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Speaking at the White House, Joe Biden is attempting to reassure Americans that the banking system will hold up.“Thanks to the quick action in my administration over the past few days, Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe,” the president said.“Your deposits will be there when you need them. Small businesses across the country that deposit accounts at these banks can breathe easier knowing they’ll be able to pay their workers and pay their bills. And their hardworking employees can breathe easier as well.”Washington is on tenterhooks, waiting to see if the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and the government’s efforts to ensure its depositors can get their money, cause wider chaos in the economy. Democratic senator and Wall Street foe Elizabeth Warren said the California-based institution’s debacle is a sign that rolling back financial regulations in 2018 was not a good idea, while Republicans are blaming everything from Twitter to the woke mob. And on the 2024 campaign trail, Nikki Haley described the government’s intervention with the most infamous b-word: bailout.Here’s what else happened today:
Joe Biden approved a major oil and gas drilling project in Alaska while protecting the Arctic ocean and millions of acres elsewhere in the state from petroleum exploration. Environmental groups are furious.
Social security is like Silicon Valley Bank: so says Republican senator Bill Cassidy.
Barney Frank was a champion of financial regulation during his time in Congress, but then sat on the board of a now-closed bank and said he doesn’t think tighter rules would have stopped the recent insolvencies.
Rupert Murdoch has not watched Succession, it turns out.
Have you been affected by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank? Tell us.
The New York Times reports that after the GOP took control of the House, its oversight committee dropped an inquiry into whether Donald Trump profited improperly from his time as president.The investigation had ensnared Mazars USA, an accounting firm used by the former president until they cut ties with him a year ago, and the oversight committee’s top Democrat has alleged that its Republican leader colluded with Trump in ending it.“It has come to my attention that you may have acted in league with attorneys for former President Donald Trump to block the committee from receiving documents subpoenaed in its investigation of unauthorized, unreported and unlawful payments by foreign governments and others to then-President Trump,” Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin wrote to James Comer, the committee chair.In an interview with the Times, Comer confirmed that the committee had dropped the inquiry, essentially saying they were now focused on scrutinizing current White House occupant Joe Biden.“I honestly didn’t even know who or what Mazars was,” Comer said.“They’ve been ‘investigating’ Trump for six years. I know exactly what I’m investigating: money the Bidens received from China.”The consequences of the January 6 insurrection continue to reverberate across Washington, including among Republicans. Here’s The Guardian’s Sam Levine on the growing divide within the GOP over the attack:Some Republicans have rebuked efforts by Donald Trump and Fox News host Tucker Carlson to whitewash the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, underscoring a significant split in the party over attempts to downplay the events of the day.Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the House, turned over more than 40,000 hours of security footage from the Capitol to Carlson earlier this year. This week, Carlson aired selectively edited portions of that footage, falsely claiming the rioters were “sightseers” and “not insurrectionists”. At least 1,000 people have been arrested for their role in the January 6 attack. Five people died as a result of it.More than 999 people have been arrested so far, according to the justice department. Around 518 people have pleaded guilty to federal crimes to date and 53 have been found guilty at trial.Republican response to the January 6 Capitol attack divides partyRead moreFor more on how Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors will be made whole, and whether or not what the government is doing constitutes a bailout, here’s the Guardian Edward Helmore:When is a bailout not a bailout? It’s a question many people are asking after the dramatic collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the US’s decision to rescue depositors on Sunday.Joe Biden, elected and appointed officials all insist the emergency interventions to protect deposits in Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, a second bank that failed on the weekend, or, indeed, any further bank failures, won’t come at taxpayers’ expense.On Monday, Biden was at pains to say that “no losses” would be borne by taxpayers, and the money would come from the fees that banks pay into the Deposit Insurance Fund.Avoiding the ‘B-word’: is the US response to SVB’s collapse a bailout?Read moreRepublican senator Josh Hawley has spent the day accusing Silicon Valley Bank of promoting “woke” ideology, and now he wants to undermine the Biden administration’s efforts to make its depositors whole.Based in Santa Clara, California, Silicon Valley Bank did a lot of business with the venture capital community, including startups focused on fighting climate change, according to the New York Times. To Hawley, that’s enough to earn it the amorphous “woke” moniker:So these SVB guys spend all their time funding woke garbage (“climate change solutions”) rather than actual banking and now want a handout from taxpayers to save them— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 13, 2023
Now Hawley, who is perhaps best known outside his home state of Missouri for promoting Donald Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and later running from the mob that attacked the Capitol, says he will stop the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from making a special assessment on American banks so that Silicon Valley Bank depositors don’t lose money:Now we learn the Biden Admin will impose “special assessments” (= fees) on banks across the country to pay for the SVB bailout. No way MO customers are paying for a woke bailout. I will introduce legislation preventing any bank from passing these fees on to customers -— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 13, 2023
And my legislation will exempt responsible community banks from the “special fees” to bail out the California billionaires— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 13, 2023
The Guardian’s Edward Helmore reports on the changing fortunes of Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, who is at the center of an increasingly intense controversy over his peddling of 2020 election conspiracy theories:Tucker Carlson was once seen as untouchable. Now the most popular TV host on American cable news is at the center of a firestorm threatening to engulf Fox News and also anger Donald Trump, whose conspiracy theory-laden political cause he has long championed and who his audience loves.Court filings attached to the $1.6bn Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit accuse Fox News of allowing its stars to broadcast false accusations about rigged voting machines in the 2020 presidential election.The documents contained numerous emails detailing the private views and concerns of senior Fox management and its stars, which often seemed at odds with what they were publicly broadcasting to their audience.Tucker Carlson firestorm over Trump texts threatens to engulf Fox News Read moreThe hit HBO show Succession is loosely based on his life as the patriarch of an unruly billionaire family, but that doesn’t mean Rupert Murdoch watches it.Though the head of the rightwing media empire is under growing pressure amid a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit against his Fox News network, Murdoch recently took time to reveal that he has never watched the comedy-drama series that is set to launch its fourth season on 24 March, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports.A reporter for the media outlet Semafor got the scoop having contacted Murdoch after his email address was revealed in court filings pertaining to the lawsuit. Murdoch’s reply to the reporter’s email asking if he followed Succession reportedly was: “Never watched it.”‘Never watched it’: Rupert Murdoch answers cold email about SuccessionRead moreAn unlikely figure has found himself drawn into the recent wave of bank collapses: Barney Frank.The former House Democratic lawmaker’s name graces the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which tightened banking regulations following the global financial crisis. It turns out, he was serving on the board of Signature Bank, which regulators on Sunday closed, making it the third American bank to fail in five days.In an interview with Bloomberg News, he said he disagreed with the decision to shut down the New York-based institution. “I think that if we’d been allowed to open tomorrow, that we could’ve continued – we have a solid loan book, we’re the biggest lender in New York City under the low-income housing tax credit.”More interestingly, he disputed that the 2018 rollback of parts of the Dodd-Frank Act played any role in the failures of Signature and other similar sized institutions – like Silicon Valley Bank. That legislation, signed by Donald Trump, raised to $250bn the level at which banks are subjected to the most strict oversight. Both Signature and Silicon Valley were below that amount.“I don’t think there was any laxity on the part of regulators in regulating the banks in that category, from $50 billion to $250 billion,” Frank said in the interview.Washington is on tenterhooks, waiting to see if the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and the government’s efforts to ensure its depositors can get their money, cause wider chaos in the economy. Democratic senator and Wall Street foe Elizabeth Warren said the California-based bank’s debacle is a sign that rolling back financial regulation in 2018 was not a good idea, while Republicans are blaming everything from Twitter to the woke mob. And on the 2024 campaign trail, Nikki Haley described the government’s intervention with the most infamous b-word: bailout.Here’s what else has happened today:
Joe Biden approved a major oil and gas drilling project in Alaska while protecting the Arctic ocean and millions of acres elsewhere in the state from petroleum exploration. Environmental groups are furious.
Social security is like Silicon Valley Bank: so says Republican senator Bill Cassidy.
Have you been affected by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank? Tell us.
Louisiana’s two Republicans senators have been getting a lot of air time on Fox News lately, with John Kennedy appearing yesterday to complain about how Joe Biden recently put the GOP on the spot over social security. Here’s Maya Yang’s story:The Republican senator John Kennedy accused Joe Biden of “demagoguing” the issue of how to fund social security and Medicare and protecting the two programs from Republican proposals to cut them, calling it a “very immature thing to do”.Speaking to Fox News Sunday, Kennedy took aim at Biden for mentioning in his State of the Union address last month that some Republicans have proposed to “sunset” social security and Medicare as part of attempts to balance the federal budget.“The problem is that President Biden in his State of the Union Address decided to demagogue the issue,” the Louisiana senator said. “We all saw it.“He basically said, ‘If you talk about social security or Medicare, I’m going to call you a mean, bad person.’ And that just took the issue off the table when the president decided to demagogue it … You can only be young once, but you can always be immature, and I thought it was a very immature thing to do.”Republican John Kennedy takes aim at Biden over social security fundingRead moreRepublican presidential contender Nikki Haley is describing the US government’s efforts to stop Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors from losing their money as a “bailout”.It’s a politically loaded word, considering how deeply controversial Washington’s 2008 decision to help large banks during the global financial crisis remain.Here’s her statement, on Twitter:Joe Biden is pretending this isn’t a bailout. It is.Now depositors at healthy banks are forced to subsidize Silicon Valley Bank’s mismanagement. When the Deposit Insurance Fund runs dry, all bank customers are on the hook. That’s a public bailout.Depositors should be paid by… https://t.co/LDmCR9NOCd— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) March 13, 2023
Meanwhile, Republican senator Bill Cassidy has compared social security – the government program credited with keeping many elderly Americans out of poverty – to Silicon Valley Bank.He made the comment in an interview with Fox News as he discussed social security’s very real problem of long-term funding:Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA): “Social Security is the Silicon Valley Bank of retirement systems.” pic.twitter.com/J5N8nhnXko— The Recount (@therecount) March 13, 2023
Joe Biden today authorized a major oil drilling project in Alaska that has angered environmental groups, who see it as a setback in Washington’s fight against climate change. In an effort to temper those criticisms, the president also banned drilling in the Arctic ocean, and protected millions of acres of land in Alaska. Here’s the Guardian’s coverage of one of the Biden administration’s most significant environmental decisions, from Oliver Milman, Nina Lakhani and Maanvi Singh:The Biden administration has approved a controversial $8bn (£6bn) drilling project on Alaska’s north slope, which has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists and some Alaska Native communities, who say it will speed up the climate breakdown and undermine food security.The ConocoPhillips Willow project will be on of the largest of its kind on US soil, involving drilling for oil and gas at three sites for multiple decades on the 23m-acre National Petroleum Reserve which is owned by the federal government and is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the US.It will produce an estimated 576m barrels of oil over 30 years, with a peak of 180,000 barrels of crude a day. This extraction, which ConocoPhillips has said may, ironically, involve refreezing the rapidly thawing Arctic permafrost to stabilize drilling equipment, would create one of the largest “carbon bombs” on US soil, potentially producing more than twice as many emissions than all renewable energy projects on public lands by 2030 would cut combined.Biden approves controversial Willow oil drilling project in AlaskaRead moreFlorida governor Ron DeSantis is among the Republicans expected to soon jump into the 2024 presidential race, and in a Fox News interview yesterday, he blamed Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse on the liberal policies he’s built a reputation for railing against:DEI stands for “diversity, equity, and inclusion”, the sorts of initiatives DeSantis’s administration in Florida has made a point of targeting. He also blames the “massive federal bureaucracy” for letting the collapse happen – which is interesting, because during his time as a House lawmaker in 2018, he voted for the legislation that rolled back some of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulations, which is now being blamed for Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse. More
Biden approves controversial Willow oil drilling project in AlaskaEnvironmentalists and some Alaskan Native communities had opposed the plan over climate, wildlife and food-shortage fearsThe Biden administration has approved a controversial $8bn (£6bn) drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope, which has drawn fierce opposition from environmentalists and some Alaska Native communities, who say it will speed up the climate breakdown and undermine food security.The ConocoPhillips Willow project will be one of the largest of its kind on US soil, involving drilling for oil and gas at three sites for multiple decades on the 23m-acre National Petroleum Reserve which is owned by the federal government and is the largest tract of undisturbed public land in the US.It will produce an estimated 576m barrels of oil over 30 years, with a peak of 180,000 barrels of crude a day. This extraction, which ConocoPhillips has said may, ironically, involve refreezing the rapidly thawing Arctic permafrost to stabilize drilling equipment, would create one of the largest “carbon bombs” on US soil, potentially producing more than twice as many emissions than all renewable energy projects on public lands by 2030 would cut combined.In its decision, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management said that the approval “strikes a balance” by allowing ConocoPhillips to use its longstanding leases in the Arctic while also limiting drilling to three sites rather than five, which the company wanted.But the approval has been met with outrage among environmental campaigners and Native representatives who say it fatally undermines Joe Biden’s climate agenda. In all, the project is expected to create about 260m tons of greenhouse gases over its lifespan, the equivalent of creating about 70 new coal-fired power plants.“Approving the Willow Project is an unacceptable departure from President Biden’s promises to the American people on climate and environmental justice,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action, a climate group.“After all that this administration has done to advance climate action and environmental justice, it is heartbreaking to see a decision that we know will poison Arctic communities and lock in decades of climate pollution we simply cannot afford.”The approval came as the interior department announced it was going to ban any future oil and gas drilling in the US Arctic Ocean, as well as protect millions of acres of Alaska land deemed sensitive to Native communities. But the Willow decision has still stirred anger.“The Biden administration’s approval makes it clear that its call for climate action and the protection of biodiversity is talk, not action,” said Sonia Ahkivgak, social outreach coordinator at the Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic group.“The only reasonable solution to the climate emergency is to deny new fossil fuel projects like Willow. Our fight has been long and also it has only begun. We will continue to call for a stop to Willow because the lives of local people and future generations depend on it.”Opposition to the project has included more than a million letters sent to the White House, a Change.org petition with more than 3 million signatories, and a viral #stopwillow campaign waged on TikTok as well as other social media. The approval of the project is almost certain to face legal challenges.On Friday, former US vice-president Al Gore told the Guardian that projects of its kind are “recklessly irresponsible” and that allowing it would cause “climate chaos”.The approval comes after an environmental impact assessment was published last month by the US interior department, which recommended a scaled-back version of the project, reducing the number of sites from five to three, which ConocoPhillips Alaska said it considered a viable option.“Willow is a carbon bomb that cannot be allowed to explode in the Arctic,” Karlin Nageak Itchoak, the senior regional director at the non-profit Wilderness Society, said after the assessment was published in early February.According to the Native Movement, a grassroots Alaska-based collective, Willow developers have done little research on the impact of the cumulative projects across the Arctic slope of Alaska – the birthing grounds of the 60,000 Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd, which are a historically important food source. Residents of Nuiqsut, the closest Alaska Native community, have spoken out about sick fish, malnourished caribou and toxic air quality, directly caused by existing oil and gas extraction within their homelands.Approval has come after a long contentious process.After the project was given the green light by the Trump White House, a federal judge reversed that decision, ruling that an earlier environmental review was flawed.Alongside the interior department’s February review, officials expressed “substantial concerns” about even the scaled-back plan’s impact on wildlife and Native communities.Alaska’s two Republican senators and the state’s sole congressional representative, a Democrat, had urged the administration to approve the project, which they say would boost the state’s economy.Some Alaska Native tribal organizations, including the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope and the Alaska Federation of Natives, have supported the project for similar reasons.The deal will make it “possible for our community to continue our traditions, while strengthening the economic foundation of our region for decades to come,” according to Nagruk Harcharek, president of the Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat group.But environmental groups and tribes including those in Nuiqsut have countered that any jobs and money the project brings in the short term will be negated by the environmental devastation in the long run.Alaska is at the forefront of the climate breakdown, caused by burning fossil fuels, and communities surrounded by oil and gas operations are already suffering poor air and water quality, health disparities and reduced food sources. The Nuiqsut mayor, Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, whose community of about 525 people is the closest to the proposed development, is a prominent opponent, who has called the project a “climate disaster waiting to happen”. She said it will negatively affect the livelihoods and health of community members.Biden suspended oil and gas lease sales after taking office and promised to overhaul the government’s fossil fuels program. However, the administration dropped its resistance to leasing in a compromise over last year’s climate law.The administration’s continued embrace of oil and gas drilling has caused consternation among Democrats, with two dozen progressive members of Congress recently writing to Biden, warning that the Willow project will “pose a significant threat to US progress on climate issues”. The group called upon the president to block an “ill-conceived and misguided project”.The Biden administration has offered less acreage for lease than previous administrations. But environmentalists say the administration has not done enough. The US interior secretary, Deb Haaland, in a recent interview declined direct comment on Willow but said that “public lands belong to every single American, not just one industry”.Increased oil and gas extraction in the Alaska region has already affected caribou populations, which several communities in the area hunt for subsistence.The Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsAlaskaEnergyOilOil and gas companiesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
‘Hard to ignore Julie Su’: Biden’s labor secretary pick fights for confirmationSupporters fear Su, the deputy labor secretary, might have a hard time getting the needed Senate votes as some business groups oppose her nominationJulie Su has come a long way since she first made headlines in 1995 when she, then just 26 years old, was lead lawyer for 72 Thai workers who were essentially kept in slavery, toiling 18 hours a day at a sweatshop just outside Los Angeles.Last week Joe Biden nominated Su to be secretary of labor, the government’s top labor position, a move that many labor, immigrant and women’s groups vigorously cheered, while a few business groups – but not many – opposed the nomination. Now some supporters fear that she might have a hard time mustering the needed votes in the Senate to be confirmed.Starbucks fired a union organizer. New York City got him rehiredRead moreSu, the 54-year-old daughter of immigrants, has served as deputy labor secretary since 2021, having been narrowly confirmed 50 to 47. “I’m a huge fan,” said Liz Schuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s main labor federation. “I can’t imagine someone more prepared. She’s been working hand in glove with Marty Walsh,” the current labor secretary, who is leaving to head the National Hockey League Players’ Association.“She has the expertise,” Shuler added. “She’s a hard worker. She’s creative. We know that she will defend workers, especially the most vulnerable. This pick is a home run.”When Biden nominated her, Su explained “my mom came to the United States on a cargo ship” from China because she couldn’t afford a passenger ticket. Born in Madison and growing up outside Los Angeles, Su went to Stanford and Harvard Law School, and then became a lawyer for an LA-based advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice.“At Harvard, we were taught to think like lawyers, but we did not learn to think like human beings,” Su often says. In 2001, Su, who is fluent in Mandarin and Spanish, won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant for her innovative work as a workers’ rights advocate.Immediately before becoming deputy secretary, she headed California’s labor and workforce development agency under Governor Gavin Newsom, and before that she oversaw California’s labor enforcement under Newsom’s predecessor Jerry Brown. She was known for aggressively cracking down on restaurants, garment factories and car washes that cheated workers out of wages. She also went after trucking companies that improperly classified their drivers as independent contractors in part to deny them minimum wage and overtime pay protections.Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, said: “She did extraordinary work in reaching out to unions and community partners, in strengthening enforcement of wage laws and in really identifying the pernicious problem faced by so many low-wage workers of color who were routinely becoming victims of wage theft.”As California’s top labor official, Su expanded apprenticeship programs to train workers without college degrees and helped run the business/labor Future of Work Commission. That panel proposed ideas to help the workforce of the future, such as creating a “California Job Quality Index” to define high-quality jobs and help workers know who are good employers offering good benefits.When Su was under consideration to be deputy secretary of labor, Allen Zaremberg, president of the California chamber of commerce, praised her “professionalism” and said: “Julie Su has always been open to the views of employers and is willing to listen to the concerns of the business community.”So far the US Chamber of Commerce and most other business groups have not taken a position on Su’s nomination. But the International Franchise Association was quick to oppose her.“Deputy Secretary Su has been consistently hostile to small businesses throughout her career,” said Michael Layman, the franchise association’s senior vice-president of government relations. He faulted her for supporting California law AB5, which made it harder for businesses to classify workers as independent contractors, a law that upset Uber and Lyft.Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Labor Federation, said she had long been impressed with how Su maintained good communications and relations with business. “She brought a perspective that labor law enforcement isn’t just good for workers, it’s also good for high-road businesses that are doing things right.”In 2017, when Su was California’s labor commissioner, she told me in an interview: “I passionately believe that our enforcement is good for employers. The legitimate businesses that are complying with the law are frustrated with the bad guys that aren’t complying.”Su was widely criticized over the billions of dollars that California’s unemployment insurance paid out due to fraud during the pandemic. But Su’s defenders noted that other states also experienced plenty of such fraud, that California’s unemployment insurance system was a mess long before Julie Su and that the nationwide rush to keep the pandemic-induced unemployed from going hungry made unemployment screening less rigorous than usual.The Franchise Association said that “based on her record, she does not deserve a promotion from a largely operations role to the [department’s] principal policymaker”. It urged the Senate to reject her just as it rejected David Weil, Biden’s nominee to head the labor department’s wage and hour division.Weil, who headed that division under President Barack Obama, was voted down 53 to 47. Business groups lobbied hard against Weil because he had pushed to stop gig companies, like Uber and Lyft, from what he said was improperly classifying their drivers as independent contractors.“From my own experience, I know what a razor’s edge the Senate is right now,” Weil said in an interview. “It’s all about two senators’ willingness to support her,” in a reference to Joe Manchin and Kysten Sinema, senators who were elected as Democrats but have voted with Republicans against progressive actions.Weil said Su would have a lot to do as labor secretary, although if the Senate fails to confirm her, she would remain as acting secretary of labor. “There are two or three major rules that have to be finalized,” Weil said, “and that gets harder and harder as you get closer to an election.”He mentioned rules to make it harder to misclassify workers as independent contractors and to increase the threshold, currently $35,500, below which employees would have to be paid overtime if they work over 40 hours a week.Erica Smiley, executive director of Jobs with Justice, a labor rights group, praised Su for being innovative. “She’s been on the cutting edge of trying new stuff,” Smiley said. “She has an appetite for experimenting with policies that will benefit everyday people.”Normally the National Labor Relations Board – which is independent from the labor department – handles cases in which companies are accused of illegally shutting stores or operations in retaliation for unionization efforts. Pointing to Amy’s Kitchen’s decision and close its food prep operation in San Jose and lay off 331 workers as that facility faced a union drive, Smiley suggested that Su have the labor department provide emergency assistance to workers who lose jobs in such situations, just as other federal agencies provide disaster relief. She urged Su to speak out against companies like Starbucks that she said were engaged in aggressive union-busting.Biden and Congress have enacted three far-reaching laws that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs – on infrastructure, semiconductor investment and transitioning to clean energy. Many worker advocates are looking to Su to use her sway as secretary to make sure the bulk of those new jobs are good, middle-class jobs, and many hope they’re unionized jobs, too.One of Su’s biggest champions is Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants and someone Senator Bernie Sanders urged Biden to nominate as labor secretary. Right after Su was nominated, Nelson tweeted: “Fantastic news for the country.”“I was very clear from the very beginning that we already had someone eminently qualified for this position,” Nelson said. “She’s way more qualified for this job than I would be, depending on what you think the job should be, in terms of understanding policy and how to use it as a tool to help average Americans. She wants to be a strong adviser to a president who wants to be the most pro-worker president ever.“This is not about one person filling a position,” Nelson added. “It’s about all of us working together to lift standards for the American people. I know that she will be fighting the good fight from the inside, and I’ll be fighting the good fight from the outside.”Some worker advocates voiced concern that Su is not a White House insider the way Walsh was and the way former labor secretary Tom Perez was under Obama. That could make it harder for Su to get the White House’s and Office of Management and Budget’s blessing to finalize important regulations.But the AFL-CIO’s Shuler voiced confidence: “She’s very persuasive, relentless and persistent. It’s hard to ignore Julie Su.”TopicsBiden administrationUS politicsUS unionsfeaturesReuse this content More
Starbucks CEO to testify before Senate over opposition to stores unionizingBernie Sanders had threatened to subpoena Howard Schultz if he refused to appear while workers file unfair labor practice chargesThe Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, has agreed to testify before a Senate committee investigating the company’s intense opposition to national efforts to unionize its stores.Senator Bernie Sanders had threatened to subpoena Schultz if he refused to appear before the US Senate health, education, labor and pensions (Help) committee. Sanders said Schultz had “refused to answer any of the serious questions we have asked” for over a year.Since late 2021, 290 Starbucks stores around the US have won union elections, but dozens of workers and the Starbucks Workers United union have filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) over alleged retaliatory firings, discipline, unilateral changes, store closures, refusing to bargain with the union and intimidation against workers’ efforts to form unions.‘Old-school union busting’: how US corporations are quashing the new wave of organizingRead moreNine decisions by NLRB administrative law judges so far have found Starbucks violated the National Labor Relations Act, and 22 Starbucks workers have received judgments ordering their reinstatement. No Starbucks appeals have yet overturned any rulings.“I’m happy to announce that Howard Schultz, the CEO and founder of Starbucks, has finally agreed to testify before the Senate Help committee. The Help committee was scheduled to vote tomorrow to subpoena him and I want to thank the members of the committee who, in a bipartisan way, were prepared to do just that,” Sanders said in a statement. “In America, workers have the constitutional right to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining to improve their wages and working conditions. Unfortunately Starbucks, under Mr Schultz’s leadership, has done everything possible to prevent that from happening.”Starbucks initially pushed back on efforts to compel Schultz to testify before the US Senate Help committee, offering other Starbucks executives in lieu of Schultz. Sanders criticized Starbucks’ response.Starbucks Workers United has called out Schultz on social media, using a #DearHoward hashtag to criticize how Starbucks has responded to unionization efforts and its impact on workers in anticipation of the Senate testimony.TopicsStarbucksUS unionsBernie SandersUS politicsUS SenatenewsReuse this content More
Starbucks condemned for ‘intimidation’ of US union organizersBernie Sanders moves to summon chief executive Howard Schultz to Senate committee to explain repeated anti-union violationsStarbucks is under fire over the company’s response to unionization efforts as senator Bernie Sanders threatens to call its chief executive before his committee on alleged labor violations and staff petition for it to end “intimidation” of organizers.Sanders, chairman of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions (Help) committee, announced on Wednesday that the committee will be voting on whether to issue a subpoena to compel the Starbucks chief, Howard Schultz, to testify about Starbuck’s federal labor law violations, and to authorize a committee investigation into labor-law violations committed by major corporations.‘Old-school union busting’: how US corporations are quashing the new wave of organizingRead more“For nearly a year, I and many of my colleagues in the Senate have repeatedly asked Mr Schultz to respect the constitutional right of workers at Starbucks to form a union and to stop violating federal labor laws,” Sanders said in a press release confirming the 8 March vote.“Mr Schultz has failed to respond to those requests. He has denied meeting and document requests, skirted congressional oversight attempts, and refused to answer any of the serious questions we have asked. Unfortunately, Mr Schultz has given us no choice but to subpoena him.”The move came after 44 employees at Starbucks headquarters in Seattle and 22 additional anonymous employees signed on to a petition calling on the company to reverse a return-to-office mandate and “to commit to a policy of neutrality and respect federal labor laws by agreeing to follow fair election principles, and allow store partners, whether pro- or anti-union, to decide for themselves, free from fear, coercion, and intimidation”.According to Starbucks Workers United, more than 200 Starbucks workers have been fired in retaliation for organizing. The National Labor Relations Board has alleged that Starbucks has fired over 60 union leaders across the country. Starbucks has aggressively opposed unionization efforts from the first stores to unionize in late 2021 in Buffalo, New York, to over 350 stores around the US that have held union elections. More than 280 stores have won union elections, though a first union contract has not been reached at any store so far.On Tuesday, administrative law judge Michael A Rosas issued a sweeping decision in Buffalo, ordering the reinstatement of seven fired Starbucks workers with back pay, and issuing a bargaining order for three Starbucks stores. The order requires 27 workers to be reimbursed for lost wages, for Schultz and the senior vice-president of operations, Denise Nelson, to read a notice or make a video for employees in Buffalo informing them of their rights, and for the company to post a national physical and electronic notice.“It’s what we, the workers, have been saying for more than a year now: that Starbucks, at every chance they get, bust the union and get us to be intimidated by it,” said Austin Locke, an employee for nearly six years in New York who was fired and recently won reinstatement after the city sued Starbucks under “just-cause” protections. “They’ve just been stonewalling us the whole time.”“The news of this win is single-handedly the most exciting thing that’s happened in this campaign thus far,” said Michael Sanabria, a barista from the Transit Commons location in Buffalo, New York, in a press release on the decision.“Having to reinstate all of these workers, reopen the first Starbucks location closed in the name of union-busting, and most importantly, post notices in every single store across the country for the duration of the Starbucks organizing campaign is such a massive win for us, and for the labor movement as a whole.“After waiting through months of Starbucks’ stalling tactics, this will reinvigorate and re-energize the momentum of this movement.”The Guardian has contacted Starbucks for comment.TopicsStarbucksBernie SandersUS politicsUS unionsnewsReuse this content More
Drugmaker Eli Lilly says it will cut insulin prices by 70%Move comes amid criticism of healthcare companies over rising costs of insulin, as CEO says cuts ‘should be the new standard’Eli Lilly will cut list prices by 70% for its most commonly prescribed forms of insulin, Humalog and Humulin, beginning from the fourth quarter of this year, the drugmaker said on Wednesday.The move comes amid criticism of healthcare companies by US lawmakers over rising costs of insulin, with Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act including a $35 cap on insulin for those enrolled in Medicare health insurance plans.More than a million Americans ration insulin due to high costsRead more“While we could wait for Congress to act or the healthcare system in general to apply that standard, we’re just applying it ourselves,” the company’s chief executive, Dave Ricks, told CNN in an interview.The drugmaker will also lower the price of its non-branded insulin injection Lispro to $25 a vial and expand its Insulin Value Program, under which the $35 cap will apply to about 85% of US pharmacies.Rick said patients using other pharmacies that do not participate in the program can get a rebate through the drugmaker’s website.He said the price cuts “should be the new standard in America” and called on other companies and stakeholders “to meet up at this point”.“Insulin has become such a pivotal issue because of affordability,” Rick said.About 8.4 million of the 37 million people in the United States with diabetes use insulin, according to the American Diabetes Association.Eli Lilly, along with Sanofi and Novo Nordisk, makes up 90% of the US market for insulin.Drugmakers had previously priced insulin at more than $275 a vial, representing a 1,200% increase in price over the past 20 years, according to the advocacy group Insulin Initiative.TopicsPharmaceuticals industryDiabetesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
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
