May, 01 2020, 12:00am EDT
50+ Racial Justice, Civil Liberties, Worker Advocacy Groups Release Joint Statement Calling for Whistleblower Protections for Frontline Workers
Alarm sounded after Amazon fires whistleblowers organizing against dangerous workplace conditions that risk exacerbating the spread of COVID-19.
WASHINGTON
Today on May Day, 50+ racial justice, civil liberties, and worker advocacy organizations release a joint statement condemning the silencing of front line workers blowing the whistle on unsafe corporate practices during COVID-19. The joint statement calls for an expansion and improved enforcement of legal protections for frontline workers who speak out and organize for a healthy and safe workplace, as a matter of public health.
The statement amplifies and supports worker demands for workplace health and safety standards in line with Center for Disease Control guidelines: implementation of six feet of distance between all individuals in the facility, personal protective equipment for all, time for handwashing, temporarily closing and cleaning exposed facilities to allow for quarantine, independent and transparent reporting, and paid leave policies to help exposed and sick workers to stay home.
Since the COVID 19 outbreak, Amazon has fired six workers who spoke out and organized for these basic standards. Rather than implement necessary safeguards, the technology giant expanded their surveillance system to monitor worker interactions, which risks undermining the right of workers to take action on critical public health issues.
The statement also speaks to the disproportionate number of Black and brown people taking enormous risks as frontline workers. It is egregious that all the warehouse workers Amazon fired are Black. Amazon's actions callously add harm at a time when many Black communities face higher COVID-19 death rates and are bearing the brunt of the economic and health impacts.
The current crisis has elevated the necessity for workers to be able to speak out without retaliation to protect themselves, their communities, and the public.
QUOTES:
"People from across the political spectrum can agree on this: essential workers are our first line of defense against corruption, greed, and dangerous conditions that put public health at risk. Now more than ever we need workers to feel safe speaking out when they see their employers engaging in practices that could lead to loss of life, said Evan Greer, Deputy Director of Fight for the Future. "It's essential we put policies in place to ensure all frontline workers are protected and any violations of these protections trigger an automatic investigation. It's the only way we'll stop companies, like Amazon, from retaliating against whistleblowers and using surveillance to clamp down on workers self-organizing. Anything less is a threat to the safety of workers and the public at large."
"Black and brown workers have always been essential for our nation's economy and public health, but their voices are too often silenced. During this crisis, Amazon and other employers are willing to make this 'essential work' a death sentence for Black and brown frontline workers," said Myaisha Hayes, Campaign Director at MediaJustice. "This blatant disregard for the safety and wellbeing of Black and brown bodies is business as usual for Amazon, who already profits from mass surveillance of over-policed communities through their partnerships with ICE and local law enforcement. On May Day, we stand in solidarity with Amazon workers who are striking, organizing, and taking direct action at the risk of their jobs because they understand what is truly at stake: the health and safety of their communities"
"Our public health and societal well-being require that workers have the power to speak up in these moments, to call attention to employer practices that create unsafe working conditions made more dangerous by the current crisis, and to refuse to work in deadly worksites," said Rebecca Dixon, Executive Director of the National Employment Law Project. "We cannot allow Amazon to retaliate against whistleblowers and silence a disproportionately Black, Latinx, and indigenous workforce, which, in the face of hazardous conditions, is courageously declaring 'We will not accept this," defending both worker and public health."
"While many of us get to stay home and wait out the pandemic, thousands of low-wage Amazon workers are showing up every day and risking their lives to keep Jeff Bezos' unsafe facilities running," said Sandra Fulton, government relations director for Free Press. "A great number of these frontline workers are members of Black and Brown communities that have been hardest hit by COVID-19. Amazon must do more to protect its workers of color, and recognize and reward their daily sacrifices. Instead, it's firing them for exercising their legally protected rights to organize and protest for safe and healthy working conditions."
"Black, brown, Muslim, immigrant workers are already heavily surveilled in their neighborhoods and in their homes. Amazon surveilling essential workers and firing whistleblowers who are bringing to light the horrific public health conditions inside Amazon warehouses in the middle of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic is appalling--but unsurprising. Amazon is already a leader in powering surveillance and state violence, as they provide technology for ICE's detention-deportation machine and partner with police departments via their doorbell camera, Ring," said Lau Barrios, Campaign Manager at MPower Change. "Amazon workers are organizing and taking unprecedented direct action to demand the bare minimum safety conditions because they understand and care about the health of our communities--not the richest man in the world's bottom line. This May Day, it's imperative that we stand with Amazon workers. Worker health is community health--and it's absolutely a racial justice issue."
The signing organizations include: Access Now, Action Center on Race and the Economy, AI Now, Alternate ROOTS, Athena Coalition, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law, Color of Change, Community Justice Exchange, Constitutional Alliance, Defending Rights & Dissent, Demand Progress Education Fund, Ella Baker Center, Fight for the Future, Free Press, Freedom of the Press Foundation, Global Action Project, Government Accountability Project, Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California, Just Futures Law, Line Break Media,Make the Road New Jersey, Make the Road New York, Media Mobilizing Project, MediaJustice, MPower Change, Muslim Advocates, National Employment Law Project (NELP), National Immigration Law Center, New America Center on Education and Labor, New America's Open Technology Institute, New York Communities for Change, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Open Markets Institute, Open MIC (Open Media and Information Companies Initiative), Partnership for Working Families, People Demanding Action, People For the American Way, PeoplesHub, Project Censored, Project On Government Oversight, Public Citizen, RootsAction.org, RYSE Center, Secure Justice, Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP). The Awood Center, The Civil Liberties Defense Center, The Tully Center for Free Speech, United for Respect, United We Dream, Warehouse Worker Resource Center, Whistleblower & Source Protection, Program at ExposeFacts, Woodhull Freedom Foundation, XLab.
Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.
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'Inexcusable': Amnesty Slams Biden Admin for Delaying Report on Israel's Use of US Weapons
"The Biden administration had months to put together a report on information they should already be collecting."
May 09, 2024
A leading human rights organization on Wednesday slammed the Biden administration's decision to indefinitely delay the release of a report on whether Israel and other U.S. allies are using American weaponry in compliance with international law.
"The Biden administration had months to put together a report on information they should already be collecting—whether grave human rights violations and other serious violations of international law are being committed using U.S.-provided weapons in seven conflicts around the world," said Amanda Klasing, national director for government relations at Amnesty International USA. "They must release it urgently."
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Required under a White House policy implemented in February, the report was supposed to be delivered to Congress on May 8.
U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said during a press briefing Wednesday that the administration will "have it up in the coming days," but declined to offer a specific timeline.
"It is overdue for President Biden to end U.S. complicity with the government of Israel's grave violations of international law."
U.S. President Joe Biden admitted in a CNN interview Wednesday that the Israeli military has killed civilians in Gaza with American-made bombs—something human rights organizations like Amnesty have been documenting for months.
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While applauding Biden's decision to halt a shipment of thousands of bombs to Israel as it attacks Rafah, Amnesty said Wednesday that it was "inexcusable" for the State Department to postpone the long-awaited report.
"It is overdue for President Biden to end U.S. complicity with the government of Israel's grave violations of international law," said Klasing. "Tough conversations with counterparts in Israel are tragically and clearly not doing the job—violations continue unabated, and civilians are paying the price with their lives."
It's unclear why the administration was unable to meet its own deadline for providing U.S. lawmakers with the report on Israel's use of American weaponry.
Kevin Martin, the president of Peace Action, argued in an op-ed for Common Dreams on Thursday that the delay "reflects internal divisions within the State Department not just about Israel's fallacious claim of compliance, but what to recommend to the executive branch in terms of possible action against Israel."
An internal State Department memo that leaked last month showed that officials at four of the department's bureaus did not believe the Israeli government's written assurances that its use of American weaponry in Gaza has followed international law.
Several State Department officials have resigned since October over the Biden administration's decision to arm Israel's assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 34,900 people and sparked an appalling humanitarian crisis.
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, said Thursday that the Biden administration's "suspension of massive bombs to Israel is an important but long-overdue acknowledgment that Israel has been using American weapons to indiscriminately kill Palestinian civilians in violation of the most basic laws of war."
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A Dartmouth University professor who once served as the school's head of Jewish studies and was violently arrested at a Palestinian rights protest last week was among more than 800 Jewish educators who had signed a letter as of Thursday, demanding that lawmakers and U.S. President Joe Biden oppose a bill claiming to combat antisemitism.
The Awareness of Antisemitism Act, said the letter, would actually "amplify the real threats Jewish Americans already face" by "conflating antisemitism with legitimate criticism of Israel."
The bill, which was passed by the Republican-controlled House last week over the objections of 70 progressive Democrats and 21 Republicans, would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, which includes "targeting of the state of Israel" and "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis."
The Awareness of Antisemitism Act, which could soon be taken up by the Senate, would require the Department of Education to consider the group's working definition when determining whether harassment is motivated by antisemitism.
The professors noted that the working definition has been "internationally criticized," with more than 100 civil society organizations—including some Israeli groups—calling on the United Nations last year to reject the IHRA's interpretation because it has been "misused" to shield Israel from legitimate criticism.
"We hold varied opinions on Israel," reads the letter. "Whatever our differences, we oppose the IHRA's definition of antisemitism. If imported into federal law, the IHRA definition will delegitimize and silence Jewish Americans—among others—who advocate for Palestinian human rights or otherwise criticize Israeli policies."
The professors pointed out the irony that by using the IHRA definition—which also includes "accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel" than their own home countries—the bill "hardens the dangerous notion that Jewish identity is inextricably linked to every decision of Israel's government."
"Far from combating antisemitism, this dynamic promises to amplify the real threats Jewish Americans already face," the letter reads.
Annelise Orleck, the Dartmouth professor who was arrested last week, was joined by other Jewish academics including City University of New York professor Peter Beinart and professor emeritus Avishai Margalit of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in signing the letter.
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When the Antisemitism Awareness Act was passed by the House last week, Jewish-led Palestinian rights groups were among those that condemned the proposal.
Biden has angered pro-Palestinian rights groups by suggesting the campus protests that have spread across the U.S. in recent weeks, with students and faculty demanding an end to U.S. support for Israel as it bombards Gaza, are inherently antisemitic.
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Biodiversity loss, the introduction of invasive species, the climate emergency, and chemical pollution all increase the risk of infectious disease, a first-of-its-kind analysis has found.
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"New study in Nature confirms that if we want to avoid the next pandemic—we should stop destroying biodiversity, heating, and polluting the planet," Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, who leads the World Health Organization's climate change unit and was not involved with the study, wrote on social media. "Just one more reason to go for a greener, healthier future."
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Colin Carlson, a Georgetown University biologist who was not part of the research team, told the Times that the lack of urban biodiversity was "not a good thing."
Next, the researchers hope to explore more about the connections between the different drivers of change.
"Importantly, greater effort is needed to identify win-win solutions that address multiple societal stressors, such as disease, food, energy, water, sustainability, and poverty challenges," they write.
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Carlson told the Times that the study was "a big step forward in the science."
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