Better take a deep breath now as the Afghanistan SIGAR has gone out in what we used to affectionately call a one-day wonder, and this comes in its place today:
"Chemical munitions experts have for years compiled information that Syria’s government has used these banned weapons against its own people, a war crime that so far has gone unpunished and been dismissed with a sneer by President Bashar al-Assad. Now the first criminal inquiries that target Assad and his associates over the use of chemical weapons may soon get underway. In a major step to hold Assad and his circle accountable for some of the worst atrocities committed in the decade-old Syria conflict, judges at a special war crimes unit in France’s palace of justice have received a complaint about chemical weapons attacks in Syria, filed by three international human rights groups. The complaint, which lawyers said the judges would likely accept, requests a criminal investigation of Assad, his brother, Maher, and a litany of senior advisers and military officials that formed the chain of command. Together with a similar complaint filed in Germany last October, the French complaint, submitted Monday and made public Tuesday, opens a new front aimed at ensuring that some form of justice for chemical weapons crimes is exacted on Assad and his hierarchy. If nothing else, the criminal inquiries in France and Germany could vastly complicate the future for Assad, who has emerged largely victorious in the Syrian war, but with a pariah status that has blocked the international aid necessary to rebuild his country. Getting such aid could become even more difficult if Assad and his upper echelons are defendants in prosecutions for war crimes in European courts, even if they consider such proceedings illegitimate. Nor are millions of Syrians who fled to Europe and elsewhere as refugees likely to return home. Steve Kostas, the senior lawyer of the group that filed the complaints in France, said it focused on the August 2013 events in the city of Douma and the region of Eastern Ghouta, near Damascus — coordinated attacks that the United States government said killed more than 1,400 people, making them the world’s deadliest use of chemical weapons in this century....."
That is where my print mercifully stopped with the lies.
If you want to read more New York Times falsehoods be my guest. I'm sorry that I instinctively veer away from any article that has a New York $limes byline now.
As for the charges, they have already been proved be utter lies from the West. The alleged chemical attacks where either completely staged and scripted fictions or self-inflicted false flags by US-$pon$ored forces like ISIS™ and the Kurds, and I will say this for the controlled-opposition figure that shall not be named(?), he put an end to the regime change operation in Syria that the Biden administration is woefully dragging back up with false allegations against Assad in AmeriKa's lead war liar, the New York f***king $lims.
Speaking of hit jobs, the same $cumbags reported that backstage, before he spoke, an aide brought Trump a full-length mirror to gaze at how he looked. The former president held a small bottle of hair spray a few inches away from his chin and aimed it at his forehead. He swigged a Diet Coke before taking the stage -- even provided a fact check, ha-ha-ha-ha, along with it, along with Katie Rogers of the New York Times also saying that at Mar-a-Lago, his fortress by the sea, Trump still expects a full crowd on the dinner patio to stand and applaud, just as it did when he was in office) -- where Trump, at one point, expressly called on people to take the coronavirus vaccines at the CPAC $hit $how over the weekend, so..... fuck him and his false opposition. He's just as much a traitor as the communists he left in charge (not to worry, he won't end up like Sarkozy of France). He is one of them in fact for the ma$k is finally off and he can go take a jump in the lake.
The same is to be said of the staged rerun regarding the "kidnapping" of Nigerian girls. It truly looks like the world calling that out like I did put an end to that psyop mind-f**k for now.
Unfortunately, the World/Nation co-lead is another flogging of absolute falsehoods so I think I will just move along to Saudi Arabia and their war crime, something the pre$$ took personally).
As pretext for further U.S. government aggression in the region comes this report from Iraq:
Thankfully, "the Iraqi military released a statement saying the attack did not cause significant losses and that security forces had found the launch pad used for the missiles" as the country prepares for the criminally evil Pope's visit (don't be surprised if a variant is spread, especially amongst children!!!).
Regime change operations are also continuing in Myanmar while the illegal immigrants flood into California via Arizona from Mexico and Brazil and the administration is so worried about running out of shelter space for teenagers and children who cross the border without their parents that shelters have been authorized to purchase airplane tickets and cover other transportation costs for minors whose relatives are already living in the United States.
Of course, it is NOT, NOT a CRISIS!
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Of course, the "War on Terror" has come home to roost as we have warned for decades it would:
"FBI director warns Congress that domestic terrorism is rising fast" by Eric Tucker and Mary Clare Jalonick The Associated Press, March 2, 2021
WASHINGTON — FBI Director Christopher Wray bluntly labeled the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as “domestic terrorism” Tuesday and warned of a rapidly growing threat of homegrown violent extremism that law enforcement is scrambling to confront with thousands of investigations.
Wray also defended to lawmakers his agency’s handling of an intelligence report that warned of the prospect for violence on Jan. 6, and he rejected false claims advanced by some Republicans that anti-Trump groups had organized the deadly riot, which began when a violent mob stormed the building as Congress was gathering to certify results of the presidential election.
Why did Trump ever appoint that Deep $tate tool?
Wray’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, his first to Congress since the insurrection, came at the latest in a series of hearings centered on the law enforcement response to the insurrection at the Capitol. Lawmakers pressed him not only about possible intelligence and communication failures but also about the threat of violence from white supremacists, militias, and other extremists the FBI says it’s prioritizing with the same urgency as the menace of international terrorism.
“Jan. 6 was not an isolated event,” Wray told the committee. “The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now, and it’s not going away anytime soon. At the FBI, we’ve been sounding the alarm on it for a number of years now.”
The COMMUNISTS are FIRMLY IN CHARGE!
The violence at the Capitol made it clear a law enforcement agency that remade itself after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to deal with international terrorism is now laboring to address homegrown violence by white Americans. President Biden’s administration has tasked his national intelligence director to work with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to assess the threat, and in applying the domestic terrorism label to conduct inside the Capitol, Wray sought to convince senators he was clear-eyed about the scope and urgency of the threat.
They never remade themselves after that inside job false flag, and that explains why Antifa and BLM were allowed to run roughshod over American cities, and why the government does nothing about it.
They are COMING FOR YOU, WHITEY! WAKE UP!
Wait a minute, isn't WRAY a WHITE MAN?
Wray said the number of domestic terrorism investigations has increased from around 1,000 when he became FBI director in 2017 to about 2,000 now. The number of arrests of white supremacists has almost tripled, he said.
Did you arrest the FBI case handler instigators, too?
Or were they let go like BLMs?
Many of the senators’ questions centered on the FBI’s handling of a Jan. 5 report from its Norfolk, Va., field office that warned online posts were foreshadowing a “war” in Washington the following day. Capitol Police officials have said they were unaware of that report and had received no intelligence from the FBI that would have led them to expect the sort of violence that besieged them. Five people died Jan. 6, including a Capitol Police officer and a woman who was shot as she tried to climb through a smashed window into the House chamber with lawmakers still inside.
An OUTRIGHT FUCKING LIE!
Wray said the report was disseminated via the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, discussed at a command post in Washington, and posted on an Internet portal available to other law enforcement agencies.
Though the information was raw, unverified and appeared aspirational in nature, Wray said, it was specific and concerning enough that “the smartest thing to do, the most prudent thing to do, was just push it to the people who needed to get it.”
Like the IRAQ WMD allegations!
GOOD LORD!!!
“We did communicate that information in a timely fashion to the Capitol Police and [Metropolitan Police Department] in not one, not two, but three different ways,” Wray said, though he added that since the violence that ensued was “not an acceptable result,” the FBI was looking into what it could have done differently.
The sprawling Justice Department investigation into the insurrection has produced hundreds of charges, including against members of militia groups and far-right organizations. “Some of those people clearly came to Washington, we now know, with the plans and intentions to engage in the worst kind of violence we would consider domestic terrorism," he said.
Asked whether there was evidence the attack was planned or carried out by antifa — an umbrella term for far-left militants — or by Trump opponents posing as his loyalists, Wray said that there was not. Some on the right have made such false contentions.
Even as the FBI prioritizes its efforts to counter domestic extremism, there are challenges confronting law enforcement, including in separating mere chatter from actual threats and in First Amendment protections that give people ample leeway to espouse racist or otherwise abhorrent viewpoints.
“The amount of angry, hateful, unspeakable, combative, violent even rhetoric on social media exceeds what anybody in their worst imagination [thinks] is out there,” Wray said.
Yeah, will have to DO AWAY with that PESKY FIRST AMENDENT, 'eh, FASCIST!?
I wonder if they will find that a man charged in Capitol riot, Thomas Caldwell worked as a section chief for the FBI from 2009 to 2010 after retiring from the Navy, and the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are riddled with infiltrators, for the PURE TRUTH of the MATTER is ALL the "domestic terrorists" ultimately lead back to government handlers and psyop professionals.
I mean, who benefits? The government creates the straw man it needs to knock down so it can impose more tyranny.
Btw, the Pelosi Commission simply confirms the false flag quality of the staged events, which is why the Capitol police chief’s request for National Guard help was denied ahead of the event.
After all, being out of work leaves many people angry, with the time to latch onto conspiracy theories and get involved in politics, and somebody has to break the ice, and it isn't the Globe despite the ongoing series examining the growth and impact of radicalization in the Republican Party as personified by Marjorie Taylor Greene and the conspiracy theorists and insurrectionists that live next door and foolishly threaten politicians while leaving a trail(?). Trump is politically dead after he was evicted from the White House, and I've only got one thing to sign to him (where is that Durham report anyway?).
Here is something else to investigate:
"A member of the far-right Oath Keepers charged with rioting at the U.S. Capitol met with Secret Service agents before the siege and received a VIP pass to the rally where then-President Donald Trump spoke, according to a court filing. A defense attorney for Jessica Watkins said in Saturday’s filing that the Oath Keeper was in Washington D.C. to “provide security” for the speakers at the Jan. 6 rally, where she stood within 50 feet of the stage. Watkins is one of nine people linked to the Oath Keepers charged with conspiring to block the certification of the election results in the most sweeping indictment prosecutors have issued so far in the investigation into the violence at the Capitol. The filing suggests Watkins had a more formal role than previously known at the rally, where hundreds of Trump supporters gathered before walking to the Capitol and forcing their way inside......"
Just like John Sullivan, and how oddly coincidental that Vernon Jordan, a former Clinton adviser, just croaked.
Of course, the Globe is blind to the fact that Biden has no clothes as the security agencies again point fingers to divert you from the collu$ion and collaboration of them all in the staged and scripted farce of January 6, something colorfully summed up by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter.
It's all a game, folks, and the charade is co$ting you by the day, and now federal investigators probing the death of a U.S. Capitol Police officer killed in the Jan. 6 riot have zeroed in on a suspect seen on video appearing to spray a chemical substance on the officer before he later collapsed and died, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press, as the FBI has obtained video that shows the person spraying Brian Sicknick and other law enforcement officers during the Jan. 6 riot, the people said, but they cautioned that federal agents haven't yet identified the suspect by name and the act hasn't been directly tied to Sicknick's death, but the idea that Sicknick died after being sprayed by a chemical irritant has emerged in recent weeks as a new theory in the case.
Oh, a NEW THEORY!
Only problem is, his wife said the staged event had nothing to do with his death later and he was never attacked with a fire extinguisher (another pre$$ lie).
You see how they do it?
They lie, then when caught in the lie, they make up a new lie!
It's enough to send you to the moon, and what is with the blackened eye of Mitt Romney?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Pandemic loan program at high-risk for fraud, auditor finds" by Kevin Freking Associated Press, March 2, 2021
This fraud -- unlike the alleged unemployment incompetence and fraud -- was strategically placed on page C9 (the bu$ine$$ $ection was buried in the $ports today, and I'm sure there is a le$$on in there somewhere).
WASHINGTON (AP) — Emergency loans made to small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic have been added to a list of government programs considered at high risk of waste, fraud, or mismanagement.
The most common of those emergency loans, PPP loans, are provided at a low interest rate and are fully forgivable under conditions that include spending a certain percentage on payroll costs. The loans were created by Congress and have proven exceedingly popular as shops, restaurants, and other small businesses try to survive the pandemic.
Set, hike.
The Government Accountability Office said Tuesday that millions of small businesses benefitted from the emergency loans, but the speed with which the relief programs were set up limited safeguards necessary to identify risks, “including susceptibility to improper payments and potential fraud.”
Yet they pass a nearly $2 trillion piece of pork $hit a few days ago (thankfully, Linda Qiu of the New York $limes assesses the claims in the coronavirus stimulus debate with a fact check, ha-ha-ha-ha).
The Small Business Administration made or guaranteed more than 14.7 million loans and grants totaling about $744 billion between March and December. Congress approved an additional $304 billion in emergency loans in December.
Yeah, somehow the Feds $4 trillion lifeline never materialized, and if only you could get a blank check, 'eh?
The GAO said in the report that, as of January, it continues to experience delays in obtaining key information about the loans, including detailed oversight plans and documentation for estimating improper payments.
“There’s no doubt they’ve had a positive impact; however, the management of these programs needs to be dramatically improved,” US Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro told reporters in previewing the report.
Government auditors release a high-risk list near the beginning of every new Congress. The list is designed to increase attention on the shortfalls cited by the GAO, and to prompt action that can often save taxpayer dollars and improve government operations.
Auditors also added the government’s efforts to prevent drug misuse to the high-risk list. The GAO had warned as the pandemic began that it would be doing so. At the time, it noted that the pandemic could fuel the conditions that contribute to drug misuse, such as unemployment.
In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the largest ever increase of drug overdose deaths during a 12-month period that ended the previous May. The CDC noted a particular acceleration in drug overdose deaths as widespread mitigation measures kicked in.
“This is heartbreaking,” said Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio.
Portman said that the country and his home state had finally seen a drop in overdose deaths in 2018 for the first time in decades.
“Substantial progress, and yet now, with the pandemic, under this horrible pandemic, we have this horrible addiction crisis that has grown," Portman said.
Auditors said that maintaining sustained attention to the problem of drug abuse will be challenging in the coming months with agencies focused on addressing the pandemic.
Especially with the pot stores everywhere (good thing alcoholism is not a problem when it comes to the Globe, what with brunch being the new Saturday Night and all).
“This makes developing and implementing a coordinated, strategic approach even more important as agencies’ resources are also being diverted, in part, to pandemic priorities,” the report said.
On a positive note, the GAO said the Department of Defense had made concerted progress in how it aligns its support infrastructure with the needs of the country’s military forces. It dropped the support program from it’s high-risk list.
For example, in citing, progress, auditors said the Army reduced its leased footprint in the Washington D.C. region from a peak of 3.9 million square feet in 2011 to roughly 1 million square feet as of September 2019.
They sold the bases to Pfizer?
The whole program turned out to be $elf-$erving anyway, but who CARES?!
Of course, as more concerns surface about delays in rental payments to landlords, an advocacy group of lawyers for civil rights say “we need to get as much money in the hands of as many people who need it as quickly as possible” -- which is why Biden tweaked the program in an attempt to reach smallest companies, but however..... $igh.
Now about that Biden economy:
About $ays it all.
"Spending on US construction projects rose 1.7 percent in January as new home building continues to lift the sector. Last month’s increase followed small revised gains in December and November. Spending on residential construction rose 2.5 percent in January, with single family home projects up 3 percent, the Commerce Department reported Monday. Despite an economy that’s been battered for nearly a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, historically low interest rates and city dwellers seeking more space in the suburbs and beyond has boosted home sales."
Building homes for no one to live in or is it communism?
"US manufacturing expanded in February at the fastest pace three years with the arrival of a surge in new orders. The Institute for Supply Management reported Monday that its gauge of manufacturing activity rose to a reading of 60.8 percent last month, 2.1 percentage-points above the January level of 58.7 percent. It was the strongest performance since February 2018. Any reading above 50 indicates expansion in the manufacturing sector."
"Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said President Biden favors boosting taxes on companies, and signaled openness to considering raising rates on capital gains, while steering clear of a wealth levy. “A wealth tax has been discussed but is not something President Biden” favors, Yellen said at a virtual conference on Monday hosted by the New York Times. She said such a tax would have significant implementation problems. The administration is looking to boost the corporate tax to 28 percent, Yellen said. The Treasury chief said last week that revenue measures would be needed to help pay for Biden’s planned longer-term economic reconstruction program to help address concerns about debt sustainability. Yellen also said that a hike in the capital-gains tax might be something “worth considering.” Asked about a financial-transactions tax, she said, “One would have to examine closely what effect it would have” on ordinary investors."
That will $ure to disappoint Liz Warren since it now stands as much of a chance as the minimum wage hike.
"The economy grew at a slightly faster pace in the final three months of 2020 than first thought, ending a year in which the overall economy shrank more than it had in the past seven decades. Gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic health — grew at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the fourth quarter, up from an initial estimate of 4 percent growth, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The revision does alter the nation’s annual GDP, which shrank 3.5 percent, the largest decline since 1946 when the US demobilized after World War II....."
Meanwhile, orders for durable goods rose for a ninth month and unemployment claims are falling as coronavirus cases ease so it's time to pop the cork to the champagne:
"Oatly AB, the vegan food and drink maker backed by celebrity entrepreneurs Oprah Winfrey and Jay-Z, has confidentially filed for an initial public offering in the United States. The listing will take place once the Securities and Exchange Commission has completed a review process, Malmo, Sweden-based Oatly said in a statement Tuesday. Oatly was founded in the 1990s by brothers Rickard and Bjorn Oste. Using technology based on research from Sweden’s Lund University, the company turns fiber-rich oats into liquid food. Its products continue to attract a following among latte drinkers from New York to Shanghai, thanks to frothing qualities that emulate dairy milk."
She is Madame Oprah to those who know her best, and speaking of $cum:
"When a team of outside investigators begins to examine sexual harassment allegations lodged against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, its scope may be far broader than first anticipated. The team, which will be hired by Letitia James, the New York state attorney general, will have far-reaching subpoena powers to request troves of documents and compel witnesses, including the governor, to testify under oath. The independent inquiry may also scrutinize not just the sexual harassment accusations made by two former aides last week but also potential claims from other women. In the end, which is likely to be months from now, the investigators will be required to produce a final report, the results of which could be politically devastating for Cuomo. “The end game is that a report that found him culpable would bring pressure to bear on him personally, on his regime, on the Legislature to act,” said Nina Pirrotti, a lawyer who specializes in employment law and sexual harassment cases. The first accusation came from Lindsey Boylan, who used to work for his administration. Boylan published an essay Feb. 24 that detailed a series of unsettling encounters she said she had with Cuomo, including an instance when she said he gave her an unsolicited kiss on the lips. Then, on Saturday, The New York Times published an article about Charlotte Bennett, 25, a former entry-level staffer in the governor’s office who accused him of asking invasive questions, including whether she was monogamous and had sex with older men. She said she interpreted the remarks as sexual advances. On Sunday, Cuomo issued a statement in which he denied propositioning or touching anyone inappropriately, but apologized for workplace comments that he said “have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation.” On Monday, a third woman, Anna Ruch, came forward and said that she was “confused and shocked and embarrassed” when Cuomo asked to kiss her at a wedding reception. Meanwhile, the governor faces a growing chorus of calls to resign. Six socialist members of New York’s state delegation called on Cuomo to step down Tuesday, joining Long Island Representative Kathleen Rice, the first Democratic member of Congress to do so late Monday. New York Assemblyman Ron Kim, whose account of a browbeating by Cuomo helped spark the current controversy, said that he and other Democrats are “building consensus” on ousting Cuomo."
He says some of his behavior with women had been “misinterpreted as unwanted flirtation and he is truly sorry about that” while saying he would cooperate with a sexual harassment investigation led by the state’s attorney general as Democrats in New York and around the nation aren’t rallying to his side, leaving him increasingly isolated from traditional allies.
Yeah, don't believe the WOMEN when it comes to the $cum Democrats and their perversions.
I guess he will have to give back that Emmy and other award, right, especially after he has been stripped of power?
What a piece of $hit, and the sex charges surfacing now are a convenient way to move him out so he can avoid mass murder charges for the criminal nursing home catastrophe.
Now here is a gift for you:
"De Beers lifted diamond prices at its third consecutive sale as an industrywide recovery from the coronavirus pandemic gathers pace. The world’s biggest diamond producer raised prices by about 4 percent at its second sale of the year, according to people familiar with the situation who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Diamond prices are rebounding after the pandemic brought the industry to an almost complete standstill in the first half of last year. Strong holiday sales in the United States and positive signs from the Chinese New Year have seen buyers rush to replenish their stocks of rough stones."
Strong holiday sales, huh?
I think I will bite my tongue on that one and $ay nothing.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
At least Amazon pays good:
"Amazon workers union drive reaches far beyond Alabama" by Michael Corkery and Karen Weise New York Times, March 2, 2021
Players from the National Football League were among the first to voice their support. Then came Stacey Abrams, the Democratic star who helped turn Georgia blue in the 2020 election.
Actor Danny Glover traveled to Bessemer, Ala., for a news conference last week, where he invoked Martin Luther King Jr.’s pro-union leanings in urging workers at Amazon’s warehouse there to organize. Tina Fey has weighed in, and so has Senator Bernie Sanders, and on Sunday, President Biden issued a resounding declaration of solidarity with the workers now voting on whether to form a union at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse, without mentioning the company by name. Posted to his official Twitter account, his video was one of the most forceful statements in support of unionizing by a US president in recent memory.
“Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union,” Biden said.
A unionizing campaign that had deliberately stayed under the radar for months has in recent days blossomed into a star-studded showdown to influence the workers at Amazon, one of the world’s dominant companies whose power has increased exponentially during the pandemic. On one side is the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and its many pro-labor allies in the worlds of politics, sports, and Hollywood. On the other is an e-commerce behemoth that has warded off previous unionizing efforts at its US facilities over its more than 25-year history.
Leaving the rest of us on the sidelines!
Related: Billionaires MADE $3.9 trillion during the pandemic, while workers LOST $3.7 trillion
I'm sure the union will even that up.
The attention is turning this union vote into a referendum not just on working conditions at the Bessemer warehouse, which employs 5,800, but on the plight of low-wage employees and workers of color in particular. Many of the employees in the Alabama warehouse are Black, a fact that the union organizers have highlighted in their campaign seeking to link the vote to the struggle for civil rights in the South.
Yeah, Whitey is a terrorist!
The retail workers union has a long history of organizing Black workers in the poultry and food production industries, helping them gain basic benefits like paid time off and safety protections and a means to economic security. The union is portraying its efforts in Bessemer as part of that legacy.
Then why are conditions in the meat factories abominable and why are they all staffed with undocumenteds?
“This is an organizing campaign in the right-to-work South during the pandemic at one of the largest companies in the world,” said Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School. “The significance of a union victory there really couldn’t be overstated.”
The warehouse workers began voting by mail Feb. 8 and the ballots are due at the end of this month. A union can form if a majority of the votes cast favor such a move.
I am wondering HOW are they going to VOTE, and what do you mean Bezos doesn't like fraudulent mail-in ballots??
Oh, the IRONY!
Amazon’s countercampaign, both inside the warehouse and on a national stage, has zeroed in on pure economics: that its starting wage is $15 an hour, plus benefits. That is far more than its competitors in Alabama, where the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.
“It’s important that employees understand the facts of joining a union,” Heather Knox, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We will provide education about that and the election process so they can make an informed decision. If the union vote passes, it will impact everyone at the site and it’s important associates understand what that means for them and their day-to-day life working at Amazon.” The company, which went on a huge hiring spree last year as homebound customers sent its sales to a record $386 billion, recorded more than $22 billion in profit.
In Alabama, some workers are growing weary of the process. One employee recently posted on Facebook: “This union stuff getting on my nerves. Let it be March 30th already!!!”
The situation is getting testy, with union leaders accusing Amazon of a series of “union-busting” tactics.
The company has posted signs across the warehouse, next to hand sanitizing stations and even in bathroom stalls. It sends regular texts and emails, pointing out the problems with unions. It posts photos of workers in Bessemer on the internal company app saying how much they love Amazon.
The printed $hift ended there; however, the web ver$ion allowed some overtime:
At certain training sessions, company representatives have pointed out the cost of union dues. When some workers have asked pointed questions in the meetings, the Amazon representatives followed up with them at their work stations reemphasizing the downsides of unions, employees and organizers say. The meetings stopped once the voting started, but the signs are still up, said Jennifer Bates, a pro-union worker in the warehouse.
What a$$holes!
In this charged atmosphere, even routine things have become suspect. The union has raised questions about the changing of the timing of a traffic light near the warehouse where labor organizers try to talk to the workers as they are stopped in their vehicles while leaving the facility.
Amazon did ask county officials in mid-December to change the light’s timing, though there is no evidence in the county records that the change was made to thwart the union. “Traffic for Amazon is backing up around shift change,” the public records stated as the reason the county altered the light.
Amazon regularly navigates traffic concerns around its facilities, and wasting unpaid time in congested parking lots is a frequent gripe of Amazon workers in Facebook groups, but the retail workers’ union president, Stuart Appelbaum, questioned the timing of the request in Bessemer, coming as it did at the height of the organizing. “When the light was red we could answer questions and have a brief conversation with workers,” he said.
Of course.
Last week, the union questioned an offer the company made to the Alabama warehouse workers to pay them at least $1,000 if they quit by late March. “They are trying to remove the most likely union supporters from their workforce by bribing them to leave and give up their vote,” Appelbaum said, but “The Offer,” as it’s known among employees, was the same that Amazon made to workers at all of its warehouses around the country. It is an annual program that lets the company reduce its head count after the peak holiday shopping season without layoffs. It has been in place since at least 2014, when Jeff Bezos wrote about it in a shareholder letter.
“Once a year, we offer to pay our associates to quit,” Bezos said at the time.
I know I'm done.
Related (from yesterday):
"Unions rally for more jobs, better working conditions at Amazon complex being built in North Andover; The company says it already offers what is being asked for at the 3.8-million-square-foot site" by Tim Logan Globe Staff, March 1, 2021
Labor groups and local politicians held a rally Monday at the site of an enormous distribution center Amazon is building in North Andover, urging the e-commerce giant to improve worker safety and use more union labor to build and staff the project.
I hope it was masked and distanced!
The Merrimack Valley Construction and Building Trades Council has launched a broad campaign targeting the development, which would convert the old Western Electric/Lucent Technologies plant on Osgood Street into a 3.8-million-square-foot shipping hub. It’s focused on winning construction jobs now, but also wants to highlight environmental concerns, COVID-19 outbreaks, and other safety issues at similar Amazon facilities nationwide as a way to push the company to promise better working conditions for the roughly 1,500 people the center will employ.
Then Bezos is with you. He put $10 million toward the cau$e.
“Amazon needs to be held accountable for how it treats our community, the environment, and workers,” said Chris Brennan, who leads the construction union. “We want to make sure that Amazon’s presence here benefits the community.”
When North Andover town officials approved the project, they also awarded $27 million in tax breaks to Amazon and its developer, Texas-based Hillwood Global. The labor groups — which include Boston-based Teamsters Local 25 and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO — say the town should, in turn, demand better working conditions at the warehouse.
Meanwhile, your unemployment is held up because of fraud!
An Amazon spokeswoman said the company prides itself on “direct dialogue” between workers and management, and that it abides by much of what the labor groups are asking it to implement.
“We’re proud to already offer what unions are requesting,” said Maria Boschetti. “Industry-leading pay, comprehensive benefits and opportunities for career growth, all while working in a safe, modern, and inclusive work environment.”
Still, the company has come under growing fire for labor practices at its warehouses in recent months.
Still?
STILL?
The Globe won't linger on that, though.
Boston and several other Eastern Massachusetts municipalities have passed resolutions urging higher labor standards as the company quickly scales up its distribution network here. According to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, Amazon has 20 distribution facilities in Massachusetts and 14 more in the works, for a total of 12.1 million square feet of warehouse space.
The company is currently facing its largest-ever union push at a fulfillment center in Alabama where 5,800 workers were set to start voting this week on whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. On Sunday, President Biden — who has nominated Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston to serve as his secretary of Labor — posted a video that was supportive of the union drive.
Related:
"Amazon was hit with a federal lawsuit for allegedly discriminating against Black and female workers in hiring employees for its corporate offices. The suit, filed Monday in Washington, alleges that Amazon hires people of color “at lower levels” and promotes them less than white co-workers with similar qualifications, according to a statement from Wigdor LLP, the law firm behind the suit. Amazon’s lack of racial and gender diversity in its corporate ranks is common throughout the technology industry. Most of Amazon’s workforce diversity is in its blue collar warehouses, where products are packed and shipped to customers."
The Globe flak must have missed that talking point, and who can blame him since it was at the very bottom of the role.
I'm sorry, folks, but the Globe has really been starting to get under my skin (should have read the fine print) so it is time to split.
UPDATE:
"Massachusetts is in the midst of a high-stakes campaign to vaccinate 4.1 million adults in an effort to bring an end to a pandemic that has sickened hundreds of thousands and caused more than 15,000 deaths in the state. The state’s second surge appears to be on the wane, but public officials are concerned about a possible comeback of the virus due to new fast-spreading variants, and they’re asking people to continue taking precautions and to get vaccinated when it’s their turn....."
That is basically a recording.
