Feb. 6, 2020

The NFLPA Has Taken an Important Stand When It Comes to Amazon
By Barrington M. Salmon

 

 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - National Football League is capping off its most challenging season yet, from games with no spectators to what is hoped is a sustained and honest focus on racial justice issues. Despite these challenges, the league has made efforts to ensure the fan experience remained intact for those unable to watch their favorite team play in person, meaning streaming service providers — such as Amazon — have taken on a much larger role.

But against the backdrop of the league’s apparent commitment to social justice, the NFL Players Association (NFLPA)’s decision to endorse a landmark unionization effort at Amazon stands in stark contrast to Amazon’s troubling treatment of its workers. With all eyes on the league for a Super Bowl unlike any other, the NFLPA is demonstrating that it will use its platform and considerable voice to speak out when companies like Amazon profit off of the league but are unwilling to treat their workers with dignity and respect. For that we commend the NFLPA.

Sports streaming marks Amazon’s latest industry disruption, as the e-commerce giant attempts to become the exclusive platform for NFL games. With full stadium capacity unlikely to be allowed any time soon because of the coronavirus global pandemic, the company appears set on tightening its grip on the $100 billion market that will only grow more lucrative in the coming years.

However, Amazon also has its eyes on Bessemer, Ala., where its warehouse workers are engaged in a historic fight for unionization. The upcoming vote is the closest that Amazon employees have ever gotten to forming a union, and organizers have been working around the clock to ensure that its workers have their voices heard on such a vital and important issue.

The NFLPA, which has long been a champion for worker issues, has been one of the most notable groups to come out in support of the workers in Bessemer. In a video posted to Twitter, current and former NFL players discussed the importance of union representation and the valuable benefits that come with it — benefits that they have access to, unlike Amazon employees nationwide.

Mail-in balloting begins on Monday, Feb. 8. According to the Washington Post, 5,805 workers will receive ballots via the mail from the National Labor Relations Board. Workers will have seven weeks to decide if they want the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union to represent them. A yes vote would make the Bessemer facility the first Amazon warehouse in the United States to unionize. This is a struggle for better working conditions, higher wages and addressing other issues such as tough and uncompromising performance targets for workers, the lack of adequate bathroom breaks and overheated facilities.

 

Amazon’s actions in Bessemer are only its latest attempt to crush the desire and efforts of employees organizing for better wages and conditions. Amazon is not shy about playing hardball. For example, its intelligence analysts have monitored the labor and union-organizing activity of workers across Europe, while doing the same with the social media content of Amazon environmental and social justice groups. Amazon has even hired Pinkerton spies to keep a close eye on its warehouse employees. We can’t legislate morality or compassion, but this type of behavior is unconscionable and deserves to be exposed and Amazon sanctioned or punished in ways that will get its attention.

It should come as no surprise that the company pursued such an aggressive campaign against this recent push from organized labor. Amazon has flooded its workers with anti-union messaging, from carpet-bombing warehouse bathrooms with fliers to launching a glossy website that urges employees to “get the facts about joining a union.” In addition, the company opposed a mail-in unionization vote in the middle of a deadly pandemic, signaling it is willing to put its own employees in danger to keep them from organizing.

The unionization efforts in Alabama are illustrative of Amazon’s longstanding, horrific and sickening treatment of its workers, which has been seen most clearly as we contend with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Whether it was Whole Foods cashiers, warehouse employees, or hardware engineers, all evidence points to the same stark conclusion: Amazon does not care about its workers.

Feb. 3, 2021

It’s Time for Action on a Stimulus Package
By Jesse Jackson

Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued to threaten to filibuster against Biden's $1.9 trillion.

President Joe Biden 

NEWS ANALYSIS

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In his first 10 days in office, Joe Biden has launched an intense effort to address the “cascading crises” that America faces. In addition to issuing executive orders to reverse several of Trump’s most poisonous acts — ending federal contracting with private prisons, reviving enforcement of discrimination laws, ending the Muslim ban, reentering the Paris Climate Accord, and much more — Biden has put forth a bold rescue plan to deal with the human and economic costs of the pandemic.

He has declared climate change an existential threat and a national security priority and has promised a renewed effort to address systemic racism and other forms of discrimination. The question now is whether he will continue to push forward against the resistance of Republicans in the House and Senate and the timidity of the establishment.

The first test is on the pandemic rescue plan. Biden’s $1.9 trillion plan is constructed to meet specific needs: a major public health drive to get Americans vaccinated and to ramp up testing and tracking and treatment; aid to Americans to counter the continuing economic distress caused by the pandemic with millions facing the end of federal support for unemployment; and emergency assistance to states and cities now facing devastating service cuts to deal with deficits that have exploded as their economies shut down and their revenues collapsed. Republicans have denounced the Biden plan from the get-go.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised to filibuster against the plan, forcing it to pass with a super majority of 60 votes, or through budget reconciliation by a majority vote. Republicans warn against using reconciliation, saying that it would torpedo all efforts at bipartisan cooperation. Bipartisan cooperation? Are they totally without memory or shame?

These are the same Republican senators who used reconciliation to pass the Trump tax cuts that larded billions in tax breaks on the richest Americans. These are the same Republicans who went along with Trump’s lies, refusing to recognize that Biden won the election for weeks, and then voted against even holding a trial for Trump in the Senate after he was impeached for instigating the rioters who broke into the Capitol. Now suddenly, they have the nerve to question Biden’s commitment to working across the aisle. Ten Republicans — only three of whom voted to support a Senate trial on Trump’s impeachment — have put forth what is billed as an alternative plan that would cost $600 billion. It isn’t designed to address what’s needed; it’s designed only to be less.

It contains no money for states and localities. That would lead to massive layoffs of police, firefighters, teachers, transit workers and drastic cuts in services in the midst of the pandemic. Their plan would reduce the amount of support for Americans and reduce the number of Americans eligible for relief, despite the fact that Trump supported Biden’s $1,400 stimulus check figure and Democrats won the election campaigning on it. Their plan would lower federal unemployment benefits and limit their extension to June. With a million people a week still filing for unemployment, and the bill unlikely to be passed until March, this will put at risk the millions still unable to find work because of the shutdowns caused by the coronavirus.

Their plan would drastically reduce the funds available for reopening schools safely, and for sustaining public transport in the midst of the crisis. They offer no reason for these cuts other than complaining that the Biden plan is too expensive. Somehow for “moderate Republicans” it costs too much to aid working and poor people but never costs too much to lavish billions in tax benefits to fellow millionaires and billionaires. The country is in crisis. Millions of children go hungry. Tens of millions face eviction or the loss of their homes. A million a week are still filing for unemployment insurance. We are headed toward 500,000 deaths from the coronavirus, with new, more contagious variants now just beginning to spread. This is not a time for timidity or for posturing. It is a time for action.

Feb. 1, 2021

 

 

“There’s a Lot Left to Be Done”

By Ben Jealous

 

 

 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - February is Black History Month – and Black people just made a whole lot of history.

 

Joe Biden is our president and Donald Trump is not because Black organizers and voters decided that they would not be denied their right as American citizens to be heard at the ballot box.

 

 

Kamala Harris is our history-making vice president, a Black and Southeast Asian woman and the daughter of immigrants, thanks to the millions of Black people who encouraged family, friends, and neighbors to vote.

 

 

Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are senators because Black people and their allies in Georgia turned out in November, and again in January, to signal a new day in the heart of the Old South.

 

 

All this makes me grateful that Black History Month comes in February. It encourages us to think about those who made these historic moments possible.

 

I’m thinking about the freedom fighters and voting rights activists – and the courageous ordinary people whose names don’t show up in history books, but who showed up to fight against injustice. They often faced violence and brutality that was fueled by the racist power structure’s desire to maintain power at all costs.

 

 

Does that sound familiar? Just a few weeks ago, we saw our democracy challenged by that same kind of poison. We watched a president incite his supporters to violence by denying the legitimacy of Black people’s votes. The rage among Trump’s followers was stoked by endless repetitions of the lie that so-called real Americans had reelected him in a landslide, and that the election was stolen from them by corrupt big-city machines—read Black officials and voters—and their communist allies.

 

 

Black History Month is a good time to remember that Martin Luther King Jr. and the movement he led were also smeared as communists out to destroy America.

 

 

And you don’t have to be a historian to have noticed the Confederate flags and the lynching noose brought to the Capitol on January 6 by the mob that claimed they were taking back the election and the country.

 

 

In 2013, conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, which has long been considered the crown jewel of the civil rights movement.

 

 

Immediately, state legislators, especially in the old Confederate states, took advantage of the federal government’s forced retreat from justice. They passed all kinds of new restrictions on voting. People in the civil rights and voting rights movements did not give up in despair after that devastating setback. They knew that every bit of progress is met with resistance. And the greater the progress, the greater the backlash.

 

 

Right-wing politicians are already responding to Black voters’ turnout and the victories they made possible by preparing new plans to restrict voting. Some Pennsylvania Republicans who were supporters of voting by mail just a couple years ago are now trying to end it. We must defeat these efforts.

 

 

As we welcome the Biden-Harris administration and encourage them to govern boldly to advance equality, justice, and opportunity, I think back to 2009, when Barack Obama made history as our first Black president. That year, I participated in a Story Corps conversation with my mother and grandmother about their own histories of civil rights activism. My grandmother—who is still with us today at age 104—sent me off with a message that is just as true today: “There’s a lot left to be done.”

 

 

There are many ways to think about the stubborn resistance to the full inclusion of Black people in this country. Right now, I want to focus on this: The civil rights movement’s victories were especially amazing given the intensity of the opposition. Our recent election wins are even more impressive when you consider that they were won in the face of powerful political forces working to make it harder for people to vote.

 

 

Our optimism and hope are grounded in our history of overcoming.

 

 

Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and People For the American Way Foundation. Jealous has decades of experience as a leader, coalition builder, campaigner for social justice and seasoned nonprofit executive. In 2008, he was chosen as the youngest-ever president and CEO of the NAACP. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and he has taught at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.

Feb. 1, 2021

Should You Worry About COVID-19 Mutations?
By Glenn Ellis

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The newest mutations of the COIVD-19 showing up in the United States will bring with it, over the next three or four weeks, the most difficult days of the pandemic we have seen so far. Studies in laboratories show that a mutation makes a person’s antibodies less effective at killing the virus. Viral mutations help a virus to disguise parts of its recognizable traits, so the pathogen might have an easier time slipping past immune protection. These mutations can also tell us what we don’t know…what lies ahead, in terms of other mutations and/or future pandemics.

The job for all of us now is to, first and foremost, survive; stay alive; and be as healthy as possible. Our second “job” is to learn and educate ourselves as much as we can; empowering ourselves with better understandings on how to ask the “right” questions; where to go for credible; factual information that you can trust; and to “personalize” the pandemic, by learning exactly what is necessary for you and your family to be safe and protected during this, and future pandemics…rest assured, there will be others. None of the experts can predict when; but they all agree that it’s not if, but when. Among the many options this pandemic is providing for us to “learn”, we are being introduced to a range of new questions, as a result of the introductions of mutant variants.

Mutations in viruses -including COVID-19 - are not new nor were they unexpected. All RNA viruses mutate over time, some more than others. We are all familiar with the how flu viruses change often, which is why you get a new flu vaccine every year. When viruses mutate, generally, they either kill the virus (a type of “virus-suicide”) or they can have no effect whatsoever on the normal behavior of the virus. To date, we are seeing variants (or mutant strains) from the United Kingdom; South Africa; and Brazil all hitting the United States at the same time, while we’re battling furiously against the rage of the initial version of COVID-19. Now, that there technically four different strains of a deadly virus circulating.

Scientists initially felt there was no cause for concern about the vaccines being distributed not being effective against emerging mutations, after hearing of a mutant strain being reported in United Kingdom. South African officials noticed that their mutant strain not only appeared to make the virus more able to spread (or transmit), and more capable of evading the immune system’s response; alarms bells sounded when the antibodies produced in people who had previously recovered from COVID did not completely neutralize a variant. This mutation phenomena became even more concerning when, contrary to all prior global clinical experience with the virus to date, this month researchers reported, for the first time that the mutant strain shows initial indications that it has the ability to evade the vaccine.

News of this has caused mixed reactions from different stakeholders.

You see, when this thing first made its’ appearance, public health experts and scientist knew it would bad, but they felt that at least it would be stable. As it turns out they were only half right; it is bad, but it is anything but stable.

Pfizer and Moderna, have been reluctant to support any changes to their respective vaccination schedules. The drug makers on grounds that the vaccines weren’t tested and so their efficacy is unknown. On the face of it, this position seems sensible; yet under current circumstances, it is dangerously overcautious. Some researchers and scientists think more lives would be saved by providing just one dose of the vaccine as soon as possible, or as others think, maybe we should provide just one dose of the vaccine to all people who face the highest risk of dying from Covid-19, whoever they are, for whatever the reason.

With all of the uncertainty surrounding mutations of COVID-19, the last thing we need to do is to minimize the potential of the vaccines to control this pandemic. We don’t have to worry that the mutation will make the existing vaccines available useless. The vaccines available now have what’s known as a polyclonal response, causing armies of antibodies to attack different parts of the virus. When the virus starts to mutate, causing changes to any of those target sites this increases the potential for the vaccine to be less effective, or not work at all.

There is growing concern among scientists who think the coronavirus could eventually change so much that the vaccines could reach a pint of providing no immunity. The more that people are protected from the virus - either through vaccination or infection – the more evolutionary pressure that puts on the virus to survive by mutating. Even though it would take years to reach that point of evolutionary mutation, could take years, the vaccine makers are confident that can modify their formulas to match a newer variant in only take weeks.

In the spirit of empowering the community with adequate information to make informed decisions, keep in mind that we are not helpless, we could wipe COIVD-19 out, if everyone wore a mask for 4 weeks.

Remember, I’m not a doctor. I just sound like one! Take good care of yourself and live the best life possible!

The information included in this column is for educational purposes only. I do not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a replacement form of treatment for physical, mental or medical problems by your doctor either directly or indirectly. Glenn Ellis, MPH is a Visiting Scholar at The National Bioethics Center at Tuskegee University and a Harvard Medical School Bioethics Fellow. He is author of Which Doctor? and Information is the Best Medicine. Ellis is an active media contributor on Health Equity and Medical Ethics. For more good health information visit: www.glennellis.com