In light of National Adoption Month, one birth mother contemplates the day her son will come to her and ask about his adoption story. She wonders how she will stir up the strength to explain to him her choice. What will she say? She trusts that the truth will guide her. She trusts that honesty will be the key to giving her son what he needs. This is what Erica believes.
I often think of the day Aiden* comes to me and wants to hear his story… When he wants to know exactly why I made the decision to choose adoption for him, and not raise him myself. When he wants to know who his birthfather is and what our story together was. Why things ended they way they did, and why his birthfather chose not to be involved in any of our lives.
I have had thousands of conversations with my mom asking for advice to prepare for this day, and she always says the same thing.
E V E R Y T H I N G. I always need all the details to feel like I have a solid understanding of my surroundings in life. Part of my adjustment after this adoption is that for one of the first times in my life I actually do not know everything. It has been a process for me; the biggest lesson I have been learning throughout this journey is how to accept the unknown and trust more in God's plan than in my own.
A perfect example of my 'sometimes' unnecessary need to know everything is when my little brother comes back up north for the holidays, or visits for a long weekend and I bombard him with questions.
That is a conversation I have had a million times with both my brothers. Well, the truth is, I ask so many questions because I care. I care so much and need to know that all the people I love are okay and doing well; I need to know that everyone is happy and if they are not then I am going to do whatever little, or big thing I can to change that.
However, the biggest unknowns are in my future. When my day ends and I am alone in my own thoughts and when all starts to settle down around me– this is when the unknowns of the future start to flood my head.
The biggest strength in myself I have come to find on my journey of this adoption has been my ability to take a step back and trust; to be honest and trust myself that maybe I do not always know all the little details, but I do know the bigger picture. To trust that just like with my little brother, God is working his plan on all our lives and keeping Aiden happy, healthy, and in a good place– exactly where I always have known he is and exactly where I always know he will be.
I have nothing but the purest form of love for Aiden. I know in our future there will be some difficult conversations and there will be some difficult questions he will ask me.
I want Aiden to always be happy. I never want him to hurt and I, ESPECIALLY, do not want to be the reason he ever hurts.
When the day comes and Aiden wants to hear his story. When he wants to know exactly why I made the decision to make an adoption plan for him, and not raise him myself. When he wants to know who his birthfather is and what our story together was. When he wants to know why things ended they way they did, and why his birthfather chose not to be involved in any of our lives. If he wants/needs to know E V E R Y T H I N G. If he needs all the details in order to feel like he has a solid understanding of all his surroundings in life… I trust myself that I will know exactly what to say, and that I will tell him the truth.


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Kapil Dev, Bishan Singh Bedi pledge to donate organs
Updated: 02 February 2014 13:53 IST
Kapil Dev and Bishan Singh Bedi pledged to donate their organs at an event organised by the Delhi Urological Society.
Written by Indo-Asian News Service
Former cricketers Kapil Dev and Bishan Singh Bedi have pledged to donate their organs at USICON 2014, an event organised at the Airport Authority of India officers club here on Friday.
The event was organised by the Delhi Urological Society to create awareness about organ donation. Their slogan "Har jan ko amar banana hai" (every life should be made immortal) conveys the message of eternal life for all.
"We have more than the required number of suitable donors but a lack of awareness and resources continues to maintain the void. The present scenario of organ donation and transplantation in India is dismal and lakhs of patients, in need of organs for survival, are left waiting and ultimately succumb to the disease," Rajeev Sood, organising secretary and head, Urology, RML Hospital, said in a statement.
Topics mentioned in this article Cricket
MS Dhoni Doubtful For West Indies Tour, Will Participate In "Transitioning Phase" For Team India: Reports
Ben Stokes Asked Umpires To Take Off Four Overthrows During World Cup 2019 Final, Says James Anderson
PV Sindhu, Kidambi Srikanth Enter 2nd Round Of Indonesia Open
"Jos Buttler Is A Strong Candidate For Captaincy," Says Andrew Strauss
Syria Hold India To 1-1 Draw In Intercontinental Cup

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Riverview's Challenge Day, Be the Change Team would like to encourage our students and staff to "Be The Change That You Wish to See in the World", and in our school. With this in mind, we are offering you the chance to purchase a t-shirt with that precise quote. Shirt is black, with neon green, orange and lime green printing. If you wish to purchase this shirt, the cost would be $6.50. If interested, please download the order form (below) and send orders and money to Mrs. Galich by Friday, January 30th. Checks should be made out to Riverview School. Sizes available are Youth sizes - Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large and Adult sizes - S, M, L, XL as well as 2X and 3X for $2 more.
Any questions, please call Mrs. Stutzman or Mrs. Galich.


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Suzanne Schwartz
FDA's Center for Devices & Radiological Health (CDRH)
Shawn Kok
Mark Eggleston
Health Partners Plans
Troy Leach, Chief Strategy Officer, Cloud Security Alliance
Chief Strategy Officer, Cloud Security Alliance
Breach Notification , Business Continuity Management / Disaster Recovery , Fraud Management & Cybercrime
Ransom Paid Just Before Netwalker Gang Disrupted
Client Says Third-Party Administrator Paid for Promise to Destroy Exfiltrated Data Marianne Kolbasuk McGee (HealthInfoSec) • March 24, 2021
Credit Eligible
A third-party claims administrator of health and social services programs for the elderly apparently paid a ransom to Netwalker attackers about a month before global law enforcement officials disrupted the gang in January.
See Also: Live Webinar | Navigating the Difficulties of Patching OT
In a breach notification provided to the California attorney general's office, Los Angeles-based Brandman Centers for Senior Care says it was informed on Jan. 23 by its health plan management services vendor, PeakTPA, of a ransomware attack on Dec. 31 affecting data of Brandman program participants.
PeakTPA "paid a ransom on Jan. 2 and received evidence that all information obtained [by attackers] was destroyed on Jan. 3," the Brandman statement notes.
In its own notice posted on its website, St. Louis, Missouri-based PeakTPA says the ransomware attack affected two of its cloud servers.
PeakTPA notes that on Jan. 27, "the criminal group behind the attack, Netwalker, was broken up by the FBI. Its leader was arrested, and its assets were seized. Still, PeakTPA has put in place more protections to prevent a theft like this from happening again."
The organization, however, makes no mention of having paid a ransom.
Exposed information may include full name, home address, date of birth, Social Security number, diagnosis and treatment information, PeakTPA says.
The company says it's offering individuals affected by the incident three years of prepaid credit and identity monitoring through Kroll.
PeakTPA did not immediately respond to an Information Security Media Group request for comment. The company provides claims management services for entities that offer comprehensive medical and social services under the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, or PACE. Individuals' PACE program ID numbers were exposed in the breach.
Other Affected Clients
Among other PeakTPA clients issuing recent breach notification statements about the incident are Springfield, Massachusetts-based Mercy Life Inc., according to a sample notification letter provided to Massachusetts regulators, and Jonesboro, Arkansas-based St. Bernard's Healthcare.
A St. Bernard's Healthcare spokesman tells ISMG that about 500 individuals who participate in the organization's Total Life Healthcare PACE program were affected by the PeakTPA incident.
The Department of Health and Human Services' HIPAA Breach Reporting Tool website listing health data breaches affecting 500 or more individuals shows that PeakTPA reported the incident on March 2 as affecting 50,000 individuals.
It's unclear whether the figure reported to HHS represents all individuals affected at every PeakTPA client organization, or if additional data breaches related to the incident could be separately reported.
Gang Disrupted
The U.S. Justice Department and Bulgarian authorities on Jan. 27 announced they hadseized servers and disrupted the infrastructure and darknet websites of the Netwalker ransomware gang and also made one arrest.
Netwalker ransomware has affected numerous victims, including companies, municipalities, hospitals, law enforcement agencies, emergency services, school districts, colleges and universities, the DOJ said.
"Attacks have specifically targeted the healthcare sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking advantage of the global crisis to extort victims," the DOJ noted.
Vendor Incidents Climb
The PeakTPA ransomware incident joins a long and growing list of cyberattacks so far this year on vendors and business associates serving the healthcare sector (see: Hacking Incidents, Vendor Breaches Keep Surging).
For instance, the tally of healthcare organizations affected by the recent cyberattack against Accellion continues to grow.
So far, the HHS breach website shows several Accellion-related health data breaches, the largest reported by supermarket and pharmacy chain Kroger, with 368,000 individuals' protected health information affected (see: More Health Data Breaches Tied to Vendor Incidents).
The University of Colorado and the University of Miami Health System are also among the latest institutions disclosing that they were affected by the Accellion incident.
"Attacks in healthcare are only going to increase," says Ben Denkers, executive vice president of strategy and operations at security and privacy consultancy CynergisTek. "Organizations need to be diligent in understanding their threat landscape and must take into account the security posture of third-party organizations they may rely on."
With attacks on third parties surging, it's critical that healthcare organizations keep cybersecurity top of mind when giving vendors access to their systems and ensure the vendor has minimal access privileges to the administrative systems, says Monique Becenti, of security consulting firm Pondurance.
"It's common for organizations to overlook the domain controller, which is why it is critical to keep your domain controller privileges separate from administrative privileges," she says. "That's because the domain controller has the most access to your network and user access privileges."
Lingering Risks
Despite PeakTPA paying a ransom, PACE program patients' data could still be at risk, security experts warn.
"Once the data has been exfiltrated, it becomes an impossible task to have a chain of custody," Denkers says. "There have been accounts of organizations who have paid the ransom and had expected the attackers to destroy the data, only to find out months later the data was still lurking on the dark web."
Becenti offers a similar warning. "Once an organization has been compromised, they are likely to face repeated attacks. In fact, it is common for bad actors to leave a back door easily accessible within the organization to deploy another ransomware attack in the future for an effortless monetary gain."
Healthcare providers need to understand that ransomware attacks can be a "major decoy into a much larger scheme," such as establishing remote access to medical records or sensitive patient data to sell on the dark web for a much larger payoff, she adds. "As hospitals require 24/7 patient care, it can make routine cybersecurity maintenance difficult."
Breaches compromising the data of elderly patients can be particularly damaging, Denkers notes.
"Attackers prey on the weak for a reason, as their ability to defend or even identify is often limited. Often the results of these crimes aren't seen or felt for months."
Business Continuity Management / Disaster Recovery
Incident & Breach Response
Purple Fox Malware Using Worm to Target Windows Devices
Insurer CNA Disconnects Systems After 'Cybersecurity Attack'
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee
Executive Editor, HealthcareInfoSecurity, ISMG
McGee is executive editor of Information Security Media Group's HealthcareInfoSecurity.com media site. She has about 30 years of IT journalism experience, with a focus on healthcare information technology issues for more than 15 years. Before joining ISMG in 2012, she was a reporter at InformationWeek magazine and news site and played a lead role in the launch of InformationWeek's healthcare IT media site.
A Guide to Passwordless Anywhere
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Why IGA Modernization Is No Longer Optional
OnDemand | Securing Business Growth: The Road to 24/7 Threat Detection and Response
Ransomware: Before, During and After the Attack
Risk Management Framework: Learn from NIST
90 minutes · Premium OnDemand
From heightened risks to increased regulations, senior leaders at all levels are pressured to improve their organizations' risk management capabilities. But no one is showing them how - until now.
Learn the fundamentals of developing a risk management program from the man who wrote the book on the topic: Ron Ross, computer scientist for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In an exclusive presentation, Ross, lead author of NIST Special Publication 800-37 - the bible of risk assessment and management - will share his unique insights on how to:
Understand the current cyber threats to all public and private sector organizations;
Develop a multi-tiered risk management approach built upon governance, processes and information systems;
Implement NIST's risk management framework, from defining risks to selecting, implementing and monitoring information security controls.
Ron Ross
Sr. Computer Scientist & Information Security Researcher, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
https://www.databreachtoday.com/ransom-paid-just-before-netwalker-gang-disrupted-a-16264


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United Bankshares, Inc.
Credit Opinion: United Bankshares, Inc.: Update following ratings affirmation
Credit Opinion: United Bankshares, Inc.: Update to credit analysis
Announcement of Periodic Review: Moody's announces completion of a periodic review of ratings of United Bank
Rating Action: Moody's affirms United Bank's long-term issuer rating at Baa1; maintains stable outlook
Rating Action: Moody's assigns Counterparty Risk Ratings to bank subsidiaries of 60 US banking groups
Moody's affirms United Bank's ratings following acquisition announcement of Carolina Financial Corporation; outlook remains stable
Toronto, November 20, 2019 -- Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") has affirmed all the ratings and assessments of United Bank (United), the subsidiary bank of United Bankshares, Inc., following the company's announcement that it will acquire Carolina Financial Corporation. United has long- and short-term deposit ratings of A1 and Prime-1, respectively, and an issuer rating of Baa1. The bank also has a standalone baseline credit assessment (BCA) and adjusted BCA of a3 and long- and short-term Counterparty Risk (CR) Assessment of A2(cr) and Prime-1(cr), respectively. The rating outlook remains stable. The holding company, United Bankshares, Inc., is not rated.
Affirmations:
..Issuer: United Bank
.... Adjusted Baseline Credit Assessment, Affirmed a3
.... Baseline Credit Assessment, Affirmed a3
.... Counterparty Risk Assessment, Affirmed A2(cr)
.... Counterparty Risk Assessment, Affirmed P-1(cr)
.... Local currency and foreign currency Long-term Counterparty Risk Rating, Affirmed A3
.... Local currency and foreign currency Short-term Counterparty Risk Rating, Affirmed P-2
.... Issuer Rating, Affirmed Baa1, outlook stable
.... Short-Term Deposit Rating, affirmed P-1
.... Long Term Deposit Rating, affirmed A1, outlook stable
RATINGS RATIONALE
The affirmation of the bank's a3 BCA and ratings reflects the incremental dilution of United's banking franchise, which in recent years has expanded beyond its core West Virginia footprint. Moody's considers that the bank's franchise dilution is offset by increased scale and improved geographic diversification of its lending portfolio. The share-for-share transaction is valued at $1.1 billion and the bank expects to close it in the second quarter of 2020, subject to regulatory approvals.
United's BCA and ratings also reflect its conservative credit culture and good asset quality track record, which together with its efficient operations contribute to its strong profitability. Its top tier market position in West Virginia provides it with a stable core deposit base and healthy funding profile. United's primary credit challenge remains its concentration to the commercial real estate (CRE) sector, particularly in the highly competitive metropolitan Washington DC area. Moreover, Moody's considers execution risks associated with an acquisition strategy outside its core footprint, despite management's good track record in integrating banks it has acquired over the last few years. United's capitalization is solid, with a tangible common equity to risk weighted assets ratio of 11.9% as of 30 September 2019.
United generates consistent earnings from its banking franchises and, as a result, its core profitability is stable and performs in line with similarly-rated peers. That said, like its peers, United's profitability has been challenged by protracted low interest rates in recent years.
Moody's does not have any particular governance concerns for United.
Factors that Could Lead to an Upgrade
An upgrade of United's BCAs could occur if it reduces its large CRE concentration and raises its tangible equity, particularly as it continues to grow through acquisitions. A higher BCA would likely lead to a ratings upgrade.
Factors that Could Lead to a Downgrade
Downward pressure on the BCAs and on the ratings would emerge if Moody's believes United's asset quality would deteriorate noticeably or if Moody's were to assess that United's acquisition strategy has materially elevated its risk profile. A reduction in its capital levels would also result in downward rating pressure.
The principal methodology used in these ratings was Banks published in August 2018. Please see the Rating Methodologies page on www.moodys.com for a copy of this methodology.
United Bankshares, Inc. is a regional bank holding company headquartered in Washington D.C. and Charleston, West Virginia and reported $19.8 billion of consolidated assets as of 30 September 2019.
For ratings issued on a program, series, category/class of debt or security this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to each rating of a subsequently issued bond or note of the same series, category/class of debt, security or pursuant to a program for which the ratings are derived exclusively from existing ratings in accordance with Moody's rating practices. For ratings issued on a support provider, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the credit rating action on the support provider and in relation to each particular credit rating action for securities that derive their credit ratings from the support provider's credit rating. For provisional ratings, this announcement provides certain regulatory disclosures in relation to the provisional rating assigned, and in relation to a definitive rating that may be assigned subsequent to the final issuance of the debt, in each case where the transaction structure and terms have not changed prior to the assignment of the definitive rating in a manner that would have affected the rating. For further information please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page for the respective issuer on www.moodys.com.
For any affected securities or rated entities receiving direct credit support from the primary entity(ies) of this credit rating action, and whose ratings may change as a result of this credit rating action, the associated regulatory disclosures will be those of the guarantor entity. Exceptions to this approach exist for the following disclosures, if applicable to jurisdiction: Ancillary Services, Disclosure to rated entity, Disclosure from rated entity.
Regulatory disclosures contained in this press release apply to the credit rating and, if applicable, the related rating outlook or rating review.
Please see www.moodys.com for any updates on changes to the lead rating analyst and to the Moody's legal entity that has issued the rating.
Please see the ratings tab on the issuer/entity page on www.moodys.com for additional regulatory disclosures for each credit rating.
Jason Mercer
Moody's Canada Inc.
Toronto, ON M5J 1S9
JOURNALISTS: 1 212 553 0376
Client Service: 1 212 553 1653
M. Celina Vansetti-Hutchins
MD - Banking
Releasing Office:


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Ronald Jackson registered 10 points as NC A&T won its seventh consecutive home game, narrowly beating South Carolina State 63-62. Kameron Langley had 10 points and eight assists for NC A&T (15-12, 10-3 Mid-Eastern Conference). Ibrahim Sylla added four blocks.
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Ronald Jackson registered 10 points as NC A&T won its seventh consecutive home game, narrowly beating South Carolina State 63-62 on Saturday.
Kameron Langley had 10 points and eight assists for NC A&T (15-12, 10-3 Mid-Eastern Conference). Ibrahim Sylla added four blocks.
Jahmari Etienne had 14 points for the Bulldogs (7-22, 5-8). Lavar Harewood added 14 points. Damni Applewhite had 11 points and 12 rebounds.
The Aggies improve to 2-0 against the Bulldogs on the season. NC A&T defeated South Carolina State 80-77 on Jan. 5. NC A&T faces Savannah State at home on Monday. South Carolina State takes on NC Central on the road on Monday.


Have you ever thought about the significance of spring?
Do you ever think about what you could learn from LEGOs?
Have you considered the wisdom that can be found in a single snowflake?
In The Lesson in Everything, Jon helps us to find wisdom in the seemingly mundane. All around us, there are lessons to be learned. Jon will teach us how to see them.


Your Nutrition questions answered Click here!!
by-products do NOT include hair, horns, hooves, teeth, or feces.
of which are considered by-products).
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used, expensive substitutes (tapioca, cassava potato starch) will be used in their place.
additives to meet required vitamin and mineral levels.
source of EPA and DHA, such as cold marine fish oil (salmon, menhaden, etc.).
proportions would be completely off balance due to the dramatic increase in fat calories.
prescription diet designed for weight loss in all patients with a body condition of 7/9 and above.
This handout was created for the Medical Advisory Board by Dr. Lindsey Bullen, DACVN.


1/3 lb. patty, caramelized onions, bleu cheese & bacon. Our natural and never frozen Angus burgers are served fresh from Harris Ranch. They all come with lettuce, tomato, pickles, onion & our house made burger sauce. All burgers are cooked medium unless otherwise specified. Our buns are made fresh daily. Substitute a whole wheat bun for $0.25 or have it on mixed greens for $0.50. Udi's Gluten Free Bun $2.00 (may come in contact with items that contain gluten).


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Lagos EndSARS panel report and social media tales
Lagos pegs 20 workers for construction site, announce other…
Serena's coach delivers verdict on her 24th major…
21 internet fraudsters under detention in Lagos
ColumnistsOpinion
By Yemi Adebowale
By The Guild	 Last updated Nov 20, 2021
A disgraceful report by a disgraceful panel. For me, this sums up the report submitted this week by the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and other matters to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. The report failed to resolve the issue of whether there was a "massacre" at the Lekki Tollgate during the protest or not.
This supposedly investigative panel simply reported allegations instead of investigating the allegations. It failed to do a dispassionate investigation required to support a conclusion. The panel published virtually all the allegations on social media about the alleged massacre instead of conducting an inquiry.
No wonder it concluded that what transpired on the night in question "can be equated to a massacre in context." To equate something to a massacre is not the same thing as a massacre. The panel was desperate to use the "massacre" narrative of the #EndSARS protesters. An investigative panel should be unflustered and assertive. Going by the definition of "massacre", there is evidently no evidence of a massacre at the Lekki toll gate on the night of October 20, 2020.
The panel reported that nine protesters were confirmed dead. It reported further that four were "presumed dead," instead of investigating if they are indeed dead. This means that the investigative panel could not say for certain the exact number of people killed. The families of those supposedly killed did not come forward? Those allegedly killed have no mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and family members. This is exactly what this panel is telling Nigerians. The fact that the panel listed Nathaniel Solomon, a man who is alive and granted video interview to a national newspaper, as among those killed at the Lekki Tollgate, has completely destroyed this report. The video interview of Solomon was used by the online edition of a national newspaper on September 11, 2021.
The panel also listed one of those killed simply as "Jide" without a surname. This is disgraceful. It could not even properly investigate and identify a man it claimed was killed at the toll gate. I'm surprised that the family of "Jide" did not come out to identify him. This panel obviously followed social media claims that "Jide was killed at the toll gate" and included it in its report.
Still reporting social media narratives about the alleged killings, the panel submitted: "It was alleged and corroborated that the soldiers had their vans parked at the Lekki tollgate and removed many bodies and corpses of the fallen protesters, which they took away with their vans." Who verified this? Was it not the same #EndSARS protesters? The panel did not claim the verification. It did not state that there was an independent verification. It did not list anybody as verifying this independently.
The panel continues with its speculative report thus: "The panel finds that the fact of lack of identity of some of the other 96 corpses on the list supplied by Prof Obafunwa would not obliterate the fact that some of them could have come from the Lekki toll gate incident of October 20, 2020 or that some other unidentified corpses may have been removed by their families or the military, as claimed by the #EndSARS protesters, far and beyond the list tendered by Prof Obafunwa."
The story about this is that Prof. John Obafunwa, a forensic pathologist at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, reported 96 other unclaimed corpses in the hospital. He did not say that they were brought from the Lekki toll gate. But surprisingly, the panel submitted that the lack of identity of the 96 corpses "would not obliterate the fact that some of them could have come from the Lekki toll gate incident of October 20, 2020 or that some other unidentified corpses may have been removed by their families or the military, as claimed by the #EndSARS protesters." This is outrageous. This panel just supported the claims of the protesters in social media, even when the facts are not there.
The Lagos panel failed to lament the scores of policemen killed by #EndSARS protesters. I guess the policemen are not human beings to it. They don't have wives and children. They have no families. They are inconsequential. That's what this Lagos panel is telling us. The panel did not lament thousands of people whose shops or businesses were burnt or looted by the brigands called #EndSARS protesters. Most of these shop owners have not recovered and may never recover.
I am not sorry to say that the Lagos #EndSARS panel's report is only fit for the dustbin.
In view of the #EndSARS report submitted, I will update the questions I have been asking for over one year regarding these alleged killings: Where are the families of those said to have been confirmed dead at the Lekki toll plaza on the night of October 20, 2020? This is food for thought for all of us today.
Three drug traffickers bag 3-week community services in Bauchi
Sanwo-Olu donates 2-bedroom flat to Yoruba Nation rally victim's mother
Tinubu: The bitterness of failed applicant
Tinubu: Time to choose wisely before 2023 poll
Tinubu and Festus Adedayo's Bloody Night of Long knives


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Service + Solidarity Spotlight: Northern Valley Labor Council Distributes Food to Families in North Dakota and Minnesota
The Northern Valley Labor Council in North Dakota, led by President Mark Froemke (BCTGM), plans to distribute more than 1,300 boxes of food and gallons of milk later this month for community members in need. The North Dakota AFL-CIO, the St. Paul (Minnesota) Regional Labor Federation and the USDA Farmers to Families Food Box program are also sponsoring the events. Distribution will take place in Grand Forks, East Grand Forks and Belcourt, North Dakota, as well as in Mahnomen, Minnesota. The union is working with Native American tribes to make sure the distribution announcement reaches those communities as well.
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: RWDSU Continues Fight to Hold Amazon Accountable
Today, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) announced it is filing objections to the conduct of the election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), charging that Amazon interfered with the right of its Bessemer, Alabama, employees to vote in a free and fair election. RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum said: We demand a comprehensive investigation over Amazon's behavior in corrupting this election….We won't rest until workers' voices are heard fairly under the law. When they are, we believe they will be victorious in this historic and critical fight to unionize the first Amazon warehouse in the United States."
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: Colorado AFL-CIO Fights to End the Exploitation of Farmworkers
On César Chávez Day, the Colorado General Assembly passed a joint resolution recognizing César Chávez. However, Colorado does not give farmworkers basic rights under the law. The Colorado AFL-CIO has been fighting to pass S.B. 21087 to make Colorado's laws reflect our values such as dignity and respect on the job.
"In 1929, Colorado State Federation officials helped 500 beet workers at Fort Lupton apply for an AFL charter. However, the Great Western Sugar Company ran a number of members off the job. We are fighting for the same basic rights and protections for agricultural workers that those beet workers deserved 90 years ago," said Dennis Dougherty (IBEW), executive director of the Colorado AFL-CIO.
The bill would allow farmworkers to organize, bargain and strike, granting them protections other workers get from the Colorado Labor Peace Act. It requires agricultural employers to pay overtime when workers exceed 12 hours per day or 40 hours per week. It also requires agricultural employers pay the state minimum wage of $12.32 an hour. Currently farms and ranches are exempted and are only required to pay the federal minimum wage. The bill also would limit the use of the short-handled hoe, a tool that has become a symbol of oppression because of the pain that often occurs when workers bend over to use it. It also creates new protections for whistleblowers and sets new standards for housing and health.
This bill is long overdue, and the state federation and allies are fighting to get it passed through the Legislature. On César Chávez Day, the Colorado AFL-CIO also released a video of labor activist Dolores Huerta calling on legislators to pass S.B. 21087.
Not A Spectator Sport: The Working People Weekly List
'Passing the PRO Act Is Not a Spectator Sport': AFL-CIO Leads National Day of Action: "The AFL-CIO is encouraging people to call U.S. senators on Thursday to urge them to support the passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a historic piece of legislation that would significantly strengthen workers' right to form unions and help reverse a decades-long assault on labor waged by corporations and their political allies. 'Passing the PRO Act is not a spectator sport. All of us must act—and act today by driving calls into the Senate,' AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said Thursday. 'From Alabama to Alaska, we are going to make our case for an economic and political system that works for working people.'"
Biden Is Rebuilding the National Labor Relations Board: "On his first day in office, President Joe Biden fired Peter Robb, the Trump-appointed general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency responsible for interpreting and enforcing federal labor law. A new report by the nonpartisan US Government Accountability Office (GAO) shows why Biden was right to fire Robb—and to do so quickly. The GAO found that Robb was dismantling the agency from the inside. He reduced staff size, destroyed employee morale, and failed to spend the money appropriated by Congress. This all occurred while Robb was pursuing an anti-worker, pro-corporate agenda."
Stress on the Front Lines of COVID-19: "Worry, exhaustion, constantly changing safety rules and long hours of wearing PPE are just a few things America's health-care workers cite as the hardest parts of going to work on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. Their work has saved countless lives but also taken a personal toll: 62% say worry or stress related to covid-19 has had a negative effect on their mental health. A 55% majority feel 'burned out' going to work. Nearly half of all health-care workers say worry or stress has caused them to have trouble sleeping or to sleep too much."
Black Workers Being Left Behind as Economy Recovers from Pandemic: "In March, the unemployment rate for Black workers with a bachelor's degree or higher was 4.7%, compared to 3.6% for white Americans, according to Labor Department data that's not seasonally adjusted. To be sure, that gap did shrink from the prior month. The disparity is nearly double between Black and white workers who graduated high school, the data show. 'If even the best-educated Black person doesn't do as well in the economy, then that must be discrimination,' said William Spriggs, chief economist at the AFL-CIO."
The Filibuster Threatens Both Civil Rights and Workers' Rights: "The GOP's embrace of the filibuster to thwart President Biden's legislative agenda reveals how the struggles to extend civil rights and labor rights are inextricably intertwined. The use of the anti-democratic device to block civil rights legislation is well known. In 1957, Senator Strom Thurman of South Carolina talked for 24 hours and 18 minutes to stall the first piece of federal civil rights legislation enacted since the Reconstruction era, a bill that empowered federal prosecutors to prevent interference with voting."
Biden's Infrastructure Package Is Designed to Boost Unions: "Many of the new jobs are likely to be union positions, because the plan targets sectors that already have high levels of union participation, said Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades Department, a coalition of unions in industries such as aviation and rail transit."
Florida Labor Unions Say Proposal Will Lead to 'Disaster' for State Worker Pensions"'The people making these decisions fundamentally do not understand how pensions work,' AFL-CIO spokesman Rich Templin said. 'And the actions they are taking will prove disastrous.' Templin said over the next few days public sector labor union members will call, text, email, and talk in-person to lawmakers about the dangers lurking in the bill."
'She-Wees' and Plastic Bags: Amazon's Pee Scandal Is Much Worse for Women: "Motherboard spoke to six women who have driven Amazon delivery vans during the past year. Some fast during work hours, even in the heat of the summer, to avoid wasting time finding a bathroom. Others either hold their pee for up to 10 hours, squat over trash bags, or purchase 'she-wees,' female urinals that cost roughly $13.99, on Amazon.com. An Amazon delivery driver trainer who works out of an Amazon warehouse in South Bend, Indiana, told Motherboard that drivers frequently dump bags or bottles with pee and poop on the side of the road. 'I am a trainer for my [delivery company] and I tell all the new girls to invest in a she-wee or you will not make it at this job,' she said. Motherboard granted the driver anonymity because she feared retaliation from her employer."
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: On the Yellow Brick Road to Success: BAC Volunteers for Community Improvement Project in Hawaii
For many students who live near Kalihi Waena Elementary in Hawaii, the rainy winter months often mean walking through the mud to get to school. Now, thanks to the hard work and volunteerism of members of Bricklayers (BAC) Local 1, these students are getting a much-needed upgrade to their path to the school. The volunteer union members have started work on a new "yellow brick road" connecting nearby housing units to the school. The project also calls for fresh fruit trees to be planted along the route to school. "It feels wonderful to give back to the community and the volunteers came out not only just for the community, but for the strength of the union," Ikaika Castillo, BAC training coordinator, told KITV.
Pass the PRO Act: In the States Roundup
Union or not, the PRO Act will benefit all working people in this country. It's time to solidify the protections and rights workers were granted many decades ago. #PassThePROAct #1u
Leave a message for @lisamurkowski and @SenDanSullivan by calling 866-832-1560 pic.twitter.com/wFKL12mZaT
✊ Shout out to the @PALF_AFLCIO on an amazing event yesterday! #PassThePROAct #Solidarity https://t.co/rYpeUUrHee
The decline in collective bargaining has ripped wages from the pockets of all workers, led to exploding income inequality & widened the gender & racial pay gap. #BuildBackBetter starts with stronger unions. We need to pass the #PROAct https://t.co/k7AOnjJ3ah
— California Labor Federation (@CaliforniaLabor) April 8, 2021
.@AFLCIO President Richard Trumka: "In every corner of the country, working people are crying out for change" #1u @UnionYES https://t.co/jB5W0ZbtLX
— Connecticut AFL-CIO (@ConnAFLCIO) April 5, 2021
Happening Now: Leaders and members of @SouthFlaAFLCIO, @BRAFLCIO, @PBTCAFLCIO, and the Southwest Florida Labor Chapter call for reform for Florida's failing unemployment system. https://t.co/djohjGEBXW
— Florida AFL-CIO (@FLAFLCIO) April 8, 2021
Union members in GA went above and beyond to elect two pro-worker, pro-union Senators.
Now as the #PROAct advances to a Senate vote, we are proud & grateful that @ReverendWarnock and @ossoff are co-sponsors of this historic, generational labor law reform bill. #1u #PassThePROAct pic.twitter.com/7EfbQ2nL8d
— Georgia AFL-CIO // Pass The #ProAct (@AFLCIOGeorgia) April 8, 2021
Worry, exhaustion, constantly changing safety rules and long hours of wearing PPE are just a few things America's health-care workers cite as the hardest parts of going to work on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.https://t.co/ZrTIXGTpL5
— Indiana AFL-CIO (@INAFLCIO) April 7, 2021
PRO Act and Women in the Union https://t.co/mzx7igbRGK
— Iowa AFL-CIO (@IowaAFLCIO) April 8, 2021
Kansas State AFL-CIO:
I just wrote an email to tell lawmakers to protect schools by opposing CCR SB 175. Write one here: https://t.co/LuQV5eQo60
— Kansas AFL-CIO (@KansasAFLCIO) April 8, 2021
"There is no question that the company didn't want to mess around this time. We are glad to see that Bath Iron Works came in and negotiated an honest and fair contract for Local 7 this time," labor rep George Edwards of IAM District Lodge 4 said. https://t.co/lB31qWEvVg
— Maine AFL-CIO (@MEAFLCIO) April 6, 2021
Call your Senators today and urge them to pass the #PROAct. Thank you @SenWarren and @SenMarkey for cosponsoring! #mapoli pic.twitter.com/f1xInY2t7L
Local 405 Laborer Laura Yoder Helps Reenergize Minnesota's Wind Farms https://t.co/DAWFF2RFrf (via @MNBldgTrades) #1u @LIUNAMinnesota
— Minnesota AFL-CIO (@MNAFLCIO) April 6, 2021
A great tribute to Brother McVey. Rest in Peace, Duke. https://t.co/h1vqZPsEdB
— Missouri AFL-CIO (@MOAFLCIO) April 7, 2021
The PRO Act will ensure that this year's defeat of "right-to-work" legislation in Montana is secured for a generation. Please join us tomorrow for a live event with PRO Act co-sponsor, Senator Jon Tester. #mtpol #1u #PROAct pic.twitter.com/0ZI0es0qf7
— Montana AFL-CIO (@MTaflcio) April 7, 2021
Nebraska AFL-CIO:
Please go to this link to send an email to your Senator and tell them that protecting our Nebraska meatpacking workers is important! https://t.co/Yk7v7zXIgK
— NE State AFL-CIO (@NEAFLCIO) March 31, 2021
"Do the right thing. Put people back to work and let's save this state."
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: Massachusetts AFL-CIO Calls on Governor to Ensure Budget Supports Working Families
The Massachusetts AFL-CIO, led by President Steven Tolman (TCU/IAM), testified before the state's Joint Ways and Means Committee to express concerns about the budget submitted by the governor.
"This budget must support workers who have been and will continue to report to jobs outside of their homes to ensure that the public has access to the goods and services that our society has finally deemed 'essential,'" Tolman said. "We must also ensure that unemployed and underemployed workers who are struggling to make ends meet have access to strong social safety nets that allow them to stay in their homes, maintain their healthcare coverage, and keep food on the table."
Among the specific concerns are provisions in the budget that would limit sick time for state employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, reduce funds for workforce development and weaken public bidding laws.
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: New York State AFL-CIO Backs 'Fair Share' Revenue Raisers
New York labor and faith leaders joined together last week for a press conference in support of the strategic "fair share" revenue raisers in the New York State Assembly and Senate one-house budgets and are urging their adoption in the final budget. The groups are pushing the state to look past the short-term relief from the federal government and move toward sustainable revenue streams that ask the wealthy to pay their fair share and that will preserve public services once federal aid is exhausted.
According to Mario Cilento (TNG-CWA), president of the New York State AFL-CIO, "The federal aid coming into New York state will only do so much—it will help us for about the next two years, but after that, the state will be addressing budget deficits on its own. These 'fair share' revenue raisers would affect a tiny portion of individuals in our state while ensuring we don't harm our health care system and still help fund education, state services and our local governments into the future."
Washington Teachers' Union President Elizabeth Davis Passes
Washington Teachers' Union President Elizabeth Davis Passes Chris Garlock/Union City
The Washington, D.C., metro area labor movement lost one of its most outspoken leaders Sunday night when Washington Teachers' Union (WTU) President Elizabeth Davis died in a car crash.
Davis had been "at the forefront of public education advocacy and reform, leading the WTU's transformation into a social justice, solution-driven organization dedicated to advancing and promoting quality education for all children," WTU said in a release Monday morning. Davis worked hard at "improving teaching and learning conditions and aggressively amplifying the voice of teachers in the dialogue around issues of teaching and learning," the union added. "We are confident that her legacy will continue to shape the WTU as well as education across the district."
"Elizabeth Davis fought every single day, not just for her members, but for all the city's students and parents," said Metro Washington Council (MWC) President Dyana Forester. "As a D.C. parent myself, and also as a lifelong city resident and labor activist, Sister Davis was a constant inspiration to me and to so many others. The thoughts and prayers of the Metro Washington Council go out to her family, her union and to all whose lives were touched by Liz. Her loss is shared by the entire local labor community, and we shall carry on her legacy of battling for justice even as we mourn her passing."
Davis was a longtime member of the MWC's Executive Board.
The first time Davis stood up to D.C. school administrators was in the 1960s, The Washington Post reported. "Davis, then a teenager, staged a walkout at Eastern High to protest the lack of African American history and culture in her school's curriculum. Hundreds of students joined her. And it worked, she said. The curriculum changed."
"That was the beginning," Davis told the Post in an interview in February. "It was exciting. It was exhilarating. We were organizing."
This post originally appeared at Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO.
Solidarity Works: What Working People Are Doing This Week
Ok Florida family, lets try to support minority owned business when we can. These young ladies are in Tallahassee, FL
Meet the Leo Sisters, Owners of Plant-Based Eatery Bourne Brilliant #AfroTech https://t.co/TLreFMHopY
Equity members now have an additional way to access the online harassment hotline. Lighthouse now offers an anonymous reporting app available in the Apple App Store and the Google Play store.
Read more in the member portal - https://t.co/apKzJubpzg pic.twitter.com/lXhuGO3h5Q
— Actors' Equity (@ActorsEquity) April 6, 2021
Thank you for joining! https://t.co/3XFOoZFWCK
— AFGE (@AFGENational) April 1, 2021
AFSCME library workers support the Build America's Libraries Act. The measure would provide $5 billion to upgrade our nation's library infrastructure. Investing in libraries not only benefits the institution but its community as well. https://t.co/5Appmd0WXD
— AFSCME (@AFSCME) April 6, 2021
Workers deserve a say about their wages, benefits, etc.
You can tell your Senators to make that a reality by passing the #PROAct. https://t.co/XBGThS3mrY
— Alliance for Retired Americans (@ActiveRetirees) April 5, 2021
#1u #Labour #HazardPay #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/r6r0a7K08e
— ATU, Transit Union (@ATUComm) April 6, 2021
AFT President Randi Weingarten Mourns Passing of @WTUTeacher Leader Elizabeth Davis https://t.co/7LmWG2mFjT
— AFT (@AFTunion) April 5, 2021
We stand arm in arm with our @MineWorkers family, who are on strike at Warrior Met Coal.
Company executives are getting bonuses but they won't make a fair deal with the people whose hard work built the company.
Support the Warrior Met Strike! #UnitedWeStand pic.twitter.com/B7Qa5Jx6X7
— APWU National (@APWUnational) April 3, 2021
Join us on April 21 for The #JusticeForJeyasre Vigil to honor the life of Indian garment worker & union member Jeyasre Kathiravel, who organized in her workplace against gender based violence & harassment before her untimely death. @GLJhub@ilrf@asia_floorwage pic.twitter.com/D6qgd9dEFl
— Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO (@APALAnational) April 5, 2021
Thanks to your action, Piedmont Flight Attendants (and all Piedmont employees) won COVID pandemic leave! Flight Attendants from across the industry sent thousands of letters to American Airlines Group management. We won't stop fighting until sick bank is restored! #1u pic.twitter.com/LsdZoSII5H
— AFA-CWA (@afa_cwa) April 5, 2021
2020's ⏪ 1920's. Take a look back at #Boilermaker history and you'll see some similarities in hardships unions faced: https://t.co/oRYr7lWDws pic.twitter.com/tYGbTtVPsz
— Boilermakers Union (@boilermakernews) April 5, 2021
BAC Local 1 Hawaii Apprentices are helping turn a muddy path for students into a fruit tree-lined yellow brick sidewalk. #BuildingLives #BuildingCommunities https://t.co/lDT5O7pdmr
Join @CLUWNational on April 21 for the Justice for Jeyasre Vigil in solidarity with garment workers to end gender-based violence and harassment in the global garment supply chain. @GLJhub @ilrf @asia_floorwage
#JusticeForJeyasre
RSVP Here: https://t.co/qi2nwRnDHz pic.twitter.com/AI4enlBveo
— CLUW National (@CLUWNational) April 1, 2021
https://t.co/kDEfgKwuRZ
— CWA (@CWAUnion) April 2, 2021
Many professionals want to exercise their right to form a union, but can't. The PRO Act must become law so more employees can exercise this fundamental workplace right! #1u pic.twitter.com/WOEin3qBrC
— Department for Professional Employees (@DPEaflcio) April 6, 2021
"A boss' promises are temporary, but a union contract is in writing." https://t.co/1Jzd7pB3eo
— IBEW (@IBEW) April 6, 2021
In the first 90 days, our transition team of local, state and provincial leaders will be reviewing the effectiveness of all IAFF programs, services, projects and practices. #ReadyToLead pic.twitter.com/TLPs19k1Rk
— IAFF (@IAFFNewsDesk) April 6, 2021
A skilled union insulation workforce can provide unique, custom insulation-fabricating solutions for the cutting, die-cutting, slitting or sawing required for any project's specifications regardless of complexity. https://t.co/UxJnXYtAcb
'We Have to Move Now': The Working People Weekly List
'We Have to Move Now': Biden Details His $2 Trillion Infrastructure Plan: "Mr. Biden was introduced by a union worker who deals with the electrical grid. Mike Fiore, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 29 and an employee of Duquesne Light, said the plan would mean a lot to workers who are ready to retool plants and revitalize the middle class. 'The [plan] is directed at communities like mine. It is about opening up opportunities, revitalizing local businesses and saving jobs,' Mr. Fiore said. 'For decades, Pennsylvania was a global leader in manufacturing and good union jobs. It can be that way again.'"
ATI Workers Go on Strike After Negotiations Break Down: "Roughly 1,300 workers at Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI) represented by the United Steelworkers (USW) union went on strike at 7 a.m. Tuesday after negotiators failed to reach a contract settlement. USW International Vice President David McCall, who chairs the talks, accused the metals giant of unfair labor practices and trying to force workers into accepting unnecessary concessions. 'After years of loyalty, hard work and sacrifice, workers deserve more respect and consideration than ATI has shown at the table,' Mr. McCall said in a statement Friday. 'We will continue to bargain in good faith, and we strongly urge ATI to start doing the same.'"
Why Big Tech Shouldn't Be Scared of Unions: "At a time when so many divisions rip Americans apart, from income inequality and wealth disparities to opportunity gaps and ethnic, religious and cultural differences, increased union membership would help to heal America by raising incomes, uniting workers and building trust just as it did in the decades following World War II, when the U.S. boasted the biggest per-capita middle class in the world. What better place to start than in the heart of America's tech industry? It would help workers, industry and American society itself."
I Was Fired for Trying to Unionize My Workplace. I Want Congress to Pass the PRO Act So That Never Happens Again: "For around two years, my colleagues and I had been advocating together for better benefits—like health care and child care—and reasonable sales goals. We weren't asking for the moon—we were asking for basic respect and fair treatment as we supported the military members and veterans who bank with PenFed. We felt that unless we did this organizing, there would be no reason for PenFed CEO James Schenck to improve working conditions and make real changes to how he ran his business."
EXPLAINER: What to Know About the Amazon Union Vote: "Nearly 6,000 Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, are deciding whether they want to form a union, the biggest labor push in the online shopping giant's history. The stakes are high for Amazon. The organizing in Bessemer could set off a chain reaction across its operations nationwide, with more workers rising up and demanding better working conditions. Meanwhile, labor advocates hope what's happening in Bessemer could inspire workers beyond Amazon to form a union. But organizers face an uphill battle. Amazon, the second-largest private employer in the country, has a history of crushing unionizing efforts at its warehouses and its Whole Foods grocery stores."
Walsh Heads Already Active Labor Department: "'Millions of workers still do not have the strong COVID-19 protections they need to be safe at work,' declared Rebecca Reindel, AFL-CIO safety and health director. 'Marty Walsh's strong leadership will be needed to urgently issue a strong, comprehensive OSHA COVID-19 emergency temporary standard to set workplace safety rules, accompanied by strong enforcement to ensure workers are protected.'"
'It Rescued Our Entire Plan Overnight.' How Joe Biden Will Help Rockers Retire: "President Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan will benefit, among other things, state and local governments, small businesses, people living in poverty and, it turns out, professional musicians hoping to retire at some point in their lives. Since musicians often work for many bosses, they fall under the purview of multi-employer pension plans—a pet cause of Ohio senator Sherrod Brown, who has been pushing to fix those types of pension plans for years. After years of introducing what was first called the Butch Lewis Act (named after an Ohio teamster), Brown worked to get his pension-salvaging plan into the American Rescue Plan."
What the 'Invisible' People Cleaning the Subway Want Riders to Know: "Cleaning the New York City subway has always been a dirty job. But when the pandemic hit last spring, it became even more challenging. When Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered that trains be shut down overnight for cleaning, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) turned to contractors to help undertake the monumental task of scouring the trains in the nation's largest transit system. The thousands of workers the contractors hired—largely low-income immigrants from Latin America—were envisioned as a stopgap measure, as MTA workers were falling ill and dying of the virus. At the same time, ridership and revenue had plummeted, and the agency found itself in an intense budget crunch."
Facing Backlash from Orlando Workers, HMSHost Is Rehiring Employees Laid Off During Pandemic: "After nine months waging an emotional campaign to get their jobs back, displaced restaurant workers from the Orlando International Airport celebrated a triumph: They're being rehired. HMSHost, one of the country's largest airport concessionaires, emailed former employees on Friday inviting them back, according to copies reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel. In the email, the company's human resources department also announced a $2-per-hour wage increase and free monthly Lynx bus passes for returning employees."
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: Orange County Labor Federation Holds Expungement Clinic
The Orange County Labor Federation (OCLF), AFL-CIO partnered with United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 324 and hosted an expungement clinic March 18 and March 20 in Buena Park, California. This partnership allowed our labor movement to help members remove nonviolent crimes from their records. About 65 members were assisted over the two days. The OCLF is planning to make this an ongoing program to continue assisting our members in removing barriers to employment and housing, giving them a better chance at stability and dignity. AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre (UFCW) visited and assisted at the clinic.
Economy Gains 916,000 Jobs in March; Unemployment Down to 6.0%
The U.S. economy gained 916,000 jobs in March, and the unemployment rate fell to 6.0%, according to figures released Friday morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In response to the March job numbers, AFL-CIO Chief Economist William Spriggs tweeted:
Despite the good news on the unemployment rate falling, the share of the unemployed who are long term unemployed continued to climb. Unemployment benefit provisions in the ARP that expire on Labor Day will end while this problem still looms. @AFLCIO pic.twitter.com/mfcQIiPSq1
— William E. Spriggs (@WSpriggs) April 2, 2021
This pattern is the great challenge @POTUS and his team face with their Jobs bill. The slow recovery of Black employment IS NOT because of skills or industry composition. Putting in place an extremely beefed up @USDOL #OFCCP to have presence at each construction site for starters https://t.co/sqVKVb3lf1
Economists who watch the stock market are quick to point out how news stories translate to market reactions. Labor economists seem blind to the news and how it can translate to the market they watch. Its a good thing their noses are attached to their faces. https://t.co/L0oZG8ceYW
If governors and mayors would use their American Rescue Plan money to return state and local government workers to their jobs, that would address the sector with the second biggest job loss. Too many governors are spending time working on legislation to suppress voters. https://t.co/a1Kss859ln
A great thread to get some important points on today's #JobsReport #jobsday https://t.co/ogQ2KtSvzD
Last month's biggest job gains were in leisure and hospitality (+280,000), education (+190,000), construction (+110,000), professional and business services (+66,000), manufacturing (+53,000), transportation and warehousing (+48,000), other services industry (+42,000), social assistance (+25,000), wholesale trade (+24,000), retail trade (+23,000), mining rose (+21,000) and financial activities (+16,000). Employment in health care and information changed little in March.
In March, the unemployment rate increased for Asians (6.0%). The rates for Hispanics (8.5%) and teenagers (13.0%) declined. The rates for Black Americans (9.6%), adult men (5.8%), adult women (5.7%) and White Americans (5.4%) showed little or no change over the month.
The number of long-term unemployed workers (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) barely changed in March and accounted for 43.4% of the total unemployed.
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: Chicago Opens Vaccination Site for Front-Line Union Members
President Bob Reiter (IUOE) of the Chicago Federation of Labor and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced on Tuesday the creation of the country's first vaccine site specifically for union essential workers. They are hosting the clinic at the Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 399 union hall; the clinic is a partnership between the labor council and the city. Some 1,200 union members may be vaccinated per week, with the plan to expand to 6,000 per week as vaccine supplies increase. To be eligible, you must live or work in Chicago, hold a current union card or be a union retiree, and qualify under the city's current eligibility criteria.
"Two-thirds of our members are Black and Brown workers, and we must do everything we can to get this vaccine into arms as quickly as possible," Reiter said. "Let's move past this pandemic once and for all."
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: UMWA Goes on Strike at Alabama's Warrior Met Coal
Unless the parties can reach a last-minute agreement, the Mine Workers (UMWA) union is launching its largest strike since the 1990s. UMWA President Cecil Roberts lambasted the company in a press release announcing the strike at Warrior Met Coal in Alabama. "[I]nstead of rewarding the sacrifices and work of the miners, Warrior Met is seeking even further sacrifices from them, while demonstrating perhaps some of the worst labor-management relations we've seen in this industry since the days of the company town and company store," he said. The union explained that workers at Warrior have made significant concessions since 2016 to help bring the company out of bankruptcy.
Roberts said: "We have always been ready to reach a fair agreement that recognizes the sacrifices our members and their families made to keep this company alive. At this point, Warrior Met is not….Despite Warrior Met's apparent appetite for this conflict, we will prevail."
Profiles in Courage: Celebrating AAPI Labor Activists
In the wake of the rise of hate crimes and violence against the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community, we take an important pause to voice our support of our brothers, sisters and friends in the AAPI community. The AAPI community has played an important and active role in the growth, expansion and unique diversity of this country and has given the labor movement many of its true heroes. This community is our community, and we are proud to celebrate these seven labor activists—all of whom have advanced the cause of worker justice.
Ai-jen Poo: Ai-jen Poo started organizing domestic workers in 1996 and helped found Domestic Workers United (DWU). In 2010, DWU was key in the passage of New York's Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights, the first law in the country to guarantee domestic workers labor protections. The next year, DWU helped organize the first national meeting of domestic worker organizations, leading to the formation of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA). Poo has been NDWA's director since 2010. Her other efforts on behalf of working people include Caring Across Generations, which campaigns for affordable health care for our aging population and for access to quality jobs for the caregiver workforce.
Larry Itliong: Born in the Philippines, Larry Itliong was a farmworker in California. In 1956, he founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union and later organized a group of Filipinos to strike against grape growers in Delano. For eight days, they were harassed and faced violence and saw no progress. Itliong approached César Chávez and the two groups joined together to launch the Delano Grape Strike of 1965 that eventually led to the creation of the United Farm Workers (UFW). Chávez became director and Itliong assistant director. He continued to organize with the UFW and the Filipino American Political Alliance until his passing in 1977.
Maf Misbah Uddin: In 1988, Maf Misbah Uddin began work as an actuary in New York City. He became active in the Accountants, Statisticians and Actuaries Local 1407, becoming president in 2000. He also became treasurer of AFSCME District Council 37. As treasurer, he improved the transparency of the union's finances. His work was vital in keeping District Council 37 on budget in the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which did extensive damage to the union's headquarters. He is also founder and president of the Alliance of South Asian American Labor.
May Chen: Before moving to New York in 1979, May Chen taught high school and college courses in California and founded a day care center. In New York, she did some work for UNITE HERE Local 6. Inspired by the 1982 garment workers' strike in Chinatown, she joined the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU). There she worked on the Immigration Project, the first union-created legal advocacy department for immigrant workers. She later worked in ILGWU's Education Department and served the New York City Central Labor Council, the Coalition of Labor Union Women and the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, ILGWU Local 23-25, the New York Metropolitan Area Joint Board. Before retiring in 2009, she served as international vice president of UNITE HERE.
Philip Vera Cruz: Born in the Philippines, Philip Vera Cruz worked on farms before moving to the United States. In 1943, he moved to California and became a farmworker. As a co-founder of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, he was a key part of the grape pickers strike in Delano, California, in 1965. He was a co-founder of UFW and served as vice president until 1977. After that, he helped create the Farm Workers Credit Union and he was the UFW officer in charge of the Agbayani Village, a retirement community for farmworkers.
Sue Ko Lee and the Dollar Store Strikers: Sue Ko Lee worked in the National Dollar Store's San Francisco factory in sweatshop conditions in the 1930s. ILGWU began organizing the Chinese Ladies Garment Workers Union Local 361, and it won a union election in 1938. The owner immediately sold the company to a new company headed by the factory manager and a former National Dollar Store employee in attempt to set aside the contract and break the union. Lee and her fellow workers went on strike and actively organized the strike, obtaining solidarity from their White co-workers. The unified front led to a contract that improved salaries, benefits and working conditions for the workers and helped break down racial barriers in San Francisco. Lee went on to become secretary of the union local and the San Francisco Joint Board.
Velma Veloria: After graduating from San Francisco State University and working on anti-war and Filipino rights causes, Velma Veloria became an organizer for the Office and Professional Employees (OPEIU), ILWU Local 37 for cannery workers and SEIU. She fought for justice for Gene Viernes and Silme Domingo, ILWU local leaders who were assassinated in 1981. Later, she began working in support of political campaigns. Veloria used her experience to win a seat as a state legislator and pursued a variety of causes important to women and people of color. She organized numerous trade missions to Southeast Asia and helped strengthen relations between the United States and countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia.
Learn more and support the AAPI community:
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance
Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta
Untapped Power: the Strength of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Working People
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: Alaska State AFL-CIO Demands Answers on Copper River Seafoods Investigation
The Alaska AFL-CIO has called out Copper River Seafoods for workplace safety violations. Throughout the pandemic, the company has failed to effectively screen employees for COVID-19 symptoms, implement social distancing, provide barriers for employees when they could not social distance, and prevent sick and symptomatic workers from entering the facility. Officials also have revealed that even employees who had tested positive were working, despite being required to quarantine for at least 10 days.
The state federation is fighting to hold this employer accountable. Alaska AFL-CIO President Joelle Hall (UFCW) wrote in a recently published op-ed, "Recent media reports have uncovered that [state] Commissioner of Labor Tamika Ledbetter blocked nearly $450,000 in proposed fines against a seafood plant that willfully violated COVID-19 workplace safety standards and was hostile with public health officials from the State of Alaska and the Municipality of Anchorage.…Our organization stands firm in holding employers accountable for their actions—or, in this case, inactions."
Women's History Month Profiles: School Administrators
This year, for Women's History Month, we're taking a look at a group of leaders who are currently active making women's history across the labor movement. Check back daily for a new profile and meet some of the people working to improve not only their community, but also to improve conditions for working people across the country.
The School Administrators (AFSA) profiled several of its members this month. Check them out:
Donis Coronel
Rosemarie Sinclair
Lauran Waters-Cherry
Women's History Month Profiles: Sara Steffens
This year, for Women's History Month, we're taking a look at a group of leaders who are currently active making women's history across the labor movement. Check back daily for a new profile and meet some of the people working to improve not only their community, but also to improve conditions for working people across the country. Today's profile is Sara Steffens.
Sara Steffens knows firsthand why passing the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act is so important. As a reporter at the Contra Costa (California) Times, Steffens successfully led her co-workers to organize and join The NewsGuild-CWA, only to be fired with a group of other activists two weeks after the vote. Since then, Steffens has dedicated her career to helping workers build power to improve our workplaces and our communities. She currently serves as secretary-treasurer for the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
Service + Solidarity Spotlight: Northwest Oregon Labor Council's Food Distribution
On March 14, the Northwest Oregon Labor Council ran a food distribution at the Laborers (LIUNA) Local 737 Training Center in Portland, Oregon. The labor council and affiliates came together over a four-day period to unload and break down the load from the Albertsons–Safeway warehouse, box up and hand out the food. The labor council and affiliates also paid for food with donations of cash to the labor council.
The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM) Local 364 gave 3,000 boxes of Ritz Crackers and Chicken in a Biskit crackers donated by Nabisco, and BCTGM Local 114 gave 1,000 loaves of fresh bread donated from Franz Bakery. A total of 867 boxes were provided to different groups throughout the state to distribute in their communities. The remaining 133 boxes were handed out to people who signed up on the website for a box and picked them up at LIUNA Local 737.


What an amazing day! HUGE thank you to all the staff, volunteers and fun loving children who helped to make our Second Annual Field Day and Picnic a wonderful success!
Please note the links in the newsletter are NOT live.


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The Curse of Star Wars
Andy Markham investigates the curse of Star Wars.
There's probably no greater success for an actor than landing a role in Star Wars. Once you've appeared in the galaxy far, far away, you're guaranteed an audience of billions, legions of fans for the rest of your life, and most importantly, enormous exposure. You'd think that Star Wars would be the industry's number one golden ticket to success. However, in most cases you'd be wrong.
Yes, this is a phenomenon that has become known in fan circles as the "curse of Star Wars" - for some reason, the wildly successful franchise has quite the reputation for killing actors' careers. So why is this? And is this a rule, or just a few unfortunate cases of high-profile failures? And who, or what, is to blame for this problem? Let's try and dig a little deeper, by looking at some of the most obvious victims of the curse of Star Wars, as well as some notable success stories - and those whose fate is still unclear...
Where better to start than with Star Wars' greatest hero of all? Mark Hamill was still a fresh-faced youth before Star Wars, and whilst he was doing pretty okay for himself, he couldn't yet be described as a household name. Then Star Wars came along and... well, not much happened beyond that. Other than being known as one of the very best actors ever to play The Joker (in voice only), providing a fantastic guest appearance in The Simpsons, and experiencing a very late career revival in the last year or so, triggered once again by Star Wars, Mark Hamill has never really had any kind of success from Star Wars - especially considering he plays Luke Skywalker himself. Hamill is clearly a very capable actor, with a large cult following. In this case, it seems likely that Hamill was simply so famous as Luke that he became hopelessly typecast and therefore unemployable.
However, on the other end of the spectrum is Hamill's co-star Harrison Ford, who of course played none other than the legendary Han Solo, and who is quite possibly the world's most successful living actor as of his triumphant return in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Ford's career was almost dead before Star Wars, but afterwards... well, the list is endless. Ford has Indiana Jones, Blade Runner, and Apocalypse Now as highlights on his CV, and is by a very, very long way the most successful actor to have come out of Star Wars. It does of course help that Ford does "wisecracking action hero" better than anyone else, and given that he had not one but two huge franchises in which to show this off, it's no surprise that he has done so well.
But what of the original trilogy's leading lady? Mainly known as a celebrity child before Star Wars (she's the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher), she was catapulted to incredible fame by Star Wars. Apart from giving by far the most... ahem... memorable performance in the Star Wars Holiday Special, a recurring role in Family Guy, and a bizarre cameo in the Blues Brothers, virtually nothing awaited Fisher after Star Wars. Theories abound about this - some believe Fisher just wasn't that great an actress; some believe it's another case of typecasting; some believe that there's a certain degree of sexism at play and that actresses are at an inherent disadvantage in Hollywood. This is one of the more tricky cases, and it's rather an interesting one.
Who doesn't love Lando Calrissian? What with Lando being the second coolest dude in the galaxy - and notably the only black character of any significance in the original trilogy - you would have expected Billy Dee Williams to be extremely in demand in the 80s and 90s. Well, he didn't drop off the radar quite as much as his co-stars, securing roles in Dynasty and other popular TV shows of the time, as well as starring as none other than Harvey Dent (although not Two-Face) in Batman Returns in 1989. He also had a recent stint on Dancing With the Stars and a memorable cameo as himself in Lost back in 2007. It's something, but not quite what you would expect for Williams following Star Wars. Again, as far as I can see, typecasting is clearly to blame here.
Onto the prequel trilogy now, and the arguable main star of the ill-fated trilogy was unknown young actor Hayden Christensen. His performances in Star Wars got a mixed reception at best, and unfortunately he became the actor most commonly associated with the notorious failings of the prequel trilogy, and ended up shouldering a lot of the backlash. It seems clear that it's for that reason that other than a few attempts at breaking out of Star Wars, such as Jumper (2008) and Shattered Glass (2004), it just wasn't to be for poor Hayden. One of the only cases here where we can definitively state that Star Wars was responsible for killing a career.
There's also another actor who played Anakin - 9-year-old Jake Lloyd who portrayed the pint-sized future Sith Lord in The Phantom Menace. Lloyd got a very similar reaction to Christensen, and being a child at the time, understandably didn't handle it very well and ended up quitting acting altogether during his teenage years. These days, he has largely distanced himself from the franchise and it's hard not to feel pretty bad for him, in all honestly.
However, it's not all bad news for the prequel trilogy - Natalie Portman, who played Padme in all three films, was arguably the biggest success story of the prequels, and is one of only a handful of Star Wars actors to have received an Oscar. Portman has hits such as Black Swan, V for Vendetta, Thor and The Other Boleyn Girl under her belt and is still a very in-demand actress 11 years after Star Wars. Interestingly, Portman has actually spoken about the curse of Star Wars recently, noting that she did indeed struggle for work at first. She puts her eventual success down to a mixture of very hard work, an already burgeoning career before Star Wars, and some good old fashioned luck.
Pretty much as successful as Portman is the young Obi-Wan Kenobi, grizzled Scot and overall good egg Ewan McGregor. Already widely known for his performance in Trainspotting, McGregor went on to some considerable success after Star Wars - in this case, probably because he was generally considered the best of the bunch in the prequels. His character's emotional climax ("you were the chosen one!") is one of the best bits of acting in the prequels and it seems only fair and just that major roles in Jack the Giant Slayer, Moulin Rouge, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and The Men Who Stare at Goats followed.
A particularly difficult one is the case of James Earl Jones, who was the voice of Darth Vader in four of the Star Wars films, including all of the original trilogy. Without doubt, it is the single most famous voice performance in movie history. Jones actually deliberately shunned the limelight as Vader, however, believing at first that he had not contributed enough to the character to deserve a credit in A New Hope. He eventually brushed aside his modesty and had a pretty successful career in the 80s and 90s. A massive revival came in 1994 when he voiced Mufasa in The Lion King, a voice performance almost as memorable as Vader. There's little doubt that Jones did very well for himself out of Star Wars, but shouldn't the guy behind Darth Vader deserve more than that? It seems likely that a combination of his initial coyness surrounding the role, the fact that he is not visibly recognisable as Vader, and the fact that his voice is pretty different in real life, stacked the odds against Jones.
So what does the future hold for the next generation of Star Wars actors? Daisy Ridley is one to watch, for sure - given that she is by far the most out-of-nowhere actress ever to have such a major role in the saga. After just two cameo appearances on Mr Selfridge and Casualty, Ridley appeared in the lead role of Rey in The Force Awakens last year, now the biggest film of all time at the US box office. Given the blank slate nature of Ridley's CV, this is perhaps the ultimate test of the curse of Star Wars. So far, the signs are good - Ridley's active engagement with the fans, friendly nature and commitment to providing a role model for young girls has made her a cult icon almost overnight, and recent news has arrived revealing that she is in talks to play Lara Croft in a new series of Tomb Raider movies. The future looks bright for Daisy.
So... what are the results? Why do some Star Wars succeed while others fail dramatically? As far as I can see, the curse of Star Wars is not so much one thing as a combination of factors that are somewhat unique to Star Wars. Given its enormous fame as a film franchise, the actors who are lucky enough to appear in Star Wars simply face higher stakes in their careers than those who don't. To appear in Star Wars is such a monumental achievement that for most actors, the obvious question is "where can I possibly go from there?".
Whilst a few supremely talented actors like Harrison Ford find that the stars align (no pun intended) after Star Wars and are able to use it as the ultimate career boost, others aren't so lucky and the likes of Hayden Christensen show that Star Wars can have just as strong a negative effect as a positive one. And as for Hamill, Fisher, and Williams - they've had perfectly solid careers in major films and TV shows. It's only because they were in Star Wars that their careers could ever be considered disappointments.
In short, it seems to me that there is no curse of Star Wars - there's simply a curse of fame.
Andy is a writer, musician, graduate, and super-geek. Ginger glasses-wearer. Star Wars obsessive and Doctor Who enthusiast. Specialises in film music and currently writing his first book on the subject. Follow Andy on Twitter.
Tags # Andy Markham # Carrie Fisher # Daisy Ridley # Ewan McGregor # Feature # Harrison Ford # James Earl Jones # Mark Hamill # Movies # Natalie Portman # Star Wars
Labels: Andy Markham, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, Ewan McGregor, Feature, Harrison Ford, James Earl Jones, Mark Hamill, Movies, Natalie Portman, Star Wars


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Q: Some code and breakpoints not working after switch between Debug and Release I had an app that worked well in Debug. Then I switched to Release and built the solution. I got a prompt asking for things like "continue to debug" etc, and chose the one that deactivate "Just My Code" (note: I'm new in this).
I launched my .exe and my app gave me an exception in a place my code worked just fine these past 2 weeks.
The code in question:
private void DgDeliveryOrders_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangedEventArgs e)
{
        foreach (string piece in e.AddedItems)
        {
            Database.Pieces.Add(piece);
        }
        foreach (string piece in e.RemovedItems)
        {
            Database.Pieces.Remove(piece);
        }
        FillDetailsDataGrid();
}

Database.Pieces is a model property in my library project:
public static class Database
{
    public static List<string> Pieces { get; set; }
}

I chose the static route because I used it in several places and it was easier (I don't know if it's the best practice, but it worked in Debug).
But then, each time I clicked on a item in my DataGrid, I got an exception: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Plus something telling me things about optimized code.
I switched back to Debug, it worked, no more errors. I switched again to Release, the same error is back. Breakpoints were acting funny (sometimes it  stopped, sometimes not), and although I had the exception message, my ex was null.
After following some topics here, I checked that my solution was in Release for my 2 projets. I deactivated "Optimize" in the projets properties too. What did it change? Breakpoints not working at all.
So I checked again "Optimize", reactivated Just my Code and... my code isn't working in Debug anymore. Nor do the breakpoints.
I tried to reboot Visual Studio, but nothing changed.
At this point, I don't know what to do, it's the first time I do a release, what did I do wrong?
Thank you for reading.
UPDATE
The code problem was resolved in the comments, as for the VS problem, it solved itself after several reboot of the software/computer.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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