CSX, have also made millions of dollars’ worth of political contributions.But as Norfolk Southern’s “Reimagine Possible” campaign reflects, the industry also employs more indirect tactics to promote what the AAR calls “balanced regulation”, its euphemism for eliminating mandatory, government-enforced safety standards in favor of voluntary, industry-led oversight.An analysis by the Guardian found that between 2015 and 2019, the most recent year for which data are available, the AAR paid Subject Matter, a Washington DC-based PR and government affairs firm, more than $23.3m for “paid media consulting + advertising,” according to the AAR’s annual filings with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). That sum represents nearly as much as the group spent on lobbying during the same period.Subject Matter’s work for the AAR included “Freight Rail Works”, which the agency described as “a comprehensive campaign to help ensure this critical industry remains top-of-mind for Washington DC-area policymakers and influencers.” “Transforming for Tomorrow”, another campaign produced by Subject Matter, was designed to “showcase the surprising technological advancements that power America’s rail network” and “cover all major touchpoints for our DC beltway audience”. Neither Subject Matter nor RP3 responded to a request for comment.According to the AAR’s 2019 tax filing, the trade association’s “integrated communications campaign” is designed in part to demonstrate “how railroads use modern technology to improve safety and provide public benefits”.As part of its communications push, the AAR has paid for dozens of sponsored articles in the Washington Post and Politico, two publications widely read by the “policymakers and opinion elites” who the group targets with its messages of innovation and self-regulation. Under headlines such as “No need to fix a freight rail system that is thriving” and “How America’s freight railroads became great again,” the AAR touts its members’ impact on the US economy and warns of the consequences of new regulations. Other stories, including “How freight rail is putting the brakes on human error,” argue that the industry is already making technology investments on its own, with the implication (and sometimes the explicit connection) that new safety requirements are unnecessary or even detrimental to those efforts.The rail industry has also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a year funding GoRail, a tax-exempt 501(c)4 organization that advocates for the railroad industry before local, state and federal policymakers and officials. According to IRS filings, between 2015 and 2019 the AAR gave $2m to GoRail, a sum that represents more than one-fifth of GoRail’s total revenue during that period.GoRail’s operations are tightly integrated with the country’s largest rail companies, and its agenda is closely aligned with their interests. GoRail’s board consists almost entirely of railroad executives and the president of the AAR, and the role of board chair rotates annually among executives from Norfolk Southern, BNSF, Union Pacific and other firms. GoRail and the AAR, as well as Railpac, the AAR’s political action committee, all operate out of the same building in Washington DC. Neither GoRail nor the AAR responded to requests for comment.Unlike the AAR, however, GoRail exists to generate grassroots support – or the appearance of grassroots support – for the industry’s policy agenda. GoRail’s annual reports and IRS filings regularly boast of how many letters it sent to Congress, social media “impressions” it generated and “lawmaker-advocate connections” and “educational meetings” it organized. As a Norfolk Southern executive who chaired the GoRail board wrote in the organization’s 2017 annual report, “Via thousands of field meetings with key local influencers annually and a sophisticated media strategy, GoRail’s team is able to build the relationships that matter and then utilize these connections to impact policy decisions when it counts.”One policy decision to which the industry remains strongly opposed is a proposal from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to require most trains, particularly those carrying hazardous materials, to have at least two crew members on board. The “train staffing” rule’s supporters, including railroad workers and their union representatives, argue that having multiple workers on board makes trains safer to operate and leaves them more capable of responding to accidents when they occur.Individual companies such as Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific, as well as GoRail and the AAR, have helped lead the industry’s opposition to the proposal, frequently using the same arguments that they deploy in their PR campaigns to argue that the rule is unnecessary because of their investments in new technologies.Crew tried to stop Ohio train after alert about wheel bearing, safety report findsRead moreDuring a 14 December FRA hearing about the rule, for instance, a representative for Norfolk Southern told the FRA that the company opposed the train staffing requirement in part because it would prevent the company from “redeploy[ing]” conductors from trains to “ground-based role[s]”. “Once again technology has supplanted the conductor’s traditional safety role,” the representative said.A Union Pacific representative, meanwhile, told the FRA that while the company “has always been, and continues to be, a driver of innovation in this industry”, the train staffing proposal “is threatening to take us down the path of obsolescence”. A GoRail issue brief makes a similar claim that “Mandating a specific railroad crew is a disincentive to research new technologies”.In quarterly earnings calls and presentations to shareholders, however, the companies suggest that reducing the number of workers on trains is as much about cutting short-term costs as it is about developing new technology or promoting innovation. Even as Norfolk Southern’s PR campaign calls its workers “everyday superheroes”, over the past two decades the company has managed to cut more than 9,600 jobs while increasing shareholder dividends and stock buybacks by 4,500%, as More Perfect Union recently reported. “Crew staffing of trains…has remained consistent,” a company spokesperson told the Guardian in a statement. “Norfolk Southern continues to make substantial progress recruiting new crew members.”“When [companies] think of railroad, they do not think of cutting-edge. They think of cutting crew size and cutting corners to do it,” said Vincent Verna, a representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and a former locomotive engineer for Union Pacific, during the 14 December FRA hearing. “Simply cutting the size of the crew for more profits has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with avarice.”The railroad industry has deployed a similar two-step argument in opposition to other safety proposals, including a rule that would have required trains to use electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes, as the Lever reported. The publication found that during the Trump administration, Norfolk Southern and the AAR helped defeat a proposal to require ECP brakes on trains carrying hazardous materials – even though ECP brakes were one of the innovations that industry leaders, including Norfolk Southern, had “previously touted” as examples of the industry’s technological prowess.While there is little doubt that railroad companies are indeed investing in and implementing new technology, the industry appears determined to use the idea of technology – as well as the prospect of future technology – to defeat new safety requirements and regulations.Its approach was summed up in a 2017 blog post from the PR agency hired by the AAR to “deliver [the] message home to policymakers” that the industry’s technology investments are important for the US economy. The agency created a video of a hard hat- and yellow safety vest-clad spokesperson for Freight Rail Works being “cloned” dozens of times. The video’s header: “Association of American Railroads: Crafting an illusion to deliver a powerful message”.TopicsOhio train derailmentRail industryUS politicsOhiofeaturesReuse this content More

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      ‘Old-school union busting’: how US corporations are quashing the new wave of organizing

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      ‘Old-school union busting’: how US corporations are quashing the new wave of organizingVictories at several companies energized organizers, but hostile corporations – and an impotent labor board – stymie negotiationsUS corporations have mounted a fierce counterattack against the union drives at Starbucks, Amazon and other companies, and in response, federal officials are working overtime to crack down on those corporations’ illegal anti-union tactics – maneuvers that labor leaders fear could significantly drain the momentum behind today’s surge of unionization.The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that polices labor-management relations, has accused Starbucks and Amazon of a slew of illegal anti-union practices, among them firing many workers in retaliation for backing a union. Nonetheless, many workplace experts question whether the NLRB’s efforts, no matter how vigorous, can assure that workers have a fair shot at unionizing.Serving $66 entrees for $18 an hour: the union push at an upscale New York restaurantRead more“We’re seeing the same situation over and over – workers going up against billionaires and billion-dollar companies with an endless amount of resources while our labor laws are far too weak,” said Michelle Eisen, a barista in Buffalo who helped lead the early unionization efforts of Starbucks in that city. “We’re all fighting for the same thing against different companies. We’re all in the same boat. No one denies that there are a lot of obstacles to overcome.”“The labor board is doing its job with the limited resources it has,” she added. “But Starbucks continues to break the law flagrantly.” The union asserts that Starbucks has engaged in illegal retaliation by firing 150 pro-union baristas and closing a dozen recently unionized stores.Echoing many union leaders, Eisen says US labor laws are woefully inadequate because they don’t allow regulators to impose any fines on companies that break the law when fighting against unionization. Starbucks and Amazon deny firing anyone illegally or violating any laws in their fight against unionization.“These workers were supposed to be able to get together without fear of retaliation,” said Lynne Fox, president of Workers United, the union that workers at more than 280 Starbucks have voted to join. “But companies, including Starbucks, have determined that the penalty for retaliation is minimal – and much more appealing than allowing workers to unionize. Violating workers’ rights has simply become part of the cost of doing business.” Labor leaders complain that the penalty imposed for illegal retaliation is often just an order to post a notice on a company’s bulletin boards saying that it broke the law.Newly unionized workers are also frustrated and angry that efforts to reach a first contract are taking so long, with some unions asserting that companies are deliberately and illegally dragging out negotiations – an assertion the companies deny. Workers won breakthrough union victories at Starbucks in December 2021, and the next year saw several other organizing victories. REI workers had a successful union vote in March 2022, Amazon in April, Apple in June, Trader Joe’s in July and Chipotle in August, but none of those companies have reached a first contract.The extraordinary recent wave of unionization that corporate America has faced over the past year has been met with what union supporters say is an equally extraordinary wave of union-busting that has slowed and even stopped some unionization efforts.Shortly after workers at a Chipotle restaurant in Augusta, Maine, petitioned for a unionization vote in the hope of becoming the first Chipotle in the US to unionize, the company shut down the store. The NLRB has accused Chipotle of illegal retaliation and sought to order the fast-food chain to reopen the store. Chipotle says the closing was for legitimate business reasons.Brandi McNease, a pro-union worker at the Chipotle in Augusta, said: “They closed it down because we were going to get our vote and they were going to lose. It’s much easier for a multibillion-dollar corporation to face whatever the consequences are of that then to allow a union into one of their stores.”The NLRB has accused Apple of illegally spying on and threatening workers. The company’s anti-union efforts helped pressure Apple store workers in Atlanta to withdraw their request to hold a unionization election, although workers at Apple stores in Towson, Maryland, and Oklahoma City have voted to unionize.Trader Joe’s closed its one wine shop in New York City days before that shop’s workers were to announce plans to seek a union election. The workers have accused the company of shutting the store to quash the union drive and retaliate against the workers. Trader Joe’s says it didn’t shut the store because of the employees’ organizing efforts.On 17 February, a day after employees at a Tesla plant in Buffalo announced plans to unionize, Tesla fired dozens of workers there. Union supporters complained to the NLRB that Tesla dismissed 37 workers “in retaliation for union activity and to discourage union activity”. Tesla said the terminations had nothing to do with the union drive and were part of its regular performance-evaluation process.The NLRB has brought 75 complaints against Starbucks that accuse it of more than 1,000 illegal actions. Federal judges have ordered Starbucks to reinstate numerous pro-union baristas who they say were fired illegally. The labor board has accused Starbucks of refusing to bargain with workers at 21 stores in Oregon and Washington state. The union asserts that Starbucks is deliberately dragging out negotiations to dishearten union supporters. Starbucks representatives have walked out of dozens of bargaining sessions, refusing to talk so long as union negotiators insist on letting other union members use Zoom to watch the sessions.The NLRB has accused Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, of illegally coercing and intimidating workers by saying they would be “less empowered” if they unionized. NLRB judges have ruled that Amazon fired several pro-union workers illegally, and the board recently accused Amazon of unlawfully terminating one of the most effective organizers at its JFK8 warehouse on Staten Island, where the Amazon Labor Union won a landmark victory for the warehouse’s 8,300 employees last 1 April.Ohio train derailment reveals need for urgent reform, workers sayRead moreAmazon has filed a series of challenges to overturn the union’s Staten Island victory in the hope of not having to recognize or bargain with the union. In January, an NLRB judge upheld the union’s victory, but Amazon said it would appeal.“We know they plan to appeal and appeal and drag things out,” said Christian Smalls, president of the Amazon Labor Union. Smalls voiced frustration that nearly a year after the Staten Island workers voted to unionize, there have been no contract talks.Benjamin Sachs, a labor law professor at Harvard, admits to some surprise that several supposedly progressive companies are using hardball anti-union tactics. “What we have is new economy companies using the old, anti-union playbook on a national scale and in a way that people are paying attention to,” Sachs said.“It’s not new, but it’s more prominent: firing union organizers, threatening to close stores, closing stores, not bargaining, holding captive audience meetings, selective granting of benefits. To observers of labor, this has been going on for a long time. What’s different is these companies that hold themselves as different and progressive – they’re proving they’re not. There’s a dissonance between these brands’ progressive image and their old-school union-busting.”Amazon has repeatedly denied any illegal anti-union actions. It said: “We don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees” and “our focus remains on working directly” with our them “to continue making Amazon a great place to work”. Amazon argues that the union’s win on Staten Island “was not fair, legitimate or representative of the majority” and should therefore be overturned, maintaining that the union illegally intimidated and harassed anti-union workers and illegally distributed marijuana to win support.Tesla fires more than 30 workers after union drive announcementRead moreStarbucks denies that it fired any pro-union baristas unlawfully, saying that those workers were dismissed for misconduct or violating company rules. The company denies that it is deliberately dragging out negotiations, saying: “Counter to the union’s claims, Starbucks continues to engage honestly and in good faith while ensuring actions taken align with decades of case law and precedent.” It added: “We’ve come to the table in person and in good faith for 84 single-store contract bargaining sessions since October 2022.” Starbucks acknowledges that it has walked out of bargaining sessions because the workers “insist on broadcasting” the sessions “to unknown individuals not in the room and, in some instances, have posted excerpts of the sessions online”.Leaders of the Starbucks union say they have repeatedly pledged that the workers would not broadcast, record or post excerpts of the bargaining sessions. Furthermore, they ask why Starbucks refuses to let union members watch the negotiations by Zoom when it allowed that practice during the pandemic and so many other companies allow the use of Zoom during negotiating sessions. For its part, Starbucks has accused the union of failing to bargain in good faith, a claim the union says is ludicrous.One study found that after workers won union elections, 52% of the time they were without a first contract a year later and 37% of the time without one two years later. Many companies drag out contract talks as long as they can in order to dishearten workers and show that there’s little to gain by unionizing and because they know they save money on wages and benefits by delaying – or never reaching – a first union contract. Moreover, many companies prolong contract talks in the hope that union members will grow frustrated with their union and vote to decertify it.Sarah Beth Ryther, a leader of the successful effort to unionize a Trader Joe’s in Minneapolis, said the retailer is moving far slower than she hoped in negotiations. “I have said it was like writing a novel. We were on page one for a long time, and now we’re finally on page two,” Ryther said. “It’s just folks with very little experience who have organized an independent union, and to face these union-busting tactics, it’s hard. We’re not being paid a thousand dollars an hour like some TJ’s lawyers. We do this because we want to help our fellow workers.”Even if the NLRB rules that a company broke the law by negotiating in bad faith to drag out negotiations, federal law doesn’t allow the labor board to order management to reach a contract. “Even if the NLRB issues a complaint about bad faith bargaining, it takes a long time to handle those cases. Any meaningful order is a year down the road,” said Wilma Liebman, who headed the NLRB under Barack Obama. “The remedies take too long and they’re too weak. The board can’t order parties to reach an agreement or make concessions.”Liebman pointed to the big issue that labor organizing faces right now. “Can the unionization surge be sustained by continued growth?” she asked. “Otherwise it’s going to fizzle. This is the year that’s kind of make or break.”Under federal law, employers can’t be fined for illegal delays or bargaining in bad faith. The proposed protecting the right to organize (Pro) act sought to overcome lengthy delays by providing that if the two sides failed to reach a contract within 120 days of a new union’s being certified, a panel of arbitrators should be appointed to decide on the terms of a first two-year contract. The Pro act would also allow for substantial fines against employers that violate the law when fighting unions. The House of Representatives approved the Pro act in March 2021, but, facing a filibuster and unanimous Republican opposition, the legislation went nowhere in the Senate.Sachs says corporations have sizable incentives to violate the law when battling against unions because the National Labor Relations Act doesn’t provide for any fines for illegal actions. “We need to fundamentally change the incentive structure facing employers during union drives,” he said. “You can change the incentive structure in different ways. Consumers can do it if there is a national boycott of Starbucks or Apple or Chipotle or REI. That would have a huge impact. The other way to change the incentive structure would be to have massive monetary damages for anti-union violations. That would require not only legislative change, but the courts to order damage awards – and that would be a slow process.”Eisen, the barista in Buffalo, voices keen dismay that Starbucks keeps ratcheting up the pressure against the union drive. Arguably its most effective strategy to discourage unionization was not the firings or store closings, but when its CEO, Howard Schultz, announced that the company would give certain raises and benefits to its nonunion workers while denying them to workers at its unionized stores. The NLRB has brought a complaint asserting that this Starbucks policy illegally discriminates against union members.‘The lavatory waste comes on us’: unsafe, unsanitary work conditions, airport workers claimRead more“One of the things we need to win is public pressure,” Eisen said. “Can we let billionaires and billionaire companies continue to bully their way out of union campaigns? That’s essentially what is happening. It’s not fair. We need as much help as we can get. We need the public to recognize that these companies are not as good as they say they are.”The anti-union tactics have taken their toll. Partly because Starbucks’ aggressive anti-union efforts have discouraged and frightened many workers, the number of petitions for union elections at Starbucks stores has dropped from 71 last March to about 10 per month recently. Trader Joe’s workers in Boulder, Colorado, withdrew their petition for a unionization vote a day after they filed charges accusing the retailer of illegal intimidation and coercion. With highly paid anti-union consultants on hand to press workers to vote no, the Amazon Labor Union lost a unionization vote at a warehouse outside Albany, New York, and following that loss and facing an anti-union campaign, workers at an Amazon warehouse in Moreno Valley, California, withdrew their petition for a union election.“That comes with the territory, but that’s what we signed up for as organizers,” said the Amazon Labor Union’s Smalls. “We know this is a marathon not a sprint. In the words of Mother Jones, you fight like hell. That’s what we’re doing right now, fighting like hell.”TopicsUS unionsAmazonStarbucksAppleUS politicsTeslaReuse this content More

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      Hemp: the green crop tied down by red tape in the US

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      Hemp: the green crop tied down by red tape in the USStalky plant is not approved as a livestock feed, holding back a sustainable industry that could invigorate agricultureKen Elliott runs a hemp oilseed and fiber processing facility in Fort Benton, Montana. His company, IND Hemp, grinds up the stalky plant so that it can be used for a variety of purposes, such as snacks, grain, insulation and paper. About 20 truckloads of spent biomass lie in heaps on his property.Elliott estimates he could make a couple million dollars if he sold this leftover stuff as livestock feed. Hemp seedcake would make a great substitute for alfalfa – rich in fatty acids, proteins and fiber. His cattle rancher buddies are hit hard by the soaring costs of hay and would love to get their hands on this alternative. One buffalo herder wanted to buy the whole lot.But Elliot can’t sell to them. He can’t even give it away for free. That’s because when the 2018 Farm Bill took hemp off the list of controlled substances, hemp as commercial livestock feed was not approved.‘Filling in the gaps’ for food access: women-run farms rethink California agricultureRead moreThe Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved hempseed and its meal and oil for human consumption. A variety of hemp snacks for pets are allowed on the market, because they don’t constitute the main part of the diet. But you can’t give hemp as feed to farm animals that produce eggs, meat and milk for sale, until tests prove it is safe and nutritious to pass along the food chain.In other words, Elliott can serve hemp products to his baby grandchild. Or to a cat. But not to 2,000lbs steer. And that’s bad for the American farmer, he says. “Some of these guys have to sell their cattle and five-generation farms because they can’t afford hay and barley,” Elliott says. “Why wouldn’t you want to help them?”Hemp industry advocates say this ban on livestock feed not only denies livestock farmers necessary relief, but is also denying the $80bn American feed sector an inexpensive product during a time of global grain shortages. And it is hindering a nascent green industry that could invigorate American agriculture while also saving the environment.The type of hemp in question is not the flowery plant that yields CBD. The bamboo-like “industrial” variety processed by Elliott has greater potential to be a commodity. Its woody core, grain (seeds) and fiber have 25,000 uses. They include dietary ingredients, textiles, biofuel, bioplastics, mulch, lubricants, paints and construction materials.Industrial hemp is also a dream sustainable crop. It requires less water than similar plants and sequesters carbon. It can grow in nearly every climate, with up to two harvests a year. Hemp also regenerates the soil, absorbs toxic metals and it resists pests, mold and fire.But this sector is stymied by the federal government’s linkage of hemp to its cousin, marijuana. Both come from the cannabis sativa plant, but industrial hemp has none or negligible quantities of tetrahydrocannabinol, THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana.Nonetheless, hemp is highly regulated. Growers must be fingerprinted and background-checked. They must spend thousands of dollars for tests that prove their harvests contain less than 0.3% THC. Anything above that fraction must be destroyed.Further burdens are placed on those seeking approvals for commercial hemp livestock feed. (So far none have been granted on the federal level.) Manufacturers complain that with only a dozen FDA officials processing requests, applicants can wait up to six months for a response or for questions, which when answered require further waits. The process can take years.“The FDA responds to requests with very resistant language that creates a long back and forth,” says Andrew Bish, a harvesting equipment entrepreneur from Nebraska who helms the Hemp Feed Coalition advocacy group. He added that funding the clinical trials to prove safety can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.Moreover, separate testing must be done for each species that would eat the feed. Data involving dairy cows, for instance, won’t suffice for beef cattle. Different research is required for chicken broilers and egg layers, and trout versus salmon.The FDA approval group is “woefully understaffed with a backlog of work”, Leah Wilkinson told a webinar in August that brought together regulators, hemp companies and university researchers. She is the vice-president of public policy at the American Feed Industry Association.“Many of these ingredients are stuck in an antiquated regulatory review process at the FDA, which has resulted in the US trailing its global competitors in bringing these products to the market.”Regulators on both the state and federal levels defend the process, however. They say animals metabolize food differently from humans, so a person snacking on hemp seeds might process the ingredient differently than a goat subsisting on it every day.“I understand the processors’ standpoint,” says Ian Foley, a plant regulatory official with Montana’s department of agriculture. “It’s a difficult burden to sponsor and pay for research. But the product must be beneficial as well as not cause harm. Everyone wants the safest ingredients, and I don’t think we’re there just yet.”While the US government treats hemp as a new product, it was historically a staple crop in America from the 1600s onwards, thriving especially in Kentucky. George Washington grew it. A draft of the Declaration of Independence was on hemp paper. But the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act debilitated the once-thriving industry, and then the 1970 Controlled Substances Act essentially killed it.With decriminalization five years ago, the industry had to jumpstart from scratch.This has cost the US market share in a global market estimated at more $4bn and expected to grow to over $17bn by 2030. Canada, China and Europe (particularly France) are big players. The US produced merely $824m worth of hemp in 2021, the last available figures.Stakeholders say that the animal feed issue is particularly stymying the industry.The only way around stringent federal restrictions is to win consent on the regional level, but the products cannot be transported or sold across state lines. Kentucky has approved feeding hemp-seed meal and oil to chickens and horses. In Montana, it can be given to non-production animals. Tennessee requires informing consumers in writing if hemp adulterants are added to feed.‘When in doubt, plant a nut tree’: the push to seed America with chestnutsRead moreThe Wenger Group of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, managed to get state approval to sell feed for chickens. Wenger, which produces about 2m tons of feed a year, first had to invest $400,000 to do a hemp feed study on the nearby Kreider Farms involving 800 hens and 120,000 eggs.The data found that hemp feed produced healthy yolks and weight, with no THC residue. “It was absolutely compelling and convincing that the ingredient was safe,” says Raj Kasula, the chief nutrition officer for Wenger.But getting the green light to sell was “unduly” time-consuming. “The process was delayed by objections and questions which were not worth the delay,” Kasula says. “Each time they come with a new set of questions. To their credit they are being very thorough but it’s a source of frustration.”Still, experts see hopeful baby steps and believe the first federal approval for egg-laying hens might come within a year.The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has granted millions of dollars for clinical studies into hemp as animal feed through its National Institute of Food and Agriculture office.Panelists participating in the August webinar included scientists from universities across the country, including Texas, North Dakota, Ohio and Kentucky. They saw great potential for livestock, horses and fish.“I was blown away,” said Massimo Bionaz, an associate professor of dairy nutrigenomics at Oregon State University. “It has good fiber content, the protein is at the level of alfalfa, even better. We found it’s safe to feed this to animals.”Even if it won approvals for feed, the hemp industry must convince farms farmers to grow industrial hemp, says Bish. After the 2018 legalization, most hemp growers planted the CBD type. Many went bust due to an ensuing glut and are reluctant to pivot to industrial hemp even though it has more potential as a cash crop.How America’s most enigmatic fruit is making a comebackRead moreOne reason is the paucity of processing facilities. What with soaring freight costs, the handful of facilities that are scattered across the country lie too far away for most farmers to transport the bulky product. Prospective processors baulk at investing in multimillion-dollar machinery without enough raw supply of hemp.“It’s a chicken and egg story, so there’s no economy of scale,” says Bish.Hemp stakeholders are pinning hopes on Congress, which is due to renew the Farm Bill this year. They are lobbying for exemptions to make it easier to produce hemp fiber and grain, such as lifting the 0.3% THC limit. They also seek more Congressional funding to boost the number of FDA staff processing feed applications.Meanwhile, progress remains glacial. “I would like to see more collaboration between the FDA and the industry to come up with clear guidelines to make the application process more efficient,” says Kasula. “Other countries are moving forward, and we need to reinvent the wheel.”TopicsAgricultureCannabisUS politicsMontanafeaturesReuse this content More

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      Joe Biden nominates former Mastercard boss Ajay Banga to lead World Bank

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      Joe Biden nominates former Mastercard boss Ajay Banga to lead World BankUS president puts forward choice to oversee new focus on climate crisis after resignation of Trump appointee David MalpassJoe Biden has nominated a former boss of Mastercard with decades of experience on Wall Street to lead the World Bank and oversee a shake-up at the development organisation to shift its focus to the climate crisis.The US president’s choice of Ajay Banga, an American citizen born in India, comes a week after David Malpass, a Donald Trump appointee, quit the role.The World Bank’s governing body is expected to make a decision in May, but the US is the Washington-based organisation’s largest shareholder and has traditionally been allowed to nominate without challenge its preferred candidate for the post.Malpass, who is due to step down on 30 June, was nominated by Trump in February 2019 and took up the post officially that April. He is known to have lost the confidence of Biden’s head of the US Treasury, Janet Yellen, who with other shareholders wanted to expand the bank’s development remit to include the climate crisis and other global challenges.Malpass upset the Biden administration when he appeared to question the extent to which humans had contributed to global heating.World Bank chief resigns after climate stance misstepRead moreBiden said he wanted Banga to use his decades of experience on Wall Street to support private-sector lending to countries in the developing world.“Ajay is uniquely equipped to lead the World Bank at this critical moment in history. He has spent more than three decades building and managing successful, global companies that create jobs and bring investment to developing economies, and guiding organisations through periods of fundamental change,” the president said.“He has a proven track record managing people and systems, and partnering with global leaders around the world to deliver results,” he added.Anti-poverty groups are expected to question Banga’s commitment to fighting the climate crisis using private sector funds. Several countries have defaulted on foreign loans, in effect declaring themselves bankrupt, and are locked in negotiations with banks and other private-sector lenders to reduce their debts.The World Bank said the first criterion for a future president was “a proven track record of leadership and accomplishment, particularly in development”.Banga has recently joined several bodies as a climate adviser. He became vice-chairman of General Atlantic’s climate-focused fund, BeyondNetZero, at its inception in 2021.Raised in India, Banga is expected to appeal to many developing world leaders as an executive bringing financial acumen to the job and a strong relationship to the Biden administration.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe World Bank’s board has rebutted previous criticism of its commitment to reducing global heating, saying that climate finance doubled under Malpass from $14bn (£12bn) in 2019 to $32bn last year.John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, said Banga was “the right choice to take on the responsibilities of the World Bank at this critical moment”.He said it would allow the World Bank to “mobilise capital to power the green transition”.Manish Bapna, chief executive of the research organisation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Banga would need to be a “transformative leader with a clear vision for ambitious climate action” who must prevent the world’s most vulnerable people from being “forced to pay a price they can’t afford for a crisis they didn’t cause”.TopicsWorld BankGlobal economyJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans in the US ‘battery belt’ embrace Biden’s climate spending

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      Republicans in the US ‘battery belt’ embrace Biden’s climate spending Southern states led by Republicans did not vote for climate spending, but now embrace clean energy dollars like never beforeGeorgia, a state once known for its peaches and peanuts, is rapidly becoming a crucible of clean energy technology in the US, leading a pack of Republican-led states enjoying a boom in renewables investment that has been accelerated by Joe Biden’s climate agenda.Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August, billions of dollars of new clean energy investment has been announced for solar, electric vehicle and battery manufacturing in Georgia, pushing it to the forefront of a swathe of southern states that are becoming a so-called “battery belt” in the economic transition away from fossil fuels.Biden’s climate bill victory was hard won. Now, the real battle startsRead more“It seems like all roads are currently leading to Georgia, it’s really benefiting disproportionately from the Inflation Reduction Act right now,” said Aaron Brickman, senior principal at energy research nonprofit RMI. Brickman said the $370bn in clean energy incentives and tax credits in the bill are a “complete game changer. We’ve just frankly never had that before in this country. The IRA has transformed the landscape in a staggering way”.Georgia is part of a pattern where Republican-headed states have claimed the lion’s share of new renewable energy and electric vehicle activity since the legislation, with Republican-held Congressional districts hosting more than 80% of all utility-scale wind or solar farms and battery projects currently in advanced development, according to an analysis by American Clean Power.States blessed with plentiful wind and sunshine, along with significant rural and industrial communities, such as those across the Great Plains and the south, appear best positioned to capitalize on the climate bill. Texas, already a bastion of wind power, could see $131bn in IRA-linked investment this decade, Florida may see $62bn and Georgia $16bn, according to an RMI analysis.The irony of this bonanza, which is coming despite no Republican voting for the climate spending, was alluded to by Biden in his recent state of the union address. “My Republican friends who voted against it – I still get asked to fund the projects in those districts as well,” the US president said, to jeers from some members of Congress. “But don’t worry, I promised I’d be a president for all Americans. We’ll fund these projects and I’ll see you at the groundbreaking.”Beeswarm bubble chart of states’ IRA climate investmentsA mixed political groundbreaking did take place in Georgia in October, when Brian Kemp, the Republican governor, was served champagne by a robotic dog before ceremonially shoveling dirt alongside Democratic senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff to kick off Hyundai’s first dedicated electric vehicle plant in the US.The $5.5bn facility in Bryan county, which will create around 8,000 jobs when it opens in 2025, came about because “we heard the clarion call of this administration to hasten the adoption of new electric vehicles and reduce carbon emissions”, according to José Muñoz, Hyundai’s global president.Ossoff told the Guardian he has long held a vision that Georgia “should be the advanced energy innovation and manufacturing hub for the US” and credits a bill he wrote, the Solar Energy Manufacturing for America Act, which was then folded into the IRA, for helping convince Hanwha Qcells, another South Korean-owned company, to commit $2.5bn for two new solar panel factories in the state in January.“This targeted legislation was by no means a foregone conclusion but passing it has opened the floodgates in Georgia,” Ossoff said. Democrats have touted the bill for not only helping tackle the climate crisis but also as a way to wrest the initiative from China, which has dominated the manufacturing of parts for clean energy systems and electric cars until now.Georgia’s embrace of clean energy technology was underway before the IRA, with Atlanta, bolstered by leading renewables research at Georgia Tech, increasingly viewed as an innovative fulcrum. In 2021, Freyr, a Norwegian company, announced a $1.7bn battery plant for Coweta county, south of Atlanta, while SK Battery, yet another South Korean-owned firm, said last spring it will hire another 3,000 workers at its battery factory in Commerce, north-east of Georgia’s capital.Rivian, the electric car company, meanwhile is keen to build a sprawling $5bn facility east of Atlanta although it has faced opposition from some residents in the small town of Rutledge, who have sued to stop the development.But last year’s IRA, with its sweeping tax incentives for emissions-reducing technologies, has made the environment even more enticing. Scott Moskowitz, head of market strategy for Qcells said that Georgia has been a “great home” since 2019 but that the IRA is “some of the most ambitious clean energy policy passed anywhere in the world” and gave the Hanwha-owned company certainty to triple capacity at its site in Dalton, which already cranks out around 12,000 solar panels a day, as well as create a new complex in Cartersville that will manufacture ingots and wafers, the basic building blocks of solar panel components, made from poly silicon.“There’s a ton of opportunity and excitement in [the] clean energy sector right now,” Moskowitz said. “We’ve always had strong support from both sides of the aisle, even if there hasn’t always been agreement.”Map of recently announced clean energy projects in GeorgiaBarry Loudermilk, a Republican congressman whose House of Representatives district includes Cartersville, denied that the rush of investment is politically awkward for the GOP, accusing Biden of an “elementary school-level response” to the issue in his state of the union speech.“I’m not against this industry and I’m all about bringing in new technology, but it has to be market-driven,” Loudermilk told the Guardian. “When the government heavily subsidizes something it will crest and then fall down because the market hasn’t matured.“We aren’t ready for this (full EV and clean energy adoption). This is just subsidizing one industry over another and just throwing taxpayer dollars at something usually just leads to failure, and sets you back a decade.”Georgia is a draw for businesses due to its relatively low tax rate, transport links -including Atlanta’s busy airport and Savannah’s deep port – and a diverse and adept pool of workers, according to Loudermilk. “The days of the backwoods country bumpkin are in the past, we have educated, skilled workforce,” he said.It’s uncertain whether Loudermilk will be at the Cartersville groundbreaking, nor Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right extremist who represents the neighboring congressional district that includes Dalton. Greene has previously said the IRA is an “energy disaster” and erroneously said that global heating is “actually healthy for us”, although she has said she welcomes any new jobs to Georgia.Warned of ‘massive’ climate-led extinction, a US energy firm funded crisis denial adsRead moreKemp, meanwhile, has offered state-level incentives for firms to set up in Georgia, while denouncing Democrats for “picking winners and losers” with the national climate bill. The governor recently pitched his state as a destination for clean tech investment at Davos and has denied any hypocrisy in his stance.“Georgia is a destination state for all manner of new jobs and opportunity despite the bad policies coming out of DC – not because of them,” said a spokesman for Kemp. “Companies are choosing Georgia over places like New York and California because they know they’ll find success here, not because of the IRA.”Even if the causes for the renewables investment are in dispute, the trajectory of the transition is becoming more undeniable. As the cost of renewables continues to plummet and more Americans turn to electric cars, thanks in part to the “unprecedented scale” of the IRA, partisan divides on the issue may soften, according to Ashna Aggarwal, an associate at RMI, the energy research nonprofit.“This is a bill that benefits everyone and it actually benefits the people who weren’t necessarily in favor of the bill the most,” Aggarwal said.“I think what’s really exciting about the clean energy economy is that party lines don’t really matter here. There’s more opportunity for Republican states and I hope that Republican policymakers see that and really think this is good for the people who are living in our states.”TopicsRenewable energyEnergyClimate crisisGeorgiaUS politicsBiden administrationEnergy industryfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Tesla recalls 362,000 vehicles over self-driving software flaws that risk crashes

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      Tesla recalls 362,000 vehicles over self-driving software flaws that risk crashesRegulators say driver assistance system does not adequately adhere to traffic safety laws and can cause crashes Tesla said it would recall 362,000 US vehicles to update its Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software after regulators said on Thursday the driver assistance system did not adequately adhere to traffic safety laws and could cause crashes.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said the Tesla software allows a vehicle to “exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner increases the risk of a crash”.Tesla will release an over-the-air (OTA) software update free of charge, and the electric vehicle maker said is not aware of any injuries or deaths that may be related to the recall issue. The automaker said it had 18 warranty claims.Tesla shares were down 1.6% at $210.76 on Thursday afternoon.The recall covers 2016-2023 Model S, Model X, 2017-2023 Model 3, and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles equipped with FSD Beta software or pending installation.NHTSA asked Tesla to recall the vehicles, but the company said despite the recall it did not concur in NHTSA’s analysis. The move is a rare intervention by federal regulators in a real-world testing program that the company sees as crucial to the development of cars that can drive themselves. FSD Beta is used by hundreds of thousands of Tesla customers.The setback for Tesla’s automated driving effort comes about two weeks before the company’s March 1 investor day, during which Chief Executive Elon Musk is expected to promote the EV maker’s artificial intelligence capability and plans to expand its vehicle lineup.Tesla could not immediately be reached for comment.NHTSA has an ongoing investigation it opened in 2021 into 830,000 Tesla vehicles with driver assistance system Autopilot over a string of crashes with parked emergency vehicles. NHTSA is reviewing whether Tesla vehicles adequately ensure drivers are paying attention. NHTSA said on Thursday despite the FSD recall its “investigation into Tesla’s Autopilot and associated vehicle systems remains open and active.”Tesla said in “certain rare circumstances … the feature could potentially infringe upon local traffic laws or customs while executing certain driving maneuvers”.Possible situations where the problem could occur include traveling or turning through certain intersections during a yellow traffic light and making a lane change out of certain turn-only lanes to continue traveling straight, NHTSA said.NHTSA said “the system may respond insufficiently to changes in posted speed limits or not adequately account for the driver’s adjustment of the vehicle’s speed to exceed posted speed limits.”Last year, Tesla recalled nearly 54,000 US vehicles with FSD Beta software that may allow some models to conduct “rolling stops” and not come to a complete stop at some intersections, posing a safety risk, NHTSA said.Tesla and NHTSA say FSD’s advanced driving features do not make the cars autonomous and require drivers to pay attention.TopicsTeslaElon MuskUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Centrica boss urged to waive £1.6m bonus – but refuses to discuss it

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      For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails The boss of British Gas owner Centrica has been urged to waive his £1.6m bonus, after the company’s “monster” record profits of £3.3bn sparked outrage among campaigners. Chief executive Chris […] More