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Peter Bjork // 202.408.5565
Yesterday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
(CREW) sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions, asking the Committee to consider changes to its
rules and practices regarding witnesses invited to testify at committee
hearings. On June 24th, Steven Eisman, a portfolio manager of a hedge
fund known to short-sale stocks in for-profit education companies,
testified before the committee.
Yesterday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
(CREW) sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions, asking the Committee to consider changes to its
rules and practices regarding witnesses invited to testify at committee
hearings. On June 24th, Steven Eisman, a portfolio manager of a hedge
fund known to short-sale stocks in for-profit education companies,
testified before the committee.
In the past, Mr. Eisman was
able to manipulate the market reaction in the for-profit education
industry and profit handsomely through short-sales based on his dire
public forecasts for companies in that industry. Mr. Eisman's recent
congressional testimony, during which he decried the for-profit
education industry as "socially destructive as the subprime mortgage
industry," appears designed to accomplish this same end.
After a May 26, 2010 speech by Mr. Eisman before the Ira Sohn
Research Conference in which he characterized specifically identified
for-profit education institutions as on financially shaky ground, share
values of the named companies plummeted and Mr. Eisman reaped huge
profits from short-sales in those companies. Mr. Eisman likely expected
to profit similarly for his congressional testimony last week.
CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said, "While many who testify
before Congress have a financial interest at stake, few profit directly
from their testimony alone. Congress should not be in the business of
helping hedge fund managers like Mr. Eisman make even more money."
Sloan continued, "Congressional hearings are intended to air issues of
national significance - not line witnesses' pockets."
CREW's letter asks the committee to put safeguards in place to
ensure that future witnesses cannot use an appearance before a
congressional committee for private financial gain.
Click here to read CREW's letter.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to promoting ethics and accountability in government and public life by targeting government officials -- regardless of party affiliation -- who sacrifice the common good to special interests. CREW advances its mission using a combination of research, litigation and media outreach.
"As long as they can get away with it, they will continue to invest in fossil fuels," the Swedish climate activist warned. "We need to build and create a critical mass of people who demand change, who demand justice."
Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg took aim at those profiting off of the climate emergency Thursday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's annual summit in Davos, Switzerland.
The Fridays for Future leader has previously attracted global attention for delivering impassioned speeches at earlier summits, urging the Davos elite to "act as if you loved your children above all else" and calling on policymakers to stop "basing your 'pledges' on the cheating tactics that got us into this mess in the first place" and start to "implement annual binding carbon budgets."
Early into a panel discussion Thursday with fellow climate activists and an international energy expert, Thunberg said that "we are right now in Davos, where basically the people are who are mostly fueling the destruction of the planet, the people who are at the very core of the climate crisis, the people who are investing in fossil fuels... somehow these are the people that we seem to rely on solving our problems when they have proven time and time again that they are prioritizing that."
"The changes that we need are not very likely to come from the inside, rather I believe they will come from the bottom up."
"They are prioritizing self greed, corporate greed, and short-term economic profits above people and above planet," she charged. "We seem to be listening to them rather than the people who are actually affected by the climate crisis, the people who are living on the frontlines, and that kind of tells us the situation, how absurd this is."
"The people who we really should be listening to are not here," she said of the yearly meeting that brings people from around the world to the Swiss resort town. "Instead, we are bombarded with messages from people who are basically the people who are causing this crisis."
After the moderator asked Thunberg—who was detained at a protest against coal mining in Germany earlier this week—why she is talking "outside" the summit rather than with high-profile figures "inside" as she has before, she said that "there are already activists doing that, and I think that if there should be activists inside speaking to these people, it should be those on the frontlines and not privileged people like me who are not experiencing the firsthand consequences of the climate crisis."
"I think that right now, the changes that we need are not very likely to come from the inside, rather I believe they will come from the bottom up," the 20-year-old added. "Without massive public pressure from the outside—at least, in my experience—these people are going to go as far as they possibly can."
"As long as they can get away with it, they will continue to invest in fossil fuels, they will continue to throw people under the bus for their own gain," she stressed. "We need to build and create a critical mass of people who demand change, who demand justice."
DAVOS LIVE: Greta Thunberg takes part in a WEF event with IEA's Fatih Birolwww.youtube.com
Thunberg—who twice has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for climate activism that has included global school strikes—said that "we know that the changes we are advocating for are not going to happen overnight, and that is why we have to stay strong during a longer period of time" and grow the movement of people demanding an end to the fossil fuel era.
"The people standing up and raising their voices against all that is happening—that's the hope right now. The hope comes from the people," Thunberg concluded—a sentiment echoed by the other young climate activists on the panel, Vanessa Nakate of Uganda, Luisa Neubauer of Germany, and Helena Gualinga of an Indigenous community in Ecuador. They were joined by Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, which has also highlighted the need to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
Thunberg, Nakate, Neubauer, and Gualinga are also spearheading a "cease-and-desist" letter demanding that fossil fuel CEOs attending the summit in Davos "immediately stop opening any new oil, gas, or coal extraction sites, and stop blocking the clean energy transition we all so urgently need." As of press time, it had been signed by over 921,000 people.
The activists aren't the only ones taking aim at the fossil fuel industry and their corporate and political allies in Davos this week. As Common Dreamsreported, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres also did so in a speech Wednesday.
"This insanity belongs in science fiction, yet we know the ecosystem meltdown is cold, hard scientific fact," he said of continuing to burn fossil fuels despite the catastrophic consequences. "We must act together to close the emissions gap. To phase out coal and supercharge the renewable revolution. To end the addiction to fossil fuels. And to stop our self-defeating war on nature."
For serious injuries linked to the company's insistence that employees maintain a relentless pace of work, Amazon was fined $60,000—the amount it made "every four seconds in 2022."
A paltry $60,000 fine for failing to keep employees safe at one of the world's richest companies offered the latest evidence, according to one critic, that the system ostensibly meant to protect workers "is so broken."
That was the assessment of Paris Marx, host of the podcast "Tech Won't Save Us," after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced Wednesday it had issued a citation to Amazon for worker safety violations at three of its warehouses in Deltona, Florida; Waukegan, Illinois; and New Windsor, New York.
As part of an investigation that is still ongoing, OSHA found that Amazon warehouse employees experience "high rates of musculoskeletal disorders" and are at high risk for lower back injuries due to frequently being required to lift heavy packages for long hours.
A log of injuries sustained by workers at the warehouse in Waukegan showed one employee suffered a foot fracture while handling a 55-pound package, another person's face was "crushed/smashed" by a 61-pound piece of furniture, and another worker sprained their lower leg while handling a 148-pound item.
\u201cNEW: Dept of Labor is preparing to fine Amazon $60K for workplace safety hazards. \n\nRecent injuries at a warehouse in Waukegan, IL include:\n-a 61 lb piece of furniture smashing a worker's face\n-a 90 lb TV spraining a shoulder\n-a bed cutting a worker's nose\u201d— Lauren Kaori Gurley (@Lauren Kaori Gurley) 1674060652
While many warehouse workers at a variety of companies lift heavy objects during their workdays, Amazon has been denounced by workers and labor rights groups for requiring employees to maintain a grueling pace in order to meet quotas and ensure deliveries are made rapidly.
As the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC) said in its report Primed for Pain: Amazon's Epidemic of Workplace Injuries in 2021, "the company's obsession with speed has come at a huge cost for Amazon's workforce," with workers suffering serious injuries at a rate 80% higher than warehouse employees at other companies.
"Each of these inspections found work processes that were designed for speed but not safety, and they resulted in serious worker injuries," said Doug Parker, assistant secretary for occupational safety and health at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Despite OSHA's findings, noted Mother Jones, the agency fined the e-commerce giant "roughly 0.000013% of its reported $469,822,000,000 2021 revenue," or as progressive journalist Timothy Burke put it, the amount the company made every four seconds last year.
\u201cAmazon made $60,000 every four seconds in 2022.\u201d— Timothy Burke (@Timothy Burke) 1674059859
Amazon said Wednesday it plans to appeal OSHA's citation and appeared to reject the agency's findings, which represent the first time the Labor Department has accused a employer of maintaining an excessive work pace.
"The government's allegations don't reflect the reality of safety at our sites," Kelly Nantel, a spokesperson for Amazon, toldWired. "The vast majority of our employees tell us they feel our workplace is safe."
Eric Frumin, health and safety director at SOC, called on Amazon "to drop its relentless resistance to OSHA's orders to fix these hazards."
"Today's OSHA citations are the latest evidence that Amazon has company-wide, corporate-level policies and practices that create hazardous workplaces, and may result in medical mistreatment or denial of treatment for seriously injured workers," said Frumin. "Amazon treats its workers from the warehouse to the delivery route as disposable in its relentless drive for profit."
OSHA's investigation into the company is continuing at warehouses in Aurora, Colorado; Nampa, Idaho; and Castleton, New York.
"If there is no positive response from the government, today is a first step, and there will be a second step," said one union leader.
The streets of France filled with outraged workers on Thursday as rail employees, teachers, and others walked off the job to protest President Emmanuel Macron's deeply unpopular plan to overhaul the nation's pension system by raising the official retirement age from 62 to 64.
The union-led demonstrations—which ground significant portions of the country, including many schools and transportation systems, to a halt—come as Macron is attempting to steamroll far-reaching opposition to his pension overhaul, declaring that "we must work longer."
Macron's government formally presented its draft law last week, the first step in the process of enacting a reform that would force French citizens to work longer to qualify for a full pension.
(Photo: Damien Meyer/AFP via Getty Images)
Philippe Martinez, the head of France's General Confederation of Labor union, told reporters that Thursday's strikes are just the beginning of widespread worker unrest if Macron doesn't abandon his attempt to hike the retirement age by 2030.
"If there is no positive response from the government, today is a first step, and there will be a second step," Martinez declared ahead of a march in Paris.
Eric Sellini, the union's coordinator for the French petroleum company TotalEnergies, echoed that sentiment.
"For the moment, we're sticking to our schedule," Sellini said. "Depending on how the situation in the country evolves, and if employees don't want to stop the strike, there could be an extension."
Reutersreported Thursday that the mass protests "led to a substantial fall in electricity output and halted deliveries from refineries operated by TotalEnergies and Esso."
"The CGT union expects that at least 70% of its refinery sector employees at TotalEnergies' four refining sites have joined the strike in opposition to the government plan to raise the retirement age," the outlet noted.
French unions also estimated that around 70% of the country's primary schoolteachers were on strike Thursday.
(Photo: Damien Meyer/AFP via Getty Images)
A survey conducted earlier this month by the polling firm Elabe found that roughly three-fifths of the French public opposes Macron's proposed pension overhaul, the latest iteration of a plan that the president has repeatedly put forth and subsequently delayed due to furious opposition.
"When he sought reelection last year amid an emboldened far right, Macron sent mixed messages on the issue," The Washington Postreported. "After first announcing that he wanted to raise the minimum retirement age even higher than planned, from 62 to 65, he later backtracked and said that '65 years is not a dogma.'"
(Photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
Opponents of the pension attack—including the leftist leader of the France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon—are pushing Macron to drop the proposal for good as mass protests signal sustained opposition from workers.
"It is time for Macron to withdraw his reform," Mélenchon said Thursday.