A DISTANT MEMORY FROM THE PAST

 Those US progressives liberals who called for a vote for Biden as the lesser evil to Trump have a lot explaining to do when it comes to immigration policy.

Biden is over-seeing a new US practice of transferring asylum seekers and migrants expelled under public health order Title 42 by plane to southern Mexico without any opportunity to plead their asylum case.

The Department of Homeland Security admitted families were sent back to their home countries, including Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras

“Removal from the US to southern Mexico, outside any official transfer agreement with appropriate legal safeguards, increases the risk of chain refoulement – pushbacks by successive countries – of vulnerable people in danger, in contravention of international law and the humanitarian principles of the 1951 Refugee Convention,” Matthew Reynolds, the UNHCR representative to the United States and the Caribbean, said in a statement.

Reynolds also said the expulsion flights would further strain the humanitarian response capacity in southern Mexico and heighten the risk of Covid-19 transmission across national borders.

“UNHCR reiterates the May 2021 appeal by UN high commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi for the United States government to swiftly lift the Title 42 public health-related asylum restrictions that remain in effect and to restore access to asylum for people whose lives depend on it,” said Reynolds.

UN refugee agency concerned as US deports migrants to southern Mexico | US immigration | The Guardian

 Tyson Foods is ranked 73rd on the Fortune 500 list, with a revenue of $43bn in the last fiscal year.

Tyson accounts for the single largest share of chicken plants across the US, processing 2.3 billion birds in 2020. 

Tyson is one of the world’s largest food companies, with 139,000 US employees and 177 slaughter and processing plants across 21 states.

The company supplies burgers and nuggets, among other chicken products, to chains including Walmart, McDonalds, KFC and Taco Bell, as well as schools and prisons.

Tyson controls almost every part of its supply chain, including the mills that process grains into animal feed and the hatcheries that produce eggs. It contracts farmers for their labor raising chicks, paying them according to how well they perform compared with other farmers.

 Tyson spends big on politics, having invested a total of nearly $18m in lobbying.

The hold that America’s largest meat processing company has on the chicken industry has generated dire consequences for its workers, farmers and the environment.

In Arkansas, where the multinational is headquartered, the company currently accounts for an estimated two-thirds of processed poultry sales. It’s a near monopoly in Arkansas. Tyson and the other three top firms control about 87% of poultry production in the state. Economists and food justice advocates largely agree that consumers, farmers, workers, small companies and the planet lose out if the top four firms control 40% or more of any market.

A five-month investigation is based on research and analysis of the most recently available economic, government and industry data, and interviews with labor and farming advocates as well as current and former workers at three Tyson plants.

Its findings include:

Market dominance: Tyson operates almost half the poultry slaughter and processing facilities in Arkansas – the state with the largest number of plants and contract farms in the country.

Farm closures: A complex contracting system used by Tyson and other major processors has coincided with the closure and consolidation of thousands of poultry farms.

Employee benefits cut: Some breaks and bonuses have been curbed, including combining the previously separate annual Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

A points-based disciplinary system is used to pressure employees to comply with obligatory overtime which keeps many fearful employees working even when injured or sick.

Covid outbreaks: Measures to limit the spread of Covid have been inadequate or poorly implemented, resulting in multiple deaths at its Arkansas plants.

Misleading job advertisements offering new recruits $15 per hour are deceptive as most roles are excluded, according to employees. The Guardian interviewed workers with more than 20 years at Tyson earning below $14 an hour.

Speed and output targets are prioritized over employee welfare, hygiene and food safety, according to workers from three plants interviewed by the Guardian.

Cockroaches, flies and crickets are rife in some plants and can end up in chicken nuggets and burgers supplied to schools, fast food joints and supermarkets, workers said.

 The economist Rebecca Boehm, lead author of the new UCS report Tyson spells trouble for Arkansas, explains “When a company like Tyson can get so big and powerful, where they have a near-monopoly and monopsony in their industry, they make their own rules and rake in profits, while everyone else suffers.”

Tyson contracts farmers to raise millions of chicks and then dispose of the litter generated in the densely confined factory farms. In 2017, its Arkansas farms produced about 50bn lb of this fecal waste – which is used as fertilizer but which studies show contributes to poor air quality and can contaminate local waterways. Large Latino and Indigenous communities in Benton and Washington counties are disproportionately impacted.

Plant workers and residents are blighted by offensive odours and noise pollution, which have a detrimental impact on their health, quality of life and house prices. “I don’t complain because I don’t want to alienate the biggest employer in the area, but I haven’t had people over in almost 20 years,” said Matthew Pelto, a homeowner who lives opposite Tyson’s huge plant in downtown Springdale.

As a near monopoly, Tyson can largely dictate worker wages and prices for farmers, as well as a whole range of conditions and regulations affecting everything from animal welfare to worker safety to environmental hazards.

“The farmers are on a treadmill, earning only what the big corporations are willing to pay, regardless of the true labor and environmental costs,” said Joe Maxwell, president of Family Farm Action.

Raquel Jimenez has lived in the US for 35 years – most of which she’s spent working for Tyson’s flagship Springdale plant.

Jimenez works six days a week at the imposing slaughter and processing facility, including obligatory overtime every Saturday even though she’d rather be home with her children and grandchildren. If she doesn’t go in, Jimenez will get one to three punitive points; 14 points gets you fired.

In the past, workers report, they earned two hours’ credit for every obligatory Saturday shift, but that benefit was cut several years back. Two half-hour breaks have been cut to one 20-minute break, during which workers must remove their protective gear, heat up their food, eat, go to the bathroom, redress, and be back on the line. Supervisors stand around the dining room, making sure no one is late back.

“We barely have time to eat and it’s tense and uncomfortable with them watching us. I’m fed up but it’s hard to complain. They could fire me at any moment,” said Jimenez. “As Tyson has made more money, our benefits have been cut and cut. It’s very disheartening. If we were Americans, they wouldn’t treat us like this. It’s racism against migrants.” 

 31,000 mostly Black and brown people work in Arkansas’ poultry slaughter and processing industry, accounting for 10% of the nationwide industry total. The jobs are often fast and repetitive, with workers exposed to hazards including chemicals, extreme temperatures, dangerous equipment, excessive noise and in some cases unfair and degrading treatment by supervisors and nurses.

Non-fatal injury and illness rates in the poultry-processing industry were higher than in all other private industries.

 Covid hospitalizations are at an all-time high in Arkansas, but public health measures are not being implemented in the plants, according to employees.  It is named in several ongoing lawsuits for alleged negligence that allowed Covid to spread in its plants.

Tyson has been fined at least $169m since 2000 for employment, antitrust and environmental violations.

 Carlos Sanchez, 39, is a machine operator and says the quantity of chicken nuggets and burgers produced every shift has risen substantially since he started, while staff numbers have been cut. This can impact worker and food safety.

Sanchez said: “Tyson earns billions while we have to work in brutal conditions for low pay. I would never recommend anyone work for the company.”

‘They rake in profits – everyone else suffers’: US workers lose out as big chicken gets bigger | Environment | The Guardian

 Salmonella is the second leading cause of food poisoning in the US, making an estimated 1.35 million Americans sick annually, and leading to about 26,500 hospitalisations and 420 deaths.

US Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulations aim to curtail – but not eliminate – the bacteria. Under the current “performance standards”, for example, up to 15.4% of chicken parts leaving a processing plant are permitted to test positive for salmonella. 

Contamination exceeds those levels in about one in 10 plants, according to a report in July by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). Chicken and turkey are responsible for about a fifth of infections – more than any other food category.

 The infection rate remains stubbornly high. A 2020 CDC report said: “The incidence of most infections transmitted commonly through food has not declined for many years.” It found that the incidence of illnesses, hospitalisations and deaths due to salmonella rose by 5% in 2019 compared with the previous three years.

Current regulations for salmonella in poultry are “antiquated”, says Brian Ronholm, director of food policy for the US non-profit organisation Consumer Reports, who has called for stronger enforceable standards over the salmonella strains that pose the greatest public health risk.

Advocacy groups have petitioned the USDA, without success, to enact a zero-tolerance policy for certain types of salmonella in poultry.  A federal court ruled that the USDA could not shut down a plant for failing to meet salmonella standards because the bacteria occur naturally in animals and can be destroyed by proper cooking.

Chemical washes do not kill all bacteria.

“If you want to eliminate the worst types of salmonella, you really do have to start at the farm because that’s where the pathogens are spreading between animals,” says Sarah Sorscher, deputy director of regulatory affairs at the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest.  . That might involve vaccinating poultry and regularly testing flocks to control a worrisome strain before it spreads, she adds.

Reducing nastier strains of salmonella before poultry reaches the slaughterhouse has been proven to work. 

 Trade organisations claim the FSIS has no jurisdiction over farms and cannot legally compel processors to take responsibility for how poultry growers raise their birds.

Why salmonella is a food poisoning killer that won’t go away in the US | Food safety | The Guardian

 Wild forest fires are appearing all over the world. The latest in the media headlines is now Algeria. Western North America, Russia, Turkey, Lebanon, Greece, Italy. Where next?

“This is what climate scientists have been warning about for years now,” says Park Williams, a hydroclimatologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Drought and fire have always been a part in climates, but increasing heat, which scientists say is directly attributable to human-caused climate change, has had a devastating impact. “These things amplify each other,” Williams says, adding that the effects exponentially increase.

New research also suggests that the wildfires themselves will increase drought and heat, adding a new dimension to the catastrophic cycle. Researchers are discussing hypotheses, Andrew Hoell, a meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration explains, that smoke and aerosols released into the atmosphere by wildfires can alter weather patterns. There are already studies that show wildfires influence the formation of clouds in the sky and could decrease precipitation.

Although more research is needed to better understand these complex relationships, the scientific record is clear that rising heat will lead to an increase in extreme events.

Heat, drought and fire: how climate dangers combine for a catastrophic ‘perfect storm’ | Climate crisis in the American west | The Guardian

 Many young people listen to Greta Thunberg and some of the media believes she speaks for them.

In an interview with the style and culture magazine, Vogue Scandinavia, she called out fast fashion companies for “greenwashing”.

 Thunberg pointed out the contradiction between mass-produced fashion and sustainability.

“Many are making it look as if the fashion industry are starting to take responsibility, by spending fantasy amounts on campaigns where they portray themselves as ‘sustainable’, ‘ethical’, ‘green’, ‘climate neutral’ and ‘fair’,” Thunberg wrote. “But let’s be clear: This is almost never anything but pure greenwashing. You cannot mass produce fashion or consume ‘sustainably’ as the world is shaped today. That is one of the many reasons why we will need a system change.”

“The fashion industry is a huge contributor to the climate-and-ecological emergency,” she continued, “not to mention its impact on the countless workers and communities who are being exploited around the world in order for some to enjoy fast fashion that many treat as disposable(s).”

Greta added that there was a misconception around the attitude of activists.

“This is some kind of misconception about activists, especially about climate activists that we are just negative and pessimists and we are just complaining, and we are trying to spread fear but that’s the exact opposite,” she said. “We are doing this because we are hopeful, we are hopeful that we will be able to make the changes necessary.”

Greta Thunberg: ethical fast fashion is ‘pure greenwashing’ | Fashion | The Guardian

Street Stall

August 14, 

Queen St, Cardiff, Sat 2-4pm

The Economic Policy Institute finds that CEO pay in the United States rose by a staggering 1,322% between 1978 and 2020—a sharp contrast to the pay increase of the typical worker, which was just 18% during that same period.

In 2020, a year of pandemic and widespread economic dislocation, the top executives at the largest public firms in the U.S. were paid 351 times as much as the typical worker, with CEO pay measured by salary, bonuses, long-term incentive payouts, and exercised stock options. The CEO-to-worker-pay ratio was 61-to-1 in 1989.

 In 2020, EPI finds, a CEO at one of the top 350 public companies in the U.S. was paid $24.2 million on average.

CEOs saw their compensation increase by 18.9% between 2019 and 2020 while the pay of typical workers—those who were able to hold on to their jobs amid mass layoffs stemming from the pandemic—rose just 3.9% over that time.

“Even that wage growth is overstated,” notes EPI, which has been tracking and documenting executive pay trends for years. “Perversely, high job loss among low-wage workers skewed the average wage higher.”

“CEOs are getting more because of their power to set pay and because so much of their pay (more than 80%) is stock-related, not because they are increasing their productivity or possess specific, high-demand skills,” Mishel and Kandra write. 

Since 1978, CEO Pay Has Risen 1,322%. Typical Worker Pay? Just 18% | Common Dreams News

 In response to the latest U.N. report, Greta Thunberg said world leaders had ignored scientists’ previous warnings about climate change:

“I expect them to go out and have big speeches, or press releases, or posts on social media where they say the climate crisis is very important and we are doing everything that we can,” Thunberg said. “As it is now, nothing is changing. The only thing that’s changing is the climate.”

The long-awaited IPCC report has now been made public and it does not make for any reassuring reading.

A 2m rise in sea levels by the end of this century “cannot be ruled out”.

The long-awaited IPCC report has now been made public and it does not make for any reassuring reading.

A 2m rise in sea levels by the end of this century “cannot be ruled out”.