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Sanctioning a few of the richest oligarchs is unlikely to have much effect. But there’s a more ambitious approach
But for this tactic to work, two conditions must be met: first, the US and our allies must be able to locate and tie up Russian oligarchic wealth. Second, Russian oligarchs must have enough power to stop Putin.
Let’s take them one at a time:
Can we locate and tie up the wealth of Russian oligarchs?
Anecdotally, sanctions on the oligarchs appear to be working. Last Sunday, the billionaire industrialist Oleg Deripaska (on the US sanctions list) and banker Mikhail Fridman (on the EU’s) both publicly urged an end to Putin’s war.
Billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich has put his English soccer club up for sale and vowed to donate the proceeds to “all victims of the war in Ukraine”. Banker and entrepreneur Oleg Tinkov told his 634,000 Instagram followers last week that “innocent people are dying in Ukraine now, every day, this is unthinkable and unacceptable”.
But are these sanctions really biting? This is where a comparison of Russian oligarchs with American oligarchs comes in.
While Russian oligarchs (Russia’s richest 0.01%) have hidden an estimated $200bn offshore (over half of their financial wealth), American oligarchs – America’s 765 billionaires – have hidden $1.2tn (about 4% of their wealth), mostly to avoid paying taxes on it.
While American oligarchs park their income and wealth in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, Russian oligarchs have hidden their most valuable assets in the United States and the European Union. The reason they do so is telling: western democracies follow the rule of law.
Under the rule of law, before a government can seize property it must follow lengthy and elaborate legal processes. As a result, American and European governments are finding their hands tied in actually taking control of the assets of Russian oligarchs.
American law makes it difficult even to discover what Russian oligarchs own in the US because they’ve hidden their assets behind complex trusts and shell corporations.
American laws governing taxes, corporations, transportation and banking are wonderfully convenient for the world’s oligarchs. One out of every six aircraft in the United States, for example, is registered through trusts, Delaware corporations and even post office box addresses, making it almost impossible to discover their true owners.
This isn’t an argument against sanctioning Russian oligarchs. It’s just that we need to be clear-eyed about how difficult it is to do so.
Do Russian oligarchs have enough power to stop Putin?
American oligarchs have enormous political clout. In the 2012 presidential election (the most recent for which we have detailed data on individual contributions), the richest 0.01% of Americans – the richest 1% of the richest 1% – accounted for 40% of all campaign contributions.
What have American oligarchs got out of these campaign contributions? The lowest tax rates on the highest incomes in over a generation – and the lowest among all wealthy nations. They’ve also gotten an IRS so starved of resources it’s barely able to enforce the law.
Russian oligarchs who have pledged loyalty to Putin arguably have less political power in Russia than do American oligarchs in the US.
In Putin’s Russia, power is exercised by a narrow circle of officials and generals appointed by Putin, whom he has drawn largely from the former KGB. According to several Russian specialists I’ve spoken with over the last few days, this circle has become very small in recent months, now numbering perhaps a half dozen.
We should use whatever means are at our disposal to make Vladimir Putin end the brutal war he started. But it is proving difficult to use sanctions on specific oligarchs to get Putin to stop.
Perhaps we should be more ambitious. My Berkeley colleague Gabriel Zucman recommends that the US and the European Union freeze all offshore holdings of Russian nationals in excess of $10m. This would affect about 10,000 to 20,000 Russians who have benefited the most from Putin’s rule.
Meanwhile, blanket sanctions against the Russian economy are having an effect. Over the past week they have caused the rouble to collapse and decimated Russian markets.
But the burden has fallen mostly on ordinary Russians, many of whom have already suffered from Putin’s brutal regime.
As we’ve seen in North Korea and Iran, dictatorships don’t depend on popular approval. In fact, widespread hardship can lead to even more repression and violence. We should remind ourselves that Putin is not synonymous with the Russian people.
Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota with colleagues at a hearing on Capitol Hill on March 1, 2022. (photo: Tom Williams/Getty)
As the U.S. considers a ban on importing Russian oil as part of sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine, senior advisers to President Biden are reportedly planning to visit Saudi Arabia to secure more oil to make up the shortfall. We speak to Minnesota Congressmember Ilhan Omar about Saudi Arabia’s devastating war in Yemen, which has caused the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. “If our issue is that we don’t want to buy oil from a powerful country that is conducting a devastating war on its weaker neighbor, I just don’t see Saudi Arabia hardly being a principled solution,” says Omar. She also discusses the need to institute policies so all refugees of war can be treated with the same level of hospitality as Ukrainians, the need to ban members of Congress from trading stocks and more.
Earlier today, the United Nations said more than 2 million refugees have fled Ukraine in the largest exodus in Europe since World War II. We’re joined now by Congressmember Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who knows something about being a refugee. Her family came to the U.S. as Somali refugees. She’s the first African refugee to become a U.S. congressmember.
Earlier this week, she criticized reports that senior advisers to President Biden may be planning a visit Saudi Arabia to discuss global oil supplies as the U.S. considers a ban on importing Russian oil. Congressmember Omar tweeted, quote, “Our response to Putin’s immoral war shouldn’t be to strengthen our relationship with the Saudis who are currently causing the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet in Yemen. Yemenis might not matter to some geopolitically but their humanity should. This is a wildly immoral act,” Congressmember Ilhan Omar tweeted. Well, she’s joining us now back on Democracy Now!
Congressmember Omar, welcome to Democracy Now! on this International Women’s Day.
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Good to be with you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Why don’t you start off with that tweet, with that comment that you made about now the U.S.’s search for more oil as it cuts off the taking oil from Russia? Can you talk about, first, the plan to go to Saudi Arabia?
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Well, it’s good to be with you, Amy, and good morning to everyone.
It’s hard to see a principle at play here. If our issue is that we don’t want to buy oil from a powerful country that is conducting a devastating war on its weaker neighbor, I just don’t see Saudi Arabia hardly being a principled solution. We know that MBS is obviously going to try to take advantage of this opportunity to once again whitewash his reputation and present himself as a reformer, and we shouldn’t fall for that. The truth is, our dependency on oil means that we depend on tyrants, and that has always been true. So, if we are, obviously, serious about what we need to do in regards to the Ukraine context, we should be supporting and defending democracy and human rights, and we should certainly move away — then we should certainly move away from our dependency on fossil fuels and not be cozying up once again to another tyrant.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Congresswoman, I wanted to ask you — the U.S. has provided enormous military support to Ukraine, sending 17,000 anti-tank weapons just in the last six days, and billions more President Biden is requesting in military aid. And interestingly, while the rest of the stock market has been plummeting in the United States, the stocks of defense contractors have soared. General Dynamics, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin all have the highest stock prices they have had in 30 years, because they’re obviously building these Javelins and these other missiles that the United States is buying. What’s the debate like in Congress right now about the degree of aid that the United States should be supplying?
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Well, it’s interesting you bring up the soaring stock market for those that profit from war and the conflict of interest that we are obviously experiencing here in Congress, because we have colleagues that are actually currently buying those specific stocks because they understand that war can be profitable for them and for everyone, which is unfortunate.
It’s heartbreaking to see what’s happening in Ukraine. We obviously want to help the Ukrainians defend themselves, but I have cautioned my colleagues on what, you know, could be the catastrophe that awaits us if we continue to send billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine instead of really thinking about what kind of weapons we’re sending. You know, if we continue to give small arms and ammunition, those can ultimately get in the hands of the wrong people and can have a lasting effect. We have to be able to learn something from history. We did this in Afghanistan when Afghanistan was fighting against the Soviet, and we ultimately saw what happened with the resources that we gave, the support that we gave in that country, and who we ultimately ended up propping up. And so, I do hope that my colleagues, obviously, learn from history and that we respond in a measured way.
AMY GOODMAN: Just days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene bought up to $15,000 in stock in the military contractor Lockheed Martin. Congressmember Omar, you tweeted in response, “Add this to the list of why members of Congress should never be allowed to trade stocks.” Can you comment further?
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Of course. I mean, we’ve seen the kind of conflict of interest this presents. Members of Congress have information that could attribute to inside trading, and ultimately, if they are not breaking the law, they are still having a conflict of interest. And we should be in the business of having a clear conscience when we are making these decisions as policymakers on behalf of our country. Congressional members should never be allowed to trade stock. Their family members and their dependents shouldn’t, as well. I think it is time for us to ban stock trading for members of Congress, because, you know, the evidence is there: Not only did we see people profiting from the pandemic, we are now seeing them profit from war.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Congresswoman, I’d like to ask you — Ukraine has been urging the United States and NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. President Biden and the Europeans have said that they do not want to do that, because they don’t want to expand the conflict further. But the media also have been — a lot of the corporate media have been almost pressuring the administration to do so. What’s your sense of this issue of the no-fly zone and where members of Congress stand on it?
REP. ILHAN OMAR: So, when the Ukrainians ask us to implement a no-fly zone, that’s an invitation for us to get involved in the war. A no-fly zone is not something that, you know, is just implemented. It’s something that has to be militarily defended. And that ultimately means the United States and our NATO allies will be a part and parcel to this war. And when we get involved in this war, it’s not that less Ukrainians are going to die. More Ukrainians are going to die. And we have to be able to have an honest conversation about what an escalation in this war could ultimately mean, not just for Ukrainians but for the rest of the world.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of the sanctions that have already been imposed, you’ve expressed some concerns about some of the sanctions. Could you talk about that, as well?
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yeah, I mean, we are sanction-happy as a nation. And, you know, ultimately, it is important for us to support some sanctions on Putin and his allies to make sure that they feel the pain and the consequences of their actions. But what I do want the American people and everyone around the world to understand is that as we urge, you know, Russians who are antiwar, that these sanctions that we are cheering for and implementing will ultimately have an impact on the very people that we want to rise up and make sure that they are speaking against this illegal, immoral and unjust war on a sovereign country.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about another tweet. Just one week ago, President Biden gave his State of Union address. You recently tweeted, “Thank you @POTUS. I was proud to sign a letter in support of TPS for Ukrainians. I have also signed letters asking for TPS for Cameroonians and Ethiopians. Those deserve the same urgency.” Can you talk about the way the media covers Ukraine versus other absolute crises in the world? Some have noted that when you’re talking about white Christians who are victims, not only Christians but others in Ukraine, you have a much more sense of urgency than, for example, what’s happening in the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the world, which is in Yemen, not to mention what’s happening with refugees from other countries. If you could comment?
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yeah, I mean, it’s heartwarming to see the incredible support from European countries, the United States and everyone around the world that the Ukrainians are experiencing — right? — as they flee war. Everyone fleeing war deserves this level of compassion and hospitality. Some of the countries that are welcoming Ukraine now are the same countries that have been stoking fear against refugees who were fleeing the Syrian war, the war in Libya and many other wars around the world. And it is a fact that, you know, many of the Syrian refugees were also fleeing Putin’s brutality as he’s helped Assad’s regime wage devastation on his people. We also know that there are more than 2 million people that are being displaced in Ethiopia as we speak right now. There are people from Haiti, Central America, to Bangladesh, to Afghanistan, and so many other places that are being displaced. And there are more people that are considered refugees and immigrants in the world right now than at any point in our — you know, in world history. And so, we know that it’s going to get worse as climate change gets worse. And I hope that we seize this moment to really start enacting policies that treat all people who are fleeing war and devastation the same way that we are treating Ukrainians at this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: I also want to ask you about your home country, about Somalia. In February, U.S. Africa Command in Somalia conducted an airstrike that was reportedly in response to an al-Shabab attack on partner forces. Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on the 2001 AUMF and war powers, and you asked the general counsel of the Pentagon, Caroline Krass, about Somalia. This is a clip.
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Bring our attention to Somalia. Am I correct that all of the airstrikes conducted there under President Biden had been justified under the doctrine of collective self-defense?
CAROLINE KRASS: Congresswoman, the strikes in Somalia have been conducted under the authority of the 2001 AUMF, and I know that at least some have been in defense of partner forces.
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Mm-hmm, including the February 22nd strike?
CAROLINE KRASS: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that strike got very little attention in the U.S. media. It was the first U.S. bombing of Somalia since August. Can you talk about its significance and what you’re most concerned about, Congressmember Omar? This is your home country, where you fled from.
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yeah, I mean, my concerns are deeply rooted in these military activities that we continue to engage in that, you know, really are flying under the radar. Most Americans aren’t aware of our military activities around the world, let alone countries like Somalia. And it’s really important that, you know, we shed light on how the AUMF, the 2001 AUMF, has been utilized, and it’s currently in effect in more than 20 countries. Many of the members of Congress then who voted to authorize that authorized it for our work in Afghanistan. And it is time for us to examine it and repeal it. I think, you know, if we are going to continue to engage in war in countries like Somalia, we need new authorization and reasoning for the activities that are taking place and, you know, military actions that are being committed with U.S. tax dollars and in our name.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And speaking of those military actions, the Trump administration removed several hundred U.S. soldiers that were functioning supposedly as advisers in Somalia, but there’s talk about bringing them back under the — or at least some of them, under the Biden administration. What’s your feeling about this issue of so many American soldiers being stationed in several of these countries under the war on terrorism?
REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yeah, again, you know, we definitely need to reexamine and have a deeper conversation. I think members of Congress in previous years have not done their oversight duties in trying to go after and investigate some of these actions that have been taken. It’s important for us to also realize that we don’t just have the known, you know, military posts that people often talk about, but there are military actions that are taking place in countries like Somalia, where we talk about being an advisory but we are literally engaged in activities of war. You know, Somalia is obviously challenged by terrorism. Al-Shabab is, you know, a terrorist organization. They are causing havoc to lives of citizens in Somalia. Many of the people that are being displaced in Somalia right now are not being displaced because of the civil war that displaced my family when I was a child.
AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.
REP. ILHAN OMAR: They’re being displaced because of terrorism and because of climate change. And so —
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there —
REP. ILHAN OMAR: — these are things that we have to address, but we need —
AMY GOODMAN: — Minnesota Congressmember Ilhan Omar. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Stay safe.
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Workers at Amazon's Staten Island warehouse could become the first in the country to vote yes to a union this month. (photo: Getty)
Workers at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse could become the first in the country to vote yes to a union this month—and employees say the company’s now putting the screws on.
Last week, the NYPD arrested three union activists at the warehouse after a manager complained that one of them was trespassing. Chris Smalls, a former employee and thorn in the side of billionaire founder Jeff Bezos, was delivering catered chicken and pasta for a union luncheon when at least five cops confronted him in the facility’s visitor parking lot and demanded he leave.
Bystander footage revealed the local precinct’s top cop showed up to the 911 call targeting Smalls, who is president of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) and fighting to unionize the “fulfillment center” known as JFK8. Amazon’s war with Smalls has been simmering since 2020, when he led a walkout over unsafe working conditions during COVID. At the time, Vice exposed internal memos indicating that Bezos and other Amazon bigwigs discussed a plan to smear Smalls by calling him “not smart or articulate” and make him “the face of the entire union/organizing movement” to discredit unionization. Critics and union crusaders decried the comments about Smalls, who is Black, as racist.
Smalls formed ALU in April of 2021. “Ironically they made me the face of the whole unionizing effort,” he told The Daily Beast. “So I said, ‘OK, good idea.’”
During Smalls’ arrest, an NYPD Deputy Inspector declared, “Listen, we’re going to ask you to, on behalf of Amazon—” before Smalls interrupted in surprise: “You’re protecting Amazon, now?” The cop answered, “I’m not protecting anyone. You’re trespassing.” An assistant general manager, who fired Smalls in 2020, was captured in the video looking on as police addressed his former foe.
Moments later, cops handcuffed employee organizers Brett Daniels and Jason Anthony for obstruction of government administration. The workers had challenged officers for accosting Smalls, and one officer warned Daniels not to get too close and pushed him away. Daniels appeared to push back before he was tackled. Police then frisked Smalls for weapons against a squad car and charged him with obstruction, resisting arrest and trespassing. Before he left, one officer told a worker recording the incident: “We won. You lost.”
The episode marked another clash between the ALU—a crowdfunded and worker-led effort—and the $1.6-trillion multinational corporation that is America’s second-largest private employer behind Walmart. The e-commerce behemoth is simultaneously battling two historic union votes: at JFK8 and at a Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse known as BHM1. (Bessemer voted against unionization last spring, but federal labor officials ordered a do-over after finding Amazon had illegally pressured employees to reject it.)
Now Amazon will likely contend with a third election. On Wednesday, the ALU announced the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) approved a second Staten Island warehouse for a union vote, though a date hasn't yet been scheduled.
The Bessemer employees in Alabama, who will decide on joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, received their ballots in the mail in early February and have until March 25 to return them. Votes will be counted on March 28. On Staten Island, workers will vote in person at the warehouse from March 25 to March 30.
“They know the momentum is building by these luncheons we’re doing,” Smalls told The Daily Beast of his former employer. “They try to intimidate us, intimidate organizers. They’re fearful of the possibility that this would be the first building to ever be unionized.”
Smalls and ALU activists say they’re communicating with Amazon warehouse workers across the country asking for help in organizing their own facilities.
“This is monumental, this is a potential Starbucks situation, where one building gets done, and there’s a tidal wave across the country,” Smalls added, referring to the coffee chain’s workers in Buffalo, New York, becoming the first to unionize. “That’s what we want.”
The union wave also swept an Amazon Fresh store in Seattle, where organizers are reportedly threatening to strike if their demands including a $25-an-hour wage aren’t met.
According to Smalls and ALU organizers, Amazon has escalated its “union-busting” playbook ahead of Staten Island’s vote and is retaliating against supporters.
On Tuesday, Amazon sent a mass text message to JFK8 personnel warning against volunteers who were door-knocking as part of ALU’s campaign. “We’ve received complaints that the ALU is going to your homes uninvited and unannounced,” Amazon texted its roughly 5,600 warehouse staff. “We are sorry that they are choosing to do this, but we’re legally required to release eligible associates' contact information to the ALU. These individuals do NOT represent Amazon. You can let them know that you don’t wish to be contacted.”
Amazon’s automated message concluded: “Amazon respects your privacy and will not go to your home, unless we are delivering for a customer, of course!”
Still, not all employees say they’re voting for ALU to represent them. Dana Joann Miller told The Daily Beast she’s voting no, and has tweeted, “The ALU is unprofessional. Get another union in here and it’s a maybe.” The debate has sometimes permeated an employee Reddit forum, where one user skeptical of ALU said, “The dues are not what concern me, I need experienced workers when It comes to this…” and “This charade looks like someone’s trying to get back at amazon for being fired.”
Angelika Maldonado, a pro-union employee, told The Daily Beast that she believed ALU had enough experience because it’s made of workers like her. “We actually work there,” said Maldonado, a single mom who hopes the union can negotiate with Amazon for cheaper health care for families like hers. “To say we don’t have experience, that’s saying we don’t know what we want collectively when we do. We want more time off, we want longer breaks. The only way we can make a change is if we start now.”
Meanwhile, the e-tailer is hosting daily captive audience meetings where labor consultants have encouraged employees to vote against ALU, including by warning them that unionizing could lead to their pay being cut down to minimum wage. (Workers at the Staten Island fulfillment center start at $18.25 an hour and usually work 10- to 12-hour shifts.) The company has obligated Bessemer employees to attend similar presentations. “More and more workers keep telling us their anti-union propaganda is making them want to join the union more,” Daniels said.
The company has also created a website dedicated to fighting the ALU with a banner at the top declaring: “Let’s keep JFK8 one team!”
And, in the past two weeks, three employee agitators were called to HR and disciplined for allegedly tearing down the company’s anti-union posters. (A fourth organizer said HR tried to bring her into a private meeting but they disagreed on whether she could have a representative present. She expects to be reprimanded at her next shift.)
In response to The Daily Beast’s questions about the captive audience meetings, Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said: “It’s our employees’ choice whether or not to join a union. It always has been. If the union vote passes, it will impact everyone at the site which is why we host regular informational sessions and provide employees the opportunity to ask questions and learn about what this could mean for them and their day-to-day life working at Amazon.”
Smalls, Daniels, and Anthony spent six hours in a precinct holding cell after the catering-related bust. After they were released, they returned to supply meals for employees on the night shift without incident. “I should have been treated like any other delivery service whether it’s Dominos Pizza, whether it’s Uber Eats, I was delivering catered food to the cafeteria,” Smalls said. “But that day they decided to threaten us and call the cops on us.”
Asked about the employees’ arrests, Nantel said, “Mr. Smalls—who is not employed by Amazon—has repeatedly trespassed despite multiple warnings. On Feb. 23, when police officers asked Mr. Smalls to leave, he instead chose to escalate the situation and the police made their own decision on how to respond.”
The spokeswoman claimed Amazon didn’t call the police on the employees, dismissed Smalls’ characterization that he was only delivering food and not soliciting, and said company lawyers have previously warned Smalls against trespassing. Smalls has tweeted a legal letter from corporate himself, which warned, “Amazon reserves all its legal rights and remedies should non-employee ALU members continue to attempt to access Amazon’s property for the purpose of engaging in solicitation.”
Core employee organizers told The Daily Beast that Amazon is now targeting them. Daniels said that after his arrest, an Amazon manager walked him to the HR office to receive a warning about removing company literature. He refused to discuss the matter without a coworker present, but later on, another supervisor approached him at his station and delivered the writeup. Daniels was attempting to invoke the Weingarten rights afforded to union employees under federal law, and ALU recently appealed to NLRB to allow these rights for the Amazon workers and all of America's non-union employees.
“Not only did the arrest happen, but immediately after, on my next shift going in, they reprimanded me,” Daniels said. “We feel that they’re retaliating against ALU organizers for speaking up and unionizing.”
Connor Spence was also disciplined this week and considers the situation an unfair fight. “Amazon has been aggressive at removing our union literature, confiscating it from us, tearing it down, prohibiting us access, threatening to call the police on us, actually calling the police on us,” he told The Daily Beast. “They did all that and got a slap on the wrist in some cases. When we do the same type of activity [removing fliers], we get disciplined.”
Derrick Palmer, another worker reprimanded by managers, said, “I find it strange how a month before the election everyone gets called down to the office and gets write-ups.” A fourth employee and activist, Justine Medina, claimed HR tried to pull her into a private meeting but the conversation stalled after she asked for a representative to witness it.
Seth Goldstein, a lawyer for the ALU, has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the NLRB about the arrests, claiming Amazon violated a national settlement agreement reached with the federal agency in December. He’s also lodged charges over Amazon’s discipline of organizers and captive audience meetings, saying they violate labor laws. Goldstein previously filed other charges accusing Amazon of surveillance of union members’ activities, interrogating employees, and threatening employees “that unionization is futile.” According to another charge, Bradley Moss, an anti-union consultant for Amazon, told employees that the ALU would fail because its leaders were “thugs.”
The consultant’s use of the term was unsettling because more than 60 percent of the facility’s workforce are people of color, as are many of ALU’s activists. “The union busters called us thugs,” Palmer said. “Clearly it’s a majority of minorities who are organizing, so how did you come up with that?”
Another charge that especially troubles Goldstein relates to Daequan Smith, a former Amazon employee who had been commuting to Staten Island from a homeless shelter in the Bronx and was allegedly fired in November because of his union activities. The NLRB agreed Amazon illegally terminated Smith and said it would file a complaint if the company doesn’t settle with him.
“We’re all collateral damage to Amazon,” said Goldstein, who represents the organizers pro bono. “While Bezos is laying on his billion-dollar yacht with his girlfriend, Daequan is in a homeless shelter. How is that right? That’s outrageous.”
“We have workers that are trying to form a union off a crowdfunding mechanism, that are independent of a union, and chose to go that way,” Goldstein told The Daily Beast. “They’re going up against a trillion-dollar company.”
“This whole thing is not just a Staten Island thing,” he said. “This is a national issue. I think at the end of the day, so goes Amazon, so goes labor rights in the United States.”
The union fight follows years’ worth of complaints about the grueling, fast-paced conditions at about 110 warehouses nationwide. To feed the company’s quotas for high-speed package deliveries, many “fulfillment center” employees have struggled with work-related injuries and mental-health crises. Some workers skip bathroom and lunch breaks, fearing they’ll be fired if they don’t keep up with demand since employee performance is tracked by company software, and managers monitor workers’ time away from their stations. According to The New York Times, the turnover rate for Amazon’s hourly associates is 150 percent per year, or a loss of 3 percent of employees each week. (Amazon delivery drivers say they’re facing similar problems. A North Carolina man recently sued Amazon after he lost his leg in an accident with a driver and blamed the company’s “unrealistic and dangerous speed expectations” for its workforce’s package deliveries.)
Amazon is also under fire over the death of six employees in Edwardsville, Illinois, who were killed when a tornado obliterated their facility. The family of one victim, Austin McEwen, has filed a lawsuit alleging Amazon “carelessly required” workers to “continue working up until the moments before the tornado struck.”
The deadly storm delayed Amazon’s plan to reinstate a ban on employee cellphones inside warehouses. Before COVID, workers were required to leave their phones in their cars or stow them in company lockers during their shifts, and rumors are swirling that the mandate will return after union elections. “It improves our working conditions just a little bit to be able to have our phones on breaks or to contact family members on the outside if you have an emergency,” Spence said. “It’s one of the biggest pressure points workers are seeing right now. Not having your phone in the warehouse is like being in solitary confinement.”
Staten Island organizers told The Daily Beast they feel that conditions haven’t improved within the windowless warehouse large enough to hold 18 football fields. “They’re starting to get back into writing people up if you don’t hit their target rates,” Medina said. “In the department I’m currently in… you’re supposed to pack two packages a minute.”
Throughout January, workers say, JFK8 mandated 60-hour work weeks. “They see an opportunity for profit, they take it,” Spence said. “I was shocked they did that, because it sent a lot of people our way.”
ALU advocates say they hope their fight will also win over Amazon customers.
“It’s not just as simple as one-click buy and a package magically appears on your doorstep,” Smalls told us. “You’re putting multiple people at risk every time you do that. I’ve watched ambulances pull up to this warehouse. These are the stories consumers don’t hear about. We’re asking them to stand in solidarity with the workers.”
“We’re the ones who represent the community they live in,” Smalls said. “Not the billionaires, not Jeff Bezos, who flies into space and comes back and thanks us for paying for it.”
For the past eight months, Henry Ruiz and his family have lived in a shelter, unable to venture more than a few blocks in fear of being apprehended by Mexican authorities or criminals. (photo: Nina Lakhani/Guardian UK)
Title 42, enacted under Trump and kept in place by Biden, has led to hundreds of thousands being denied their right to asylum since the start of the pandemic
It was June 2021, and a few weeks earlier Ruiz, a 28-year-old banana farmer from central Mexico, had been abducted by a group of armed men and taken to an isolated ranch where 15 others – 13 men and two women – were being held.
The assailants were members of an ultra-violent Mexican cartel fighting to take over the local banana industry, and needed to recruit locals as informants and hitmen in order to push out a rival gang and community self-defense force.
Ruiz was beaten with planks of wood and wire, leaving him with two broken ribs, gashes across his back and unable to see out of his right eye. Photos seen by the Guardian confirm the injuries.
According to Ruiz, he and five others were forced to kill and bury the rest of the detainees while gang members filmed the macabre acts. They took Ruiz’s motorbike, wallet and bank details before abandoning him on the road near his home. His bank account was emptied a few days later.
The family fled as soon as Ruiz was strong enough to travel and arrived in Sonoyta, a small border town in the state of Sonora, hoping to seek asylum in the US.
But the border was closed due to Title 42 – an arcane public health order issued in March 2020 by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under pressure from the Trump administration.
“We were traumatised and terrified, with nowhere else to go,” said Ruiz, tearing up while recounting his experiences.
Title 42, which the Biden government has elected to keep in place, has led to hundreds of thousands of people being denied their legal right to seek asylum since the start of the pandemic.
The order effectively replaced Remain in Mexico – another controversial Trump-era deterrent policy also known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) – and has used the pretext of Covid to authorize more than 1.4m expulsions at the border in the past two years.
“By and large immigration policy hasn’t changed under Biden, and that’s the problem,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the Washington-based American Immigration.
Across the border, huge numbers of people are stuck – unable to move forward or go back.
Ruiz said: “Title 42 has prevented us from living, everyday I wake up and nothing has changed. But the pandemic is just an excuse, as if people without papers can get Covid and those with papers are immune.”
For the past eight months, the family has lived in a shelter, unable to venture more than a few blocks in fear of being apprehended by Mexican authorities or criminals. Their daughter, a bright shy girl with a big smile who just turned seven, misses school and her grandparents; their one-year-old son recently learned to walk.
“I don’t know whether to cry or scream, we’re stuck and have no idea when this will end,” said Hernandez, 23, Ruiz’s wife.
Sonoyta is an unremarkable desert town with 20,000 people, a booming asparagus industry, and a minor border crossing popular with American snowbird retirees and tourists heading to the beach.
The town also has four shelters where almost 200 Mexicans and Central Americans had been stuck for months or more, hoping the Biden administration would rescind title 42.
But last month, about a third left after immigration attorneys visiting the migrant resource centre told them that the border would likely remain shut unless pending litigation succeeded in exempting families from title 42.
It’s not clear where they all went, but some tried their luck seeking asylum at other border crossings like Reynosa, Tamaulipas (which borders Phar, Texas), where the state governor banned Biden from expelling families with children under seven. Others paid coyotes or smugglers to cross the Sonoran desert – where thousands of people have died trying to traverse the remote, punishing terrain.
“Title 42 has nothing to do with Covid, it’s a terrific vehicle for stopping immigration,” said John Orlowski from Shelters for Hope, a non-profit which helped set-up the resource centre that provides meals, clothes, internet and medical care. “For people here the situation is worse under Biden: there’s no progress, few exceptions, and no updates.”
In essence, title 42 has prohibited the vast majority of Mexicans and Central Americans from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala – the countries which historically account for most migrants and refugees – from being allowed to seek asylum in the US.
Across the southern border, just over half of all arrivals have been turned away and expelled to Mexico or flown home on charter flights since the start of the pandemic, including thousands of Haitian asylum seekers. (Millions of Americans and those with visas enter the country overland and by plane every month.)
But in south-west Arizona, where Trump constructed a 30ft border wall across the Sonoran desert through sacred Indigenous land and protected national parks, more than 80% of people have been expelled without the opportunity to make their case.
“The Tucson sector has one of the highest expulsion rates along the border and the exemptions have no rhyme or reason which leaves people desperate. The Biden administration keeps hiding behind the CDC but the evidence suggests that title 42 has become part of the deterrent policy, and has nothing to do with public health,” said Reichlin-Melnick.
There’s a major US customs and border protection (CBP) station between Sonoyta and Ajo, Arizona – a former mining community now popular with retirees, artists and humanitarian groups.
But desperate people do desperate things, and this area has seen the highest level of desert deaths ever recorded.
On a hot cloudless day last week, the Guardian accompanied volunteers from Ajo Samaritans on a tough hike to drop gallons of water and cans of beans in two remote areas where people are currently passing through.
It was deep into the desert – a two-hour drive from Ajo, followed by a nine-mile round trip on foot through Organ Pipe Cactus national monument and Cabeza Prieta wildlife refuge – with virtually no shade. In the summer, temperatures regularly top 100F (38C).
As migrants are forced to take longer, harder routes to avoid surveillance technology and border patrols, humanitarian groups struggle to keep up and get water to the right places.
But amid the vast desolate cacti forest there were signs of recent human activity: empty energy drink cans, a pair of ripped beige jeans, a black cardigan and several worn out carpet shoes – makeshift denim slippers to avoid leaving footprints. Three gallons of water left by the volunteers a week earlier – their first drop at this location – were gone.
The group came across two degraded bones in separate locations. Each was photographed and sent to the Pima county coroner, the location tagged on GPS, and the spot marked with a dated red ribbon. This was followed by a moment’s silence to reflect on the 3,830 immigrants who have died in the Arizona Sonora desert, and the disappeared not yet found.
The coroner later confirmed that neither bone was human. Still, two degraded human remains have been found during water drops by these volunteers in the past fortnight. In January, 15 bodies were found across the desert, most months after they had died, according to Humane Borders and Pima county. In 2021, 226 mostly recently deceased bodies were recovered, a record high.
“This isn’t just about title 42 or Remain in Mexico, it’s the prevention through detention (PTD) policy and continued increase in militarization of the border since 1994, which has forced people further and further into the desert. The PTD legislation is designed to kill people, and since its implementation the number of deaths has increased every year,” said Jo, a seasoned volunteer who asked for her surname be withheld.
In his 2022 State of the Union address, Biden’s promise to reform immigration was met with derision by advocates.
“President Biden is not just carrying out the toxic, white supremacist legacy of the Trump era, but unbelievably in some instances he has doubled down,” said Erika Andiola of the advocacy group Racies, in response to the speech.
Both the White House and the CDC recently relaxed guidance on Covid public health measures as part of the “new phase” of the pandemic, without mentioning title 42.
Avril Benoît, executive director of Doctors Without Borders USA, said: “The Biden administration is promoting a policy of learning to live with the virus, yet continues applying title 42 to turn away people seeking protection in the US … This is an outrageous double standard.”
While the administration asked the supreme court to overturn a lower court decision blocking the end of Remain in Mexico, it has also expanded the pool of immigrants to which the policy applies. The CDC, which exempted unaccompanied children from title 42 soon after Biden took office, said it continues to review whether the order remains necessary to protect the public health every 60 days.
Back in Sonoyta, Ruiz and Hernandez don’t have the money to pay a coyote to try and cross the dangerous desert or even get them to a different port of entry where they may be allowed to apply for asylum. Even if they could borrow the money, there’s no way of knowing if they would be granted a rare exemption or simply turned away.
Ruiz said: “I had a good job, we were happy. But now we have no choice, we must wait for an opportunity to sit down with someone and explain what happened and why we can never go back.”
Philonise Floyd, center, is embraced by his brother Terrence Floyd, left, and attorney Benjamin Crump during a prayer vigil for George Floyd's family in Minneapolis last March. (photo: Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
More than $1.5 billion has been spent to settle claims of police misconduct involving thousands of officers repeatedly accused of wrongdoing. Taxpayers are often in the dark.
As the officers banged on the door, Murray ordered Keno, his black Labrador retriever, to the basement. As Murray let the officers in, one quickly pushed him to the floor and at least two others ran to the cellar, he said. “Don’t kill my dog. He won’t bite you,” Murray pleaded. The sound of gunshots filled the house. Keno’s barking, the 56-year-old recalled, morphed into the sound of “a girl screaming.”
Officers searched Murray’s home for nearly an hour, flipping his sofa and emptying drawers. Outside, Murray approached the officers standing by their vehicles. One handed him a copy of the search warrant, which stated they were looking for illegal drugs. Murray noticed something else: The address listed wasn’t his. It was his neighbor’s.
Months after the 2014 raid, Murray, who was not charged with any crimes, sued Detroit police for gross negligence and civil rights violations, naming Officer Lynn Christopher Moore, who filled out the search warrant, and the other five officers who raided his home. The city eventually paid Murray $87,500 to settle his claim, but admitted no error by police.
That settlement was not the first or last time that Detroit would resolve allegations against Moore with a check: Between 2010 and 2020, the city settled 10 claims involving Moore’s police work, paying more than $665,000 to individuals who alleged the officer used excessive force, made an illegal arrest or wrongfully searched a home.
Moore is among the more than 7,600 officers — from Portland, Ore., to Milwaukee to Baltimore — whose alleged misconduct has more than once led to payouts to resolve lawsuits and claims of wrongdoing, according to a Washington Post investigation. The Post collected data on nearly 40,000 payments at 25 of the nation’s largest police and sheriff’s departments within the past decade, documenting more than $3.2 billion spent to settle claims.
LGBT groups have protested against the law, which was first introduced in Congress in 2017. (photo: Getty)
Guatemala's Congress has voted in favour of a law which prohibits same-sex marriage.
Abortion is banned in Guatemala except in cases where the woman's life is at risk.
In order to come into force, the law still needs to be signed by Guatemala's president, Alejandro Giammattei.
The "Life and Family Protection Law" was passed by an overwhelming majority in the conservative-led Congress. Only eight lawmakers out of 160 voted against it.
It is not yet clear, whether Mr Giammattei, a conservative, will sign it but many members of his party gave their backing to it.
Under the law, women who "have induced their own abortion or given their consent to another person to carry it out" will face a minimum of five years in jail, but the sentences could be much higher.
If signed by the president, it will reform Guatemala's Civil Code to "expressly prohibit same-sex marriages".
The law also stipulates that schools be banned from teaching pupils that "anything other than heterosexuality is normal".
One of the lawmakers who supported the bill, Patricia Sandoval, said that "under the concept of family we understand the union between a man and a woman".
Guatemala's human rights ombudsman, Jordán Rodas, called it a violation of rights and a "setback to freedom" and vowed to challenge it.
Opposition lawmaker Lucrecia Hernández urged President Giammattei to veto the law, arguing that it was unconstitutional.
Plastic packaging on fresh fruits and vegetables increases food waste, a new study finds. (photo: Katrin Sauerwein/Getty)
UK waste reduction nonprofit the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) understands your confusion, and, after an 18-month study, it found that plastic packaging and use-by dates on whole, fresh fruits and vegetables increases food waste, The Guardian reported. The study also found that wrapping the produce in plastic does not increase its shelf life and the packaging often forces shoppers to buy more than is needed, thus leading to more wasted food.
WRAP recommended that retailers sell these products loose and without best-before labels, reported the Ulster Grocer.
“While packaging is important and often carries out a critical role to protect food, we have proven that plastic packaging doesn’t necessarily prolong the life of uncut fresh produce,” said WRAP CEO Marcus Gover, as The Independent reported. “It can in fact increase food waste in this case. We have shown the massive potential to save good food from being thrown away by removing date labels.”
WRAP is also seeking the removal of other “unnecessary” single-use plastics under The UK Plastics Pact, such as those used on multiple packages of canned food and sauce packets used in restaurants, reported the Ulster Grocer.
During the WRAP study, broccoli, potatoes, apples, bananas and cucumbers were stored at different temperatures, both in the packaging and without, The Guardian reported. By the researchers’ calculations, every year more than 10,300 tons of plastic are wasted, along with about 100,000 tons of food, due to plastic packaging and use-by dates. That is equal to 14 million shopping baskets worth of food.
About a third of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK are linked to food and drink.
Removing the packaging and labels would stop the circulation of 1,100 garbage trucks worth of plastic, reported the Ulster Grocer.
When it came to the amount of food being wasted, packaging wasn’t found to be as important as people being able to buy the correct amount of food for them and the storage of the food they purchased.
“We found that storing food in the fridge at below five degrees gave days, weeks, and, in the case of apples, months more quality product life,” Gover said, as The Guardian reported. “We found that for most items, the plastic packaging they were sold in made little or no difference to their shelf life.”
WRAP plans to talk with government agencies and the food industry about making loose fruits and vegetables available in stores.
“We are all living with the reality of the climate emergency and the rising cost of living. This new clarity could not be more timely. We need retailers to step up and follow our recommendations so we can achieve real progress in tackling food waste and plastic pollution. This helps save the planet and us money at the same time – a real win-win,” Gover said, as reported by the Ulster Grocer.
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