#Employees Layoffs

[xtruss]

Google Employees Protest Over Company's Ties With “The Terrorist, Fascist, Apartheid, ‘Illegal Occupier of the Forever Palestine 🇵🇸’, War Criminal Zionist 🐖 Isra-hell”

Protesters are urging Google, The Scrotums Licker of the Zionist 🐖 🐷 🐖 🐗, to terminate its contract with Amazon for a cloud and machine learning project.

— Wednesday April 17, 2024

Protesting the company’s ties with Israel, Google employees held sit-ins at two of the tech giant's offices in California and New York City.

The Tuesday protests were led by a group called “No Tech For Apartheid,” which says it demands that Google and Amazon “drop their Nimbus contract with the Israeli government & military.”

In Sunnyvale, California, protesters pledged to stay until Google ends its $1.2 billion contract with Amazon, which would provide cloud services and data centres to Israel for the Nimbus project.

The protest was livestreamed on the group's Twitch channel.

About 10 hours into the protests, police arrested groups of employees in both New York and California, the group reported on X.

The protests also coincide with Israel’s continuing offensive on Gaza, which since last Oct. 7 has taken nearly 34,000 lives.

The Nimbus Project

Nimbus includes a cloud and machine learning system that enables data storage, collection, analysis, motif and feature identification from data, and prediction of potential data and motifs.

A $1.2 billion contract for the project was signed in April 2021 between Israel and Google and Amazon.

Israel announced in April 2021 that Google and Amazon won the massive state tender, allowing Israel to establish its local cloud storage server centres.

The system can collect all data sources provided by Israel and its military, including databases, resources, and even live observation sources such as street and drone cameras.

Critics argue that the project could help Israel continue its apartheid-like system of oppression, domination, and segregation of the Palestinian people.

Hours into the protests, police arrested groups of employees in both New York and California. Photo: Reuters

Google has laid off 20 more employees over their participation in protests against "Project Nimbus," the tech company's $1.2 billion deal to provide computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government. The latest layoffs bring the total number of terminated staff to close to 50 amid Israel's ongoing Gaza onslaught, which has killed over 34,000 Palestinians since October 7.

[felassan]

Article: 'Laid-Off Dragon Age Testers Will Picket BioWare'

Unionized ex-Keywords devs won the right to protest, against EA's wishes

Excerpt:

"Former quality assurance testers who worked on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf are preparing to picket outside Bioware’s Edmonton offices after being laid off earlier this year. Electronic Arts tried to block the protest but the developers prevailed in a ruling by the Alberta Labour Relations Board in Canada. BioWare laid off 50 employees in August, including some longtime developers whose tenure goes back to the beginning of the Dragon Age series. It also cut its contract with Keywords Studios, which was supplying quality assurance testers on in-development sequel Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. Those same testers had unionized just a year earlier. Last month, they were laid off from Keywords as well, with the outsourcing company blaming it on the loss of the BioWare contract. Now, as first reported by Game Developer, those former Dragon Age testers say they’re planning to picket outside BioWare’s office on November 7 around noon. They are demanding that Keywords reinstate them and continuing bargaining their first contract, calling the layoffs earlier this year a “union busting tactic.” But Keywords doesn’t have any offices in Alberta so they are going to BioWare instead. EA was apparently far from happy about the decision. The publisher tried to force the laid-off developers to take their protest elsewhere, noting that, as fully remote staff, they never technically worked inside BioWare’s Edmonton office. Instead, EA tried to convince the Alberta Labour Relations Board to make them picket outside their homes. The regulators were unmoved, ultimately siding with the workers. “We view this Labor Board ruling as a huge win for not just us, but remote workers everywhere in Canada,” former Keywords tester James Russwurm told Game Developer. “Workers can now go ‘oh, I can picket my employer’s offices downtown even though I didn’t work in the office.’” The ex-testers had been contracted to work at BioWare beginning during the pandemic, first on Mass Effect Legendary Edition and later on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. When BioWare moved to force staff back into the office, the group successfully unionized to try and keep their remote status and improve pay. The Keywords developers were laid off before they could finish bargaining their first contract. EA said at the time that it had previously renewed its contract with Keywords and not doing so in September had nothing to do with the group unionizing. But the publisher has never made clear why it cut staff on a highly anticipated game like Dreadwolf that is still deep in development following several reported internal delays. EA and BioWare did not immediately respond to a request for comment."

[source] [the referenced Game Developer article] [more on the Keywords topic]

[meret118]

So, forced arbitration agreements, for a while, turned into a method for big companies to screw over customers, users, employees and more.

But… over the last few years, we’ve been highlighting how people have started to fight back against the companies who forced arbitration on them by flooding them with arbitration claims. Don’t want to deal with class action lawsuits? Fine, how about a few hundred arbitration claims, each one you have to deal with separately? Amusingly, over the last few years, the same folks who spent decades twisting the arbitration system to their own advantage have been flipping out, now that arbitration claims have become a form of distributed denial of service attack in protest to the company’s bad behavior.

. . .

Of course, for a while, Musk, who verbally promised three months severance (which was below what the company had previously offered, and really only one month, since the first two months were required by the WARN Act, and were actually just continuing salary, since he had to give 60 days of notice for a layoff) refused to provide employees with any severance documentation. Then, when the documentation finally came, it was way less than they expected. They also included gag orders and giving up legal rights.

Many employees chose to fight this, including suing the company. But, those old pesky arbitration clauses meant that some of the lawsuits were dismissed, with the judge telling employees they had to go to arbitration, instead.

It turns out that many of them did. 1,986 former Twitter employees have filed arbitration claims.

. . .

Apparently Twitter’s lawyers hasn’t met with the other law firms that have brought arbitration claims yet. But, it seems they’re freaked out by the prospect of having to handle 1,848 separate discovery efforts.

The firm also notes that they wouldn’t be surprised if Liss-Riordan seeks to depose Elon Musk for each of the nearly 2,000 claims, because why not?

[soon-palestine]

Workers said Project Nimbus is the kind of lucrative contract that neglects ethical guardrails that outspoken members of Google’s workforce have demanded in recent years. “I am very worried that Google has no scruples if they’re going to work with the Israeli government,” said Joshua Marxen, a Google Cloud software engineer who helped to organize the protest. “Google has given us no reason to trust them.” The Tuesday protest represents continuing tension between Google’s workforce and its senior management over how the company’s technology is used. In recent years Google workers have objected to military contracts, challenging Google’s work with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and its role in a defense program building artificial intelligence tools used to refine drone strikes. Workers have alleged that the company has cracked down on information-sharing, siloed controversial projects and enforced a workplace culture that increasingly punishes them for speaking out.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the Tuesday protest and workers’ concerns over Project Nimbus. The Israeli Finance Ministry announced its contract with Google and Amazon in April 2021 as a project “intended to provide the government, the defense establishment and others with an all-encompassing cloud solution.” Google has largely refused to release details of the contract, the specific capabilities Israel will receive, or how they will be used. In July 2022, the Intercept reported that training documents for Israeli government personnel indicate Google is providing software that the company claims can recognize people, gauge emotional states from facial expressions and track objects in video footage. Google Cloud spokesperson Atle Erlingsson told Wired in September 2022 that the company proudly supports Israel’s government and said critics had misrepresented Project Nimbus. “Our work is not directed at highly sensitive or classified military workloads,” he told Wired. Erlingsson, however, acknowledged that the contract will provide Israel’s military access to Google technology. Former Google worker Ariel Koren, who has long been publicly critical of Project Nimbus, said “it adds insult to injury for Palestinian activists and Palestinians generally” that Google Cloud’s profitability milestone coincides with the 75th anniversary of the Nakba — which refers to the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians following creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

In March 2022, The Times reported allegations by Koren — at the time a product marketing manager at Google for Education — that Google had retaliated against her for criticizing the contract, issuing a directive that she move to São Paulo, Brazil, within 17 business days or lose her job. Google told The Times that it investigated the incident and found no evidence of retaliation. When Koren resigned from Google in August 2022 she published a memo explaining reasons for her departure, writing that “Google systematically silences Palestinian, Jewish, Arab and Muslim voices concerned about Google’s complicity in violations of Palestinian human rights.” Koren said Google’s apathy makes her and others believe more vigorous protest actions are justified. “This is a concrete disruption that is sending a clear message to Google: We won’t allow for business as usual, so long as you continue to profit off of a nefarious contract that expands Israeli apartheid.” Mohammad Khatami, a YouTube software engineer based in New York, participated in a small protest of Project Nimbus at a July Amazon Web Services conference in Manhattan. Khatami said major layoffs at Google announced in January pushed him to get more involved in the Alphabet Workers Union, which provides resources to Khatami and other union members in an anti-military working group — though the union has not taken a formal stance on Project Nimbus. “Greed and corporate interests were being put ahead of workers and I think the layoffs just illustrated that for me very clearly,” Khatami said.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Alice Wright

Ibram X. Kendi's Antiracist Research Center at Boston University fires almost HALF its 45 staff, as ex-workers claim he had too much power and brand him EXPLOITATIVE

Woke activist Ibram X. Kendi's Antiracist Research Center at Boston University had laid off up to twenty members off staff

Boston University confirmed the center had made 15 to 20 workers as the center moves towards a fellowship model 

Former and current staff alleged that the center had been poorly managed 

Woke activist Ibram X. Kendi's Antiracist Research Center at Boston University had laid off up to twenty members off staff amidst accusations from former workers that the organization was 'exploitative' and poorly managed. 

Boston University confirmed the center had made 15 to 20 workers redundant from a staff of 45 as it moves towards a fellowship model. 

'The Center is evolving to a fellowship model. Dr. Kendi remains the Director. We can confirm that there were layoffs at the Center' Vice President Rachel Lapal Cavallario told Fox News on Thursday. 

'The University and Center are committed to working with and supporting affected employees as they look for their next opportunities' the statement read. 

But staff who worked there painted a far less diplomatic picture, claiming Kendi was given too much power and that he mistreated those working for him. 

He infamously implied that white people should be discriminated against to tackle the horrific prejudice previously inflicted on black Americans. 

The center opened at BU during the turbulent summer of 2020 when America reckoned with nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd. 

Some former and current staff told the Boston Globe that the center had been poorly managed by Kendi. 

'There are a number of ways it got to this point, it started very early on when the university decided to create a center that rested in the hands of one human being, an individual given millions of dollars and so much authority,' Spencer Piston, faculty lead of the center's policy office told the publication.  

Former assistant director of narrative at the center, Saida Grundy, said the center lacked structure and the culture was 'exploitative' as she was asked to work unreasonable hours. 

'It became very clear after I started that this was exploitative and other faculty experienced the same and worse,' she told the outlet. 

Kendi garnered recognition in academic circles with his 2019 book 'How To Be An Antiracist,' which exploded in popularity during the global movement for racial equality in 2020.  

Then-president of BU Robert A. Brown said at the time that Kendi's leadership 'would create a critical emphasis on research and policy to help eliminate racism in our country.'

Kendi's hiring announcement was followed by a flood of donations to BU to support the center and Kendi's work, including a $1.5 million, three-year gift from the biotech company Vertex and a $10 million donation from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey later that summer. 

A few months later, The Rockefeller Foundation donated $1.5 million over two years to help fund the center's COVID-19 Racial Data Tracker.

Kendi's work, especially his children's book 'Antiracist Baby' has gained criticism for teaching children controversial critical race theory. 

Kendi defended his books in June 2022 as a way to teach people, including children, to 'see racism.'

'Well, actually, teaching people to see racism,' Kendi said on 'CBS Mornings.' 'There's a difference. Race is a mirage. Racism is real. And it's – you know who's the most likely to be harmed by racism? Our children. You know who are least likely to engage about it? Our children. That's what's really prevailing me to do this work.'

==

Kendi is a full-blown fraud.

Glenn Loury: I take umbrage at the lionization of lightweight, empty-suited, empty-headed mother-fuckers like Ibram X. Kendi, who couldn't carry my book-bag. Who hasn't read... no, I'm sorry, he hasn't read a fucking thing. If you ask him what Nietzsche said, he would have no idea. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he's an unserious, superficial, empty-suited lightweight. He's not our equal, not even close. Fuck.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

GM workers in Brazil go on strike in protest against layoffs

Metalworkers at Brazilian plants of General Motors (GM.N) have voted to go on strike starting Monday in protest against layoffs carried out by the U.S.-based automaker in the country, according to a union that represents them.

The strike for an "indefinite period of time" happens as GM announced it was reducing workforce at its three factories in Sao Paulo state after a drop in sales and exports, a move it dubbed "necessary" for its sustainability.

The Sindmetal union representing metalworkers at the Sao Jose dos Campos plant said workers had voted to enter a strike on Monday, adding that employees of the Sao Caetano do Sul and Mogi das Cruzes plants had also agreed to similar measures.

"The plant will only resume production after the job cuts are canceled and job stability is guaranteed for everyone," the union said in a statement, arguing that the company had agreed to provide stability for employees until May 2024.

Continue reading.

[mariacallous]

PARIS—At first glance, France’s trade unions have never been better. Their campaign against President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age has drawn hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets, and labor leaders are fixtures on the most popular TV channels. Almost half of the French think trade unions rather than any political party embody the real opposition to Macron, and the overwhelming majority think the damaging strikes against his pension reform are justified.

But under this patina of success, French unions are wheezing. Membership numbers are down sharply, and many labor leaders feel their organizations have failed to stem the neoliberal wave that has been eroding workers’ rights for decades—and has only accelerated under Macron. Since he took power in 2017, Macron—a former investment banker who campaigned on a centrist, pro-business platform—has loosened the rules for firing employees, capped compensations for illegal layoffs, and favored agreements between management and workers at the company-level rather than for entire sectors, which critics say undermines employees’ bargaining power.

“The unions’ strategy over the past decades has not yielded any major victories on a national level,” said Olivier Mateu, head of the General Confederation of Labor (CGT)’s Bouches-du-Rhône section in southern France.

Unions, particularly the fiery CGT, have tried to put up a fight. But their leaders have been criticized for a lack of unity and determination as well as for thinking they could get Macron to change course by sitting at the negotiating table rather than taking to the picket line.

“Macron really took them for a ride,” said Jean-Bernard Gervais, a former communications advisor at CGT and the author of a scathing book about the union’s inner workings.

It’s been a long fall from glory for what was one of Europe’s most powerful labor movements. In 1936, the country’s first successful general strike led to paid leave, shorter working hours, and higher salaries. Workers’ rights were further expanded by means of tough strike actions in the years following World War II, when unions could count on millions of members. In the 1960s and for most of the 1970s, unionization rates were still hovering well above 20 percent. In May 1968, mass walkouts by an unprecedented 10 million workers yielded major concessions, such as a big increase in the minimum wage and a larger role for union representatives in the workplace.

Since the late 1970s, however, with the eruption of neoliberal economic policies in the Western world, French unions have been in a steady decline. The French working class, with its purchasing power dwindling and employment conditions worsening, seems increasingly disillusioned about the mechanisms in place to defend its rights. The share of unionized workers has fallen to barely 7 percent. Elections held last December to select union representatives in the public sector saw the lowest turnout on record, and the share of people who have confidence in trade unions has shrunk to barely 36 percent.

France is not alone. Unions have lost one-quarter of their members since 1980 in the United States, and 47 percent in Germany. Even British unions, which can count on strong ties with the mainstream Labour Party and are currently involved in unprecedented walkouts by health service staff over pay, have hemorrhaged almost half of their affiliates.

Part of the malaise has roots common to most of the developed world. Manufacturing, which traditionally was heavily unionized, has been hollowed out in much of the West. But with their membership tanking at a faster pace than in most wealthy countries, French unions have problems of their own. More than elsewhere, French workers’ organizations are heavily reliant on a variety of public handouts, which means they are less dependent on large numbers of paying members. This, in turn, has led to the rise of an apparatus of full-time union employees that has little accountability to (and is often distrusted by) the regular workforce. Since 1974, while the CGT’s affiliates have fallen by two-thirds, its central staff has increased fivefold. “It’s a bureaucracy whose sole goal is to protect itself,” Gervais said.

Despite the fierce battle currently underway over Macron’s pension reform, the reality of French labor relations is hardly in line with the stereotype of French unions constantly at war with employers and the government. Most of them benefit from material resources provided by the companies where they are present, leading to worries about their representatives’ independence and bargaining power. And while the French do stage walkouts more than almost any other country in Europe, a French private sector worker goes on strike barely one day every 17 years on average.

Feeling they aren’t being properly represented by trade unions, France’s have-nots have found other ways to channel their discontent. The surge of the far-right National Rally party has been largely fueled by working-class votes. In 2018 and 2019, weekly “yellow vest” rallies against taxes and economic inequality often escalated into violent clashes with the police.

At the time, Macron was quick to scrap the fuel tax hike that had originally triggered the demonstrations. Now, should the unions fail to stop the government’s pension reform, some worry that more violent forms of protest could make a comeback.

“It may have a radicalizing effect, with some workers deciding that nothing can be achieved by playing nice and they should do like the yellow vests—smash everything up,” said Jean-Dominique Simonpoli, a former branch leader at CGT and president of La Fabrique du Social, a consultancy that aims to facilitate labor relations.

French unions are also extremely fragmented, with eight main organizations competing for members, influence, and resources. The two largest, the CGT and the more moderate (and even bigger) French Democratic Confederation of Labor, are on notoriously bad terms, with the former often accusing the latter of “betraying” workers by settling for minor concessions. Divisions run deep within single organizations too, often making it hard to come up with a coherent strategy. The CGT, in particular, is plagued by long-standing tensions between the more combative sections, such as the Railway Workers’ Federation, and those more open to compromise, with CGT leader Philippe Martinez coming under fire at the same time for being too soft and too hard-line.

“Managing all this is more circus art than a political exercise,” said Dominique Andolfatto, a professor of political science at the Université de Bourgogne.

Despite the bleak picture, trade unions still occupy an important place in French society. Macron may have battered them and ignored their concerns on many fronts, but he is not former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

“At company level, Macron has sought to boost the unions’ role,” Simonpoli said. Shortly after taking power, the French president imposed a new rule that forces companies to get the green light from unions representing more than half of their employees—if they want to make changes on issues like salaries or working hours.

“Macron’s intuition is that unions are more and more out of touch with workers, which is not a good thing, and we must revitalize them at the firms’ level,” said Antoine Foucher, chief of staff for Macron’s former labor minister, Muriel Pénicaud, between 2017 and 2020. Boosting unions in the canteen is one thing, but letting them decide how the central government should use its purse is another. In Macron’s view, when it comes to national reforms, “trade unions aren’t representative enough while the political power has the legitimacy of universal suffrage,” Foucher said.

With a wildly unpopular pension reform looming, union leaders beg to differ. After six weeks of nationwide strikes, they are planning to “bring France to a standstill” on March 7. For the first time in decades, all major workers’ organizations have managed to set their differences aside in a show of unity that is revitalizing the movement. It’s either the last gasp of French labor—or the beginning of a rebirth.

“Regardless of how it will end, this will have been a remarkable success for the unions,” Andolfatto said. What remains to be seen is “whether this is the beginning of a deeper shift.”

[coochiequeens]

The man is worth $44bn but couldn’t afford to keep 3,700 employees? And a lot of those layoffs were women?  

Two women who lost their jobs at Twitter during mass layoffs after Elon Musk took over the company are suing, claiming that the company disproportionately targeted female employees for cuts.

The discrimination lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges to hit the company after Musk, the world’s richest person, bought the company for $44bn and set about making swift, drastic changes including laying off around half its workforce, or roughly 3,700 employees. Hundreds more subsequently resigned.

The new suit, filed on Wednesday in San Francisco federal court, said that Twitter laid off 57% of its female workers compared with 47% of men.

The gender disparity was more stark for engineering roles, where 63% of women lost their jobs compared to 48% of men, according to the new lawsuit.

The lawsuit accuses the company of violating federal and California laws banning workplace sex discrimination.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said women “had targets on their backs” once Musk acquired the company, 

regardless of their talent and contributions.

“It’s not a huge surprise unfortunately that women were hit so hard by these layoffs when Elon Musk was overseeing these incredibly ad hoc layoffs just in a matter of days,” Liss-Riordan said at a press conference in San Fransisco discussing the four class action lawsuits she has filed on behalf of former Twitter employees.

Wren Turkal, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said she had been through acquisitions at other companies but that she had “never seen anything like this”.

“I have a family, I have a kid to support,” Turkal said at the press conference. “All that we’re looking for is fairness. I’m also worried about my friends who are financially in a difficult position or are in a difficult position for visa reasons.”

Liss-Riordan represents current and former Twitter employees in three other pending lawsuits filed in the same court since last month.

Those cases include various claims, including that Twitter laid off employees and contractors without the advance notice required by law and failed to pay promised severance, and that Musk forced out workers with disabilities by refusing to allow remote work and calling on employees to be more “hardcore”.

At least three workers have separately filed complaints against Twitter with the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) claiming they faced retaliation for advocating for better working conditions. Liss-Riordan said that she has also filed a complaint with the NLRB on behalf of employees who were protesting policies Musk was implementing including the “abrupt return to office” policy.

“It’s very clear that this company is doing all it can to disrupt worker organizing and that’s also illegal,” she said.

Twitter has denied wrongdoing in the lawsuit involving advance notice, and has not responded to the other complaints.

The lawsuit comes as Musk’s company continues to face scrutiny on multiple fronts. This week the company came under under investigation by city officials in San Francisco following a complaint that the company allegedly converted rooms in its headquarters to sleeping quarters.

As of Monday, the office has “modest bedrooms featuring unmade mattresses, drab curtains and giant conference-room telepresence monitors” with four to eight beds a floor, employees told Forbes. The changes appear to be part of Musk’s plan for a more “hardcore Twitter” in which he has demanded workers dedicate “long hours at high intensity”.

“People’s livelihoods are at stake here,” Liss-Riordan said at the press conference. “Real people were impacted by these decisions.

“Of all the issues facing Elon Musk, this is the easiest to address: treat the workers with respect, pay them what they deserve under the law,” she added.

[novumtimes]

United Auto Workers Union Files Federal Labor Charges Against Trump and Musk After Successful Twitter Space Discussion Alleging Worker Intimidation | The Gateway Pundit

President Joe Biden walks along the UAW picket line and engages with union members at the GM Willow Run Distribution Center, Tuesday, September 26, 2023, in Belleville, Michigan. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz) The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has filed federal labor charges against former President Donald Trump and billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk. This comes hot on the heels of their groundbreaking Twitter Space interview, a conversation that garnered global attention and shattered records with nearly 1 billion combined views of the conversation and subsequent discussion by other accounts. The interview, which took place on Monday night, saw Trump and Musk exchange ideas on a range of topics, in what many have dubbed a historic dialogue between two of the most influential figures of our time. However, not everyone was thrilled with the outcome of this conversation. The UAW, a union deeply entrenched in leftist ideologies, has taken issue with comments made during the discussion. Specifically, they have accused Trump and Musk of attempting to intimidate and threaten workers who exercise their rights to engage in protected activities such as strikes. During the interview, Trump made a statement regarding striking workers, suggesting that companies should have the right to make tough decisions about their workforce. “You want to quit? They go on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone,” Trump said. Trump’s comment referred to Musk’s acquisition of Twitter/X, where nearly 80% of the company was dismissed, though his language mistakenly described the employees as striking; in reality, Musk had already planned the layoffs when he decided to acquire Twitter. While some employees protested this decision, it was not related to their working conditions. They are just a bunch of lefties who do not want Musk, an advocate of free speech, to take over the business. The UAW, predictably outraged, was quick to pounce on these comments. They have filed charges, claiming that such remarks violate federal labor laws, specifically the National Labor Relations Act, which protects workers from being fired for participating in strikes. Read the statement below: The UAW has filed federal labor charges against disgraced billionaires Donald Trump and Elon Musk for their illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes. After significant technical delays on X, formerly known as Twitter, Trump and Musk had a rambling, disorganized conversation on Monday evening in front of over one million listeners in which they advocated for the illegal firing of striking workers. “I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump told Musk. “You walk in, you say, You want to quit? They go on strike, I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, That’s OK, you’re all gone. You’re all gone. So, every one of you is gone.” Under federal law, workers cannot be fired for going on strike, and threatening to do so is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. “When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean. When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean,” said UAW President Shawn Fain. “Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk, who is contributing $45 million a month to a Super PAC to get him elected. Both Trump and Musk want working-class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns.” Source link via The Novum Times

[iowamedia]

Current, former employees protest layoffs on IVH campus

Emotions ran high during a Wednesday protest at the Iowa Veterans Home as cheers and applause went up, voices were raised and some tears were shed. Close to 100 people gathered at the main gate of the IVH campus to speak out against the recent layoffs of 15 recreation employees. Once the protesters walked up the hill and reached Sheeler Hall, organizer Wyatt Manship said into a bullhorn,…

[mayasinghal]

In the Garden of Time

Last night was the Met Gala, a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute and the fashion event of the year in which celebrities and other members of the ultra-wealthy parade the red carpet, decked out in their most extravagant or avant garde stylings. The Costume Institute exhibition theme this year is “Sleeping Beauties,” referring to garments too delicate to be worn again. The dress code for the Met Gala was “The Garden of Time,” drawing from a J.G. Ballard short story of the same name. In the story, Count Axel and his wife live together in a utopic villa, full of books and art, with a beautiful garden of translucent, glass-like flowers that reverse time. I will let Vogue recount the rest of the story in their words:

Beyond the walls of Count Axel’s villa, an encroaching and chaotic mob draws nearer every hour. To restore tranquility, the count must pluck a time-reversing flower from his garden until there are none left. The story ends with the unthinking mob descending onto the villa, now a derelict property with a neglected garden, in which a statue of the count and countess stand entangled in thorny belladonna plants.

Last night, between Met Gala coverage, I also heard rumors about an imminent police raid of the UChicago Popular University for Gaza, the encampment student protesters had built in the quad at the University of Chicago, where I teach.

A commentator from the Guardian Australia connects protests against the ongoing genocide in Gaza to the Met Gala theme in a TikTok:

Now, clearly, the Met Gala Chair and Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour is aware of the parallels between the story’s ultimately doomed protagonists and the gala’s cast of ultra-wealthy celebrities. And she’s leaning into the irony of this opulent event taking place during a time of such unrest. But perhaps Wintour didn’t expect it to play out quite so literally because, as celebrities were beginning to make their parade down the green carpet, hundreds of protesters objecting to the US government’s continued support of Israel, strode toward the Metropolitan Museum, only held back by police in riot gear, creating barricades and making arrests. Add to that that employees from Condé Nast, Vogue’s parent company, were planning to strike and disrupt the event themselves after the company announced planned layoffs and union negotiations stalled… In Vogue’s write up of “The Garden of Time,” they describe the “unthinking mob” descending upon the mansion, only to find it already old and decrepit—the books and art destroyed by time and the couple turned to stone statues in the garden. They said that the story and the dress code is ultimately about fleeting beauty—although, perhaps another way to interpret it is that the aristocracy bent time so often, held on to their own personal utopia for so long, that by the time they inevitably fell, there was no paradise left for that army of common people to enjoy.

I love this reading, and I want to add to and expand on it by considering what Vogue calls the “unthinking mob” and the aristocratic concern with empty grass.

In “The Garden of Time,” Ballard begins with the beautiful “Palladian villa” and a description of its garden, which “extended for some two hundred metres below the terrace, sloping down to a miniature lake spanned by a white bridge, a slender pavilion on the opposite bank.

Axel rarely ventured as far as the lake, most of the time flowers grew in a small grove just below the terrace, sheltered by the high wall which encircled the estate. From the terrace he could see over the wall to the plain beyond, a continuous expanse of open ground that rolled in great swells to the horizon, where it rose slightly before finally dipping from sight. The plain surrounded the house on all sides, its drab emptiness emphasising the seclusion and mellowed magnificence of the villa.

Count Axel and the countess do not even use the gardens they have, nor do they venture into the plain. However, they are invested in the plain’s emptiness, which to them suggests their security, as evidenced by their commitment to plucking time flowers whenever the mob appears too close. Now, here is the first description Ballard gives of the mob:

As the Mozart chimed delicately around him, flowing from his wife’s graceful hands, he saw that the advance columns of an enormous army were moving slowly over the horizon. At first glance, the long ranks seemed to be progressing in orderly lines, but on closer inspection, it was apparent that, like the obscured detail of a Goya landscape, the army was composed of a vast confused throng of people, men and women, interspersed with a few soldiers in ragged uniforms, pressing forward in a disorganized tide. Some laboured under heavy loads suspended from crude yokes around their necks; others struggled with cumbersome wooden carts, their hands wrenching at the wheel spokes; a few trudged on alone; but all moved on at the same pace, bowed backs illuminated in the fleeting sun.

The count is uncurious about the mob. They are described first as an army, suggesting they are a threat to the villa, but there isn’t much evidence of that. Rather, their mere existence, their numbers, are what make them threatening and therefore army-like. The count sees them as a “confused throng” and yet, they also appear organized to some extent—they move “at the same pace.” Later, as the mob gets closer, “Axel searched for any large vehicles or machines, but all was amorphous and uncoordinated as ever. There were no banners or flags, no mascots or pike-bearers. Heads bowed, the multitude pressed on, unaware of the sky.” Axel seems to wonder what the mob wants, looking for signs of their demands or their affiliations. However, he is unwilling to risk his villa by trying to speak with them. Still later, Axel watches them move forward: “As far as Axel could tell, not a single member of the throng was aware of its overall direction. Rather, each one blindly moved forward across the ground directly below the heels of the person in front of him, and the only unity was that of the cumulative compass.” This, I think, is why Vogue describes the mob as “unthinking,” but it’s worth noting that we do not actually learn much about the thoughts of the mob. Rather, the count looks at their collective movements, their threat of arrival at the villa, and imagines that they move, zombie-like, without goals or demands. It is only from the perspective of the aristocracy, the only perspective we are allowed in the story (and from Vogue), that we understand the mob to be “unthinking.”

In the final moments the count and countess have, a stone flies over the wall into the garden and “a heavy tile whirled through the air over their heads and crashed into one of the conservatory windows.” The mob has broken a window! They are violent! So the countess picks the final flower, the mob is pushed backward, just for a moment, and then darkness falls.

When the mob breaches the estate walls, they are not even given the opportunity to do more damage, or not, as the case may be. Rather, they find the estate in ruins. Some of the people go to look at the villa, but they find the harpsichord “chopped into firewood,” the books “toppled from the shelves in the library” and the artwork “slashed.” In fear of the masses, the count and countess did not even leave anything that could have been salvaged, preferring waste to sharing resources with the commoners.

Over the last few weeks, across the US and the world, college students have created encampments on campus lawns and occupied university buildings in protest of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the government and universities’ political and material support for Israeli military force. Protestors have been accused of everything from supporting terrorism and being anti-Semites to unthinkingly following an activist “trend.” Universities have suspended protesting students, evicted them from housing on extremely short notice, and called police forces to arrest them, exposing them to extreme police violence in some cases. According to many universities, removal of encampments and arrests were necessary because protesters were blocking access to classes and preventing universities from holding commencement ceremonies on those lawns. In order to prevent protesting students from blocking access to classes, several universities have locked down buildings, such that no one can access their offices or classrooms. After removing the encampment on their lawn, Columbia University also canceled their commencement ceremony. In the face of this repression, the protests have grown.

Students at Columbia occupied a building on campus, breaking one window in the process, leading some to argue their protests were violent. In response, the NYPD stormed the building in riot gear, violently arresting protesters and, apparently accidentally, firing a gun in the building. Students at UCLA were attacked first by a pro-Israel mob while police looked on. Then, LAPD attacked student protesters, firing flashbangs and rubber bullets, including one that hit a protester in the face. After the arrests were made and the encampment was cleared, some people tried to return to collect tents and other supplies to donate, but the police, following procedures they also enact on unhoused people, had slashed most of the tents, making them unusable.

The question for the US government and these other large institutions of late seems to be how they plan to deal with growing discrepancies between the popular will and their business as usual. It is amusing, perhaps, to imagine the police represented as glass flowers, buying aristocrats time. However, the widespread repression and injustice seems to be coming to a head. Is the garden dying and running out of flowers?

I don’t, however, want to portray these encampments exclusively as part of the story’s metaphorical mob because actually, I think they offer a picture of what the villa might have looked like if it were not ruined by the time the mob arrived. At the University of Chicago, where I teach, the encampment took up a relatively small portion of the campus’s main quad. They had a medic tent and a mental health tent. They had a lending library on the honor system and tent for children to hang out and make art. They had free food, a booth for questions and dialogue, and hosted a range of religious services. Professors held their classes on tarps around the encampment. Students worked to keep each other safe and deescalate conflicts with other students, professors, and outsiders who opposed the encampment, many of whom displayed much less care and restraint than the student protesters did. Students were organized and thoughtful about this protest, their tactics, and how they built their camp. Across the country, other student protesters have similarly built these beautiful communities. As they fought against ongoing genocide, they also suggested alternative ways that we could live together better.

Last night, while my social media feed filled with a parade of celebrities at the Met Gala, ironically dressing as “The Garden of Time,” I thought about my students in the encampment, preparing for a rumored campus police raid, which came this morning just before dawn. Students had finally decided they were safe from the raid and sent their reinforcements to sleep when campus police came and gave students only a few minutes to clear the encampment. Then, the university locked down all the gates to the quad and surrounding buildings until they were done “cleaning,” throwing away nearly all traces of the encampment in large dumpsters. What was left were light spots in the grass where the tents had once been, but I am sure they will fix the grass soon.

[byneddiedingo]

Timur Magomedgadzhiev and Marion Cotillard in Two Days, One Night (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, 2014)

Cast: Marion Cotillard, Fabrizio Rongione, Catherine Salée, Olivier Gourmet, Christelle Cornil, Timur Magomedgadzhiev, Myriem Akheddiou. Screenplay: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne. Cinematography: Alain Marcoen. Production design: Igor Gabriel. Film editing: Marie-Hélène Dozo. 

This scathing look by the Belgian Dardenne brothers at the exploitation of workers under contemporary capitalism owes much to postwar Italian neo-realism, especially Vittorio De Sica's classic Bicycle Thieves (1948). Marion Cotillard plays Sandra, a worker in a small business, who has been on medical leave for depression. Ready to return to work, she finds that the management has learned that it's more profitable to pay overtime to the workers who have been covering for her than to pay her salary, so they've had the workers vote on whether she should have her job back. If they decide against Sandra, they'll all receive one-time bonuses. The vote goes against her, but her friends at the company protest that one of the managers unfairly told some workers that no one would be safe from layoffs if Sandra is kept on. The management agrees on a revote by secret ballot, and Sandra, still fragile and popping Xanax like breath mints, is forced to spend the weekend before the revote canvassing the other employees, trying to persuade them to save her job. Cotillard, in an extraordinary, Oscar-nominated performance, portrays Sandra's journey from fragility to strength as she confronts sometimes hostile but often sympathetic co-workers to plead her case. The lure of the bonus proves strong: Two men come to blows over whether they should take the money or support Sandra, and one woman even leaves her abusive husband, who wants the money to fix up their patio. Sandra's tour of the industrial town in search of her fellow workers is reminiscent of Antonio's attempt in Bicycle Thieves to find the bicycle he needs in order to keep his job. The Dardennes mostly keep the film in a low key, so that Cotillard's work (and that of Fabrizio Rongione as Sandra's husband) shines through. The only serious bobble in the narrative comes when the despairing Sandra attempts suicide by swallowing her remaining supply of antidepressants, a moment that serves as a rather improbable turning-point for the character. And it's possible to object that the ending, in which Sandra is presented with a moral choice not unlike that her fellow workers face in their revote, is a little too formulaic. But Cotillard carries it off beautifully.

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

What Layoffs? Many Employers Are Eager to Hang On to Workers. (NYT) During the height of the pandemic, hungry and housebound customers clamored for Home Run Inn Pizza’s frozen thin-crust pies. The company did everything to oblige. More recently, demand has eased, and Home Run Inn Pizza, based in suburban Chicago, has reversed some of those measures. But it does not plan to lay off any full-time manufacturing employees—even if that means having a few more workers than it needs during its second shift. “We have really good people,” said Nick Perrino, the chief operating officer and a great-grandson of the company’s founder. “And we don’t want to let any of our team members go.” Despite a year of aggressive interest rate increases by the Federal Reserve aimed at taming inflation, and signs that the red-hot labor market is cooling off, most companies have not taken the step of cutting jobs. Outside of some high-profile companies mostly in the tech sector, such as Google’s parent Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft, layoffs in the economy as a whole remain remarkably, even historically, rare. There were fewer layoffs in December than in any month during the two decades before the pandemic, government data show. Filings for unemployment insurance have barely increased. And the unemployment rate, at 3.4 percent, is the lowest since 1969.

In a California Town, Farmworkers Start From Scratch After Surprise Flood (NYT) Until the floodwaters came, until they rushed in and destroyed nearly everything, the little white house had been Cecilia Birrueta’s dream. She and her husband bought the two-bedroom fixer-upper 13 years ago, their reward for decades of working minimum wage jobs. The couple replaced the weathered wooden floors, installed a new stove and kitchen sink and repainted the living room walls a warm burgundy. Here, they raised their three children. Ms. Birrueta and her husband felt content. Until last month. Until the floodwaters came. A brutal set of atmospheric rivers in California unleashed a disaster in Planada, an agricultural community of 4,000 mostly poor residents in the flatlands about an hour west of Yosemite National Park. For several days, the entire town looked like a lagoon. Weeks after record-breaking storms wreaked havoc across California and killed at least 21 people, some of the hardest hit communities are still struggling to recover. “We came as immigrants, we started with nothing,” said Ms. Birrueta, 40, who was born in Mexico. “We bought a place of our own that we thought would be safe for our kids, and then we lost it. We lost everything.”

Tens of thousands protest Mexico’s electoral law changes (Washington Post) Tens of thousands of people in Mexico demonstrated against a law that would weaken the National Electoral Institute (INE). Many Mexicans consider the 33-year-old INE to be a crucial institution in the country’s transition from seven decades of one-party rule. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador charges that the electoral institute has turned into a bloated bureaucracy and plans to slash its budget and staff.

In heart of Haiti’s gang war, one hospital stands its ground (AP) When machine gun fire erupts outside the barbed-wire fences surrounding Fontaine Hospital Center, the noise washes over a cafeteria full of tired, scrub-clad medical staff. And no one bats an eye. Gunfire is part of daily life here in Cité Soleil—the most densely populated part of the Haitian capital and the heart of Port-au-Prince’s gang wars. As gangs tighten their grip on Haiti, many medical facilities in the Caribbean nation’s most violent areas have closed, leaving Fontaine as one of the last hospitals and social institutions in one of the world’s most lawless places. “We’ve been left all alone,” said Loubents Jean Baptiste, the hospital’s medical director. The danger in the streets complicates everything: When gangsters with bullet wounds show up at the gates, doctors ask them to check their automatic weapons at the door as if they were coats. Doctors cannot return safely to homes in areas controlled by rival gangs and must live in hospital dormitories. Patients who are too scared to seek basic care due to the violence arrive in increasingly dire condition. The hospital possesses a certain level of protection because it accepts all patients. “We don’t pick sides. If the two groups face off, and they arrive at the hospital like any other person, we treat them,” Jean Baptiste said.

Dozens of Migrants Killed Off Coast of Italy (Foreign Policy) Almost 60 people were killed after a wooden boat carrying migrants crashed into reefs off the coast of Italy, authorities said. Dozens more were missing. The boat is believed to have had up to 200 passengers, and over 100 could have been killed, officials fear. At least 80 people were found alive. A local priest said he blessed the bodies that were lying on the beach. Pope Francis mourned the children among the victims. A Red Cross volunteer has said that all survivors were adults. The crash reignited debates about Italy’s new restrictions on migrant rescue charities. While the country’s far-right government claims that such charities are encouraging migrants to come to Italy while also working with traffickers, those charities reject the claims. “Stopping, blocking and hindering the work of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) will have only one effect: the death of vulnerable people left without help,” tweeted one Spanish NGO in response to the incident.

New quake hits Turkey, toppling more buildings: 1 killed (AP) A magnitude 5.6 earthquake shook southern Turkey on Monday, three weeks after a catastrophic temblor devastated the region, causing some already damaged buildings to collapse and killing at least one person, authorities said. More than 100 people were injured as a result of Monday’s quake which was centered in the town of Yesilyurt in Malatya province, Yunus Sezer, the chief of the country’s disaster management agency, AFAD, told reporters. More than two dozen buildings collapsed. AFAD’s chief urged people not to enter damaged buildings, saying strong aftershocks continue to pose a risk. More than 10,000 aftershocks have hit the region since Feb. 6. The World Bank said Monday it estimates that the massive earthquake caused $34.2 billion in “direct damages”—an equivalent of 4% of the country’s GDP in 2021. The recovery and reconstruction cost could be potentially twice as large, the World Bank said, adding that GDP losses would also add to the earthquake’s cost.

In Ukraine War, Talking About Peace Is a Fight of Its Own (NYT) As the fight in Ukraine has dragged on for the past year, another battle has unfolded in parallel: a war of words between Russia and the West over who is more interested in ending the conflict peacefully. For now, analysts and Western officials say, serious peace talks are extremely difficult to envision. Both sides have set conditions for negotiations that cannot be met anytime soon, and have vowed to fight until victory. And Ukraine’s president has ruled out dealing directly with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin because of atrocities committed by his military forces. At the same time, both sides also have a keen interest in showing an openness to negotiations. But far from pointing to a peaceful end, such talk is largely strategic. It is intended to placate allies, cast the opposition as unreasonable and, especially on the Ukrainian side, tamp down a growing desire within Western countries to find an end to the costly war.

India’s sinking holy town faces grim future (AP) Inside a shrine overlooking snow-capped mountains, Hindu priests heaped spoonfuls of puffed rice and ghee into a crackling fire. They closed their eyes and chanted in Sanskrit, hoping their prayers would somehow turn back time and save their holy—and sinking—town. For months, the roughly 20,000 residents in Joshimath, burrowed in the Himalayas and revered by Hindu and Sikh pilgrims, have watched the earth slowly swallow their community. They pleaded for help that never arrived, and in January their desperate plight made it into the international spotlight. But by then, Joshimath was already a disaster zone. Multistoried hotels slumped to one side; cracked roads gaped open. More than 860 homes were uninhabitable, splayed by deep fissures that snaked through ceilings, floors and walls. And instead of saviors they got bulldozers that razed whole lopsided swaths of the town. The holy town was built on piles of debris left behind by years of landslides and earthquakes. Scientists have warned for decades, including in a 1976 report, that Joshimath could not withstand the level of heavy construction that has recently been taking place.

N. Korea food shortage worsens amid COVID, but no famine yet (AP) There’s little doubt that North Korea’s chronic food shortages worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and speculation about the country’s food insecurity has flared as its top leaders prepare to discuss the “very important and urgent task” of formulating a correct agricultural policy. Unconfirmed reports say an unspecified number of North Koreans have been dying of hunger. But experts say there is no sign of mass deaths or famine. They say the upcoming ruling Workers’ Party meeting is likely intended to shore up support for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as he pushes ahead with his nuclear weapons program in defiance of intense U.S.-led pressure and sanctions. It is difficult to know the exact situation in the North, which kept its borders virtually closed during the pandemic. Food shortages and economic hardships have persisted since a famine killed an estimated hundreds of thousands of people in the mid-1990s.

Taiwan 2027? (AP) U.S. intelligence shows that China’s President Xi Jinping has instructed his country’s military to “be ready by 2027” to invade Taiwan though he may be currently harboring doubts about his ability to do so given Russia’s experience in its war with Ukraine, CIA Director William Burns said. Burns, in a television interview that aired Sunday, stressed that the United States must take “very seriously” Xi’s desire to ultimately control Taiwan even if military conflict is not inevitable. “We do know, as has been made public, that President Xi has instructed the PLA, the Chinese military leadership, to be ready by 2027 to invade Taiwan, but that doesn’t mean that he’s decided to invade in 2027 or any other year as well,” Burns told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Burns said the support from the U.S. and European allies for Ukraine following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of that country may be acting as a potential deterrent to Chinese officials for now but said the risks of a possible attack on Taiwan will only grow stronger.

Israel beefs up troops after unprecedented settler rampage (AP) Israel sent hundreds more troops to the occupied West Bank on Monday, a day after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis and settlers rampaged through a Palestinian town, torching homes and vehicles in the worst such violence in decades. The responses to the rampage laid bare some rifts in Israel’s new right-wing government, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealing for calm while a member of his ruling coalition praised the rampage as deterrence against Palestinian attacks. The events also underscored the limitations of the traditional U.S. approach to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Washington has been trying to prevent escalation while staying away from the politically costly task of pushing for a resolution of the core disputes.

Young doctors are leaving Egypt in droves for better jobs abroad (Washington Post) When a hospital in Britain offered Mohamed a new job in 2020, he didn’t have to think twice: The proposed salary was 40 times higher than what he was making at home. Like other young doctors in Egypt, 34-year-old Mohamed had spent years in school and specialized training, only to be placed in a government hospital where he earned around $300 a month—barely enough to scrape by. By moving to the U.K., he joined more than 11,500 doctors who left Egypt’s public health sector between 2019 and 2022, according to the Egyptian Medical Syndicate, many of them seeking better prospects abroad. Last year, more than 4,300 government-employed Egyptian doctors submitted their resignations, an average of 13.5 per working day. The rapid exodus is fueling a shortage of qualified doctors in the country. The World Health Organization puts Egypt’s doctor-to-population ratio at 7.09 for every 10,000 people, well below its minimum recommendation of 10. The figure is 35 in the United States and double that in Sweden. But Egypt also lags behind some poorer nations, like Algeria (17) and Bolivia (10).

[newjerseyprelawland-blog]

Twitter’s Mass Layoffs Spark Outrage

By Anika Ponni, Rutgers University–New Brunswick Class of 2026

November 8, 2022

As of October 27th, 2022, after months of uncertainty, Elon Musk officially owns Twitter. Although the title “Twitter CEO” is a relatively new one for Musk, his time at Twitter has already been marred by the firings of high-profile executives, staff members, and employees.

In an email sent to Twitter employees, Musk notified his staff that in order “to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce.” The new CEO aimed to cut costs by eliminating 50% of Twitter’s workforce [1]. Prior to the mass layoffs, top executives, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde had already been removed from their positions [2].

The email also clarified that employees will receive an email to their work accounts if they are being retained and those being laid off will receive an email to their personal accounts with instructions on how to leave the Twitter ecosystem.

The crude manner of the layoffs has been denounced by critics all across the country. Journalist Will Oremus called it “a fun game where you get to find out if you're laid off or not…based on whether the email pops up in your Twitter account or personal account” [1].

Understandably, Twitter’s sudden reduction of its workforce has left former employees furious.

For this reason, a class action lawsuit was filed against Twitter in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco where Twitter is headquartered. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs are listed as five current or former employees and the defense is listed as Twitter.

The lawsuit was filed on the basis that Twitter violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) with the sudden layoffs. This Federal law requires that employees are provided at least 60 days notice when their employment has been terminated. However, in Twitter’s case, most laid off workers were notified the day of that it was their last day working for the company. The lawsuit also aims to prevent the company from pressuring laid off workers to sign paperwork to surrender their rights to participate in litigation [3].

Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit against Twitter, stated that “We filed this lawsuit…in an attempt to make sure that employees are aware that they should not sign away their rights and that they have an avenue for pursuing their rights.”

Liss-Riordan is no stranger to wrongful termination, especially in cases involving Elon Musk. This past June, the renowned labor attorney also represented former employees of Tesla Inc. after Elon Musk abruptly laid off about 10% of its workforce [4].

Additionally, Tesla and Twitter are not the only companies to face scrutiny and lawsuits for failing to adhere to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN).  American rental car company Hertz, as well as restaurant chain Hooters, were all hit with class action lawsuits during the pandemic when they were forced to lay off a large percentage of their workforce without the proper notification period [5].

In protest against the mass layoffs, lack of ethics, and absence of moral responsibility from Elon Musk, numerous celebrities have already exited the platform. To name a few: Sara Bareilles, Toni Braxton, Téa Leoni, and Shonda Rhimes have all expressed their intentions to leave Twitter following the hostile environment Musk has created and the policies he has implemented [6].

______________________________________________________________

Anika Ponni is currently a student at Rutgers University - New Brunswick, pursuing a finance degree in the Honors Program. She hopes to attend law school upon graduatio

______________________________________________________________

[1] Paul, K., & Taylor, J. (2022, November 4). Elon Musk announces Twitter mass layoffs to begin Friday. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/03/elon-musk-twitter-mass-layoffs-begin

[2] Thomas, L., & Corse, A. (2022, October 28). Elon Musk Closes Twitter Deal, Immediately Fires Top Executives. WSJ. https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-completes-twitter-takeover-11666918031?mod=Searchresults_pos5&page=1

[3] Helsel, P. (2022, November 4). Twitter sued over short-notice layoffs as Elon Musk’s takeover rocks company. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/twitter-sued-layoffs-days-elon-musk-purchase-rcna55619

[4] Stimson, B. (2022, November 4). Twitter employees file lawsuit claiming mass layoffs violate federal law requiring notice. FOXBusiness. https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/twitter-employees-file-lawsuit-claiming-mass-layoffs-violate-federal-law-requiring-notice

[5] Steinberg, J. (2020, May 1). Laid-Off Hertz Worker Sues Over Sudden Virus-Related Firings. News.bloomberglaw.com. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/laid-off-hertz-workers-sue-over-sudden-virus-related-firings

[6] Lukpat, A. (2022, November 3). The Celebrities Leaving Twitter After Elon Musk’s Takeover: See the List. WSJ. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-celebrities-leaving-twitter-after-elon-musks-takeover-see-the-list-11667336928?mod=Searchresults_pos8&page=1

[cathkaesque]

Protest of Workers at Sudaphi Agribusiness in Morocco

On Thursday 26th May, dozens of workers of an agricultural company [Sudaphi] organized a sit in front of the company headquarters in the area of Ouled Dahou in Inezgane-Ait Melloul, denouncing what they considered as "pressure to sign contracts of employment” the contents of which they do not agree.

Fatima Badak, one of the protesting workers, confirmed in a statement to the newspaper Al-Amaq that the company specializes in the processing, packaging, purchase, sale, export and import of early crops and all products and equipment related to agricultural activity and food production. The company has recently been trying to pressure employees to sign employment contracts with clauses that do not respect their rights.

The worker herself added that those who reject these contracts are subjected to a kind of discrimination at work, as well as the layoffs that have affected some of the workers' shop stewards, noting that some workers, have found themselves forced to sign and accept contracts because of the pressure exerted on them.

For his part, Sufian, who is one of the shop stewards, explained that he has spent a decade working in this company, but he was surprised by the issuance of a disciplinary sanction against him, because of his involvement in union activity. We work in difficult conditions such as the cold of the refrigerators..., noting that the managers of the company refuse to engage in a serious dialogue with the employees to solve the problems posed.

The regional secretary of the National Federation of the Agricultural Sector, Souss Massa, Lahoucine Boulberj, called for the need to respect the requirements of the Labour Code, including the right to unionize and respect for delegates of employees, as well as maintaining the dignity of workers within industrial units.

Boulberj called for the opening of serious negotiations with workers' representatives, pointing out that as soon as a trade union branch was established in this company, officials began to take a number of illegal disciplinary decisions against employees. As for the new employment contracts that the workers confirmed to have been imposed on them by the company, the same union official revealed that they met what he described as "the conditions of the customers", explaining that they imposed their demands on the workers without their consent or the approval of the employee delegates. The new contracts move workers from permament to fixed term contracts, and removes pay for seniority.

(via al3omk)

[writerforfun]

28 UNCOMMON BUT USEFUL WORDS

For each word I have inculded the defination and a sentence.

Some are even from classic literature. See if you can find them.

Abject: contemptible.

The lawyers so dragged out the proceedings, that both parties ended up in abject poverty.

Reprobate: without scruples.

The first half of the film consists of SS officers observing potential recruits in all manner of borderline reprobate acts.

Insouciant: carefree, nonchalant.

His insouciant manner attracted women who liked the dandy type.

Enervate: weaken mentally or morally.

He had learned the art from them, and London had scarce had time as yet to enervate him.

Effete: over-refined.

In fine, it will become old and effete, no less truly than the individual.

Fatuous: silly yet smug.

This produced a fatuous contentment, which from the beginning led producers to view TV as a threat.

Credulity, readiness to believe.

Having gone broke, her credulity opened him to get-rich-quick schemes.

Remonstrate: argue in protest.

The child knew he’d get his way if he remonstrated long enough.

N’est-ce pas (pronounced ness-pah): Right? 

No one is going to support you so you better support yourself, n’est-ce pas?

Risible: laughable.

In the face of round after round of layoffs, the corporate slogan, “Our people are our most important product” is risible.

Mien: demeanor.

There was something about this courier's mien and person that awoke a poignant memory.

Mawkish: insincerely emotional.

What a fool, what a weak, mawkish, insipid fool he had made of himself!

Execrable: detestable.

Not having seen their aging parents in two years is execrable.

Fulsome: insincere, mawkish.

The employee’s fulsome praising the boss didn’t fool him a bit.

Fractious: irritable.

You are old enough to know better, and yet you behave like a fractious child.

Abjure: renounce.

I cannot abjure that world which contains the fondest object that links me to life.

Fulminate: denounce forcefully.

The excellence of the fulminate may be ascertained, by the following characters.

Importune: beg persistently.

She was so eager to marry that she importuned him until he felt so pressured, he dumped her.

Proscribe: command against.

The rules proscribe that certain testimony may not be admissible for one purpose, but may be admissible for another.

Imperious: domineering.

The chef’s imperious manner intimidated the entire kitchen staff.

Descry: catch sight of.

There was hardly a spot of him where you could not descry some sign of a bone underneath.

Roué: cad.

Every woman in town was wary of that roué except of course for those who were attracted to bad boys.

Martinet: demander of conformity.

The boss was a martinet; who insisted that everyone had to punch a clock and divide the work precisely equally.

Cavil: quibble.

His distress would have moved an adamantine heart, and was not a thing to cavil at.

Querulous: peevish.

The note of the sanderling is a soft ket, ket, ket, uttered singly or in series somewhat querulous in tone.

Tendentious: biased.

The position in Ethiopia is, to say the least of it, tendentious, and at any moment the natives may change their skin.

Timorous: beyond timid, fearful.

However, Lisa only shrugged her shoulders and smiled at finding him so timorous.

Expiate: make amends for.

He went all out to expiate himself for having cheated on his wife.

If you like these I have 18 more words.

They will be out a week later so hit the follow button to stay up-to-date.