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      Biden approves controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska

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      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

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      ‘Hard to ignore Julie Su’: Biden’s labor secretary pick fights for confirmation

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      ‘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

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      Starbucks CEO to testify before Senate over opposition to stores unionizing

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      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

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      Starbucks condemned for ‘intimidation’ of US union organizers

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      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

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      Drugmaker Eli Lilly says it will cut insulin prices by 70%

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      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

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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