Archives for March 2021

Japan, Indonesia sign arms transfer pact amid China concerns

TOKYO (AP) — Japan and Indonesia signed a pact on Tuesday allowing the transfer of Japanese defense equipment and technology to Jakarta as the two countries strengthen their military ties in the face of China’s increasingly assertive activity in the region.

The agreement came during “two plus two” security talks among the foreign and defense ministers of the two countries, which share concerns about China’s growing influence and territorial claims in the East and South China seas.

“It has become difficult to take for granted the premises that have supported the peace and prosperity of the international community,” Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said in opening remarks at the talks.

Motegi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi and their Indonesian counterparts, Retno Marsudi and Prabowo Subianto, also agreed to actively participate in multinational military exercises and jointly develop remote islands in the South China Sea.

The ministers “shared grave concern over the continuation and escalation of an attempt to change the status quo by force” and agreed on the importance of observing a rules-based maritime order and respect for international maritime laws, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Together we will maintain and strengthen a free and open maritime order,” Kishi said at a joint news conference after the talks. He said the two countries will speed up a decision on the details of Japanese exports of defense equipment to Indonesia.

The security talks come two weeks after Japan and its key ally, the United States, held security talks in which they condemned Chinese “coercion and aggression” toward its neighbors in Asia.

The Japanese and Indonesian ministers also shared (asterisk)serious concern” over the killings of pro-democracy protestors by the Myanmar military, agreeing to closely cooperate in efforts to improve the situation in that country.

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Rizzo ends talks; Odor getting cut; restrictions to loosen

Anthony Rizzo is cutting off talks with the Chicago Cubs on a new contract and is prepared to play the season as free agency looms after the World Series.

The first baseman, who in 2016 helped the Cubs win their first title in 108 years, agreed in March 2013 to a $41 million, seven-year contract that included two team option years. He has a $16.5 million salary this season and set a deadline of opening day for a new agreement.

“Obviously there’s been talks and whatnot, but it doesn’t look like really at this time anything is going to be finalized and look forward to just opening up Thursday and starting this journey with this team,” Rizzo said Monday.

CUTTING ODOR

Rougned Odor, the Texas Rangers’ starting second baseman the past seven seasons, has been told he won’t be on the opening day roster after switching to third base this spring training.

President of baseball operations Jon Daniels said the Rangers don’t have an everyday role for Odor. The 27-year-old infielder has two more seasons and $24.6 million left on his six-year contract, and a $3 million buyout for a $13.5 million team option in 2023.

“I think really what it came down to was we’ve made a decision, obviously a pretty clear direction looking towards the future. And playing him every day was not in our plans this year,” Daniels said. “As we look forward, we think we’re going to have some younger players coming up. And we didn’t think it was in his best interest or our best interest to kind of force the issue into a bench role.”

RESTRICTIONS TO LOOSEN

Card games, car pools and eating at restaurants may be back in the major leagues later this season. Trips to church and sponsor events may return, too.

Mask use would be dropped from dugouts and bullpens, and electronic tracing devices would be eliminated when 85% of major league players and primary field staff are vaccinated. Communal clubhouse video would return before and after games. Pool tables would be restored, along with team saunas.

A three-page memorandum from Major League Baseball and the players’ association sent to players and staff on Monday and obtained by The Associated Press also stated “all players and staff are strongly encouraged to receive one of the approved COVID-19 vaccines when eligible.”

“For purposes of this memo, individuals are considered `fully vaccinated’ two weeks after receiving their second dose of a two-dose vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna) or two weeks after their first dose of a single dose vaccine (Johnson & Johnson),” the memo stated.

Not many players have been vaccinated, according to MLB, but it expects the pace to increase after teams return to their home cities from spring training. Opening day is Thursday.

BIG DEAL

Randy Dobnak’s road to the major leagues was so far off the traditional path he even chauffeured some ride-share customers along the way.

The Minnesota Twins delivered the overachieving right-hander another big-time moment in the form of a $9.25 million, five-year contract that includes three club options and could be worth $29.75 million over eight seasons.

“I always believed in myself, even since I was a little kid. You have career days and stuff when you’re in elementary school and whatnot, and I was always like, ‘I want to be a baseball player,’” said Dobnak, whose place as the swingman of the 13-pitcher staff was secured last week.

KUHL’s THE RULE

Chad Kuhl’s long road back from Tommy John surgery is over.

More than two years removed from wondering where his career was heading after doctors reconfigured his mangled right elbow, Kuhl will be Pittsburgh’s opening day starter in Chicago on Thursday when the Pirates face the Cubs.

The 28-year-old is the longest-tenured starter on a staff that is largely inexperienced and largely anonymous. The void left by the offseason departures of Jameson Taillon, Joe Musgrove, Trevor Williams and Chris Archer is palpable. Kuhl knows he will play a major role in trying to fill it.

“We talk about the guys that have left and there’s a lot of leadership, a lot of innings to take up, a lot of youth on this team,” he said. “So it adds to the leadership role that me and (Steven) Brault and those guys are trying to take over. It’s just trying to lead by example, do the right things.”

NOT IN THE CARDS

The St. Louis Cardinals plan to start the season Thursday in Cincinnati with pitchers Kwang Hyun Kim, Dakota Hudson and Miles Mikolas on the injured list along with outfielder Harrison Bader.

Hudson always planned to begin on the season on the injured list as he recovers from Tommy John surgery. Kim is dealing with a back injury, Mikolas with a sore shoulder and Bader has a strained right foreman that could keep him out a month, the Cardinals said Sunday.

ASTROS 2, NATIONALS 2 (9)

Stephen Strasburg gave up two runs, four hits and three walks in 5 2/3 innings. Astros starter Jake Odorizzi allowed an unearned run and three hits, leaving with the bases loaded in the third, then Odorizzi, returned to get one out in the fourth.

METS 3, CARDINALS 3 (9)

Nolan Arenado hit his first home run for St. Louis, a solo shot in the first. Edmundo Sosa hit a tying homer off Trevor Hildenberger in the ninth. Adam Wainwright allowed two runs and three hits in 2 2/3 innings. Starter Carlos Martínez entered in the fourth and gave up only a walk in three scoreless innings. Taijuan Walker allowed two runs and three hits in five innings.

RAYS 8, ORIOLES 3 (7)

Yoshi Tsutsugo led off the game with his first homer and Yandy Díaz hit a two-out triple later in the inning. Willy Adames hit a pair of solo homer, doubling his home run total. Rich Hill allowed three runs, five hits and two walks in five innings. Baltimore’s Austin Hays hit his fourth homer. Orioles starter Bruce Zimmermann allowed seven runs and nine hits in 4 1/3 innings after pitching nine shutout innings in three relief appearances this spring.

TIGERS 5, YANKEES 2

Domingo Germán allowed two runs and four hits in four after entering with nine shutout innings that included 13 strikeouts. Thairo Estrada hit his third homer. Detroit rookie Akil Baddoo hit his team-high fifth homer and Miguel Cabrera hit his second. José Ureña allowed one run, one hit and five walks in 4 2/3 innings.

RED SOX 4, BRAVES 0 (7)

J.D. Martinez hit his first home run for Boston, and Kiké Hernández and Marwin González each hit hit third with his third homer, a two-run shot. Tanner Houck, Boston’s No. 2 pitching prospect, allowed two hits in 4 1/3 scoreless innings with six strikeouts. Atlanta’s Ian Anderson gave up four runs and five hits in 2 2/3 innings.

BLUE JAYS 13, PHILLIES 7

Bryce Harper hit his fourth home run and Zach Eflin allowed two runs — one earned — and eight hits in five innings. Rowdy Tellez homered for Toronto.

TWINS 5, PIRATES 3

Chad Kuhl was announced as the Pirates’ opening-day starter. Erik Gonzalez hit his second home run and Ke’Bryan Hayes raised his average to .429 with two hits. Mitch Garver went 0 for 4 in his first action since the Minnesota catcher took a foul tip off his left index finger on Thursday, Willians Astudillo homered and Jake Cave had an RBI triple.

CUBS 7, DIAMONDBACKS 1

Craig Kimbrel allowed a hit and a walk while striking out two in an inning of relief. Pedro Strop struck out two in the ninth. Willson Contreras had three hits including a double and a home run and Nico Hoerner hit a three-run homer. Cubs starter Zach Davies allowed one run and two hits in 3 1/3 innings. Arizona’s Caleb Smith gave up seven runs on eight hits over 3 2/3 innings, and Christian Walker hit his fifth homer.

ROYALS 5, INDIANS 4

Grabriel Cancel hit a game-ending triple, and Hunter Dozier and Carlos Santana homered off starter Zach Plesac,. Ryan O’Hearn also homered. Brady Singer, the Royals first-round pick in 2018, allowed two hits in five innings. Cleveland’s Jose Fermin hit a two-run homer,

MARINERS 5, REDS 5

Chris Flexen allowed two hits in three innings. Closer Rafael Montero allowed a run on two hits and a pair of walks and got just two outs in the fifth. Reds starter Brandon Finnegan, who hasn’t played since 2017 because of two shoulder injuries, gave up three runs, two hits and two walks in one inning.

GIANTS 7, ATHLETICS 2

Giants starter Logan Webb allowed one run, his first this spring training, and four hits in six innings. Will Wilson homered in the ninth. A’s starter Sean Manaea gave up five runs, five hits and four walks in 3 1.3 innings.

ROCKIES 10, PADRES 2

Ryan Rolison, a first-round pick in the 2018 amateur draft, gave up one run, one hit and three walks in three innings. Garrett Hampson hit a three-run homer and Connor Joe had a three-run double in the seven-run fourth inning. Padres starter Dinelson Lamet allowed one run and two hits in 1 1/3 innings. Pedro Florimón homered.

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‘Lighting a fuse’: Amazon vote may spark more union pushes

What happens inside a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, could have major implications not just for the country’s second-largest employer but the labor movement at large.

Organizers are pushing for some 6,000 Amazon workers there to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union on the promise it will lead to better working conditions, better pay and more respect. Amazon is pushing back, arguing that it already offers more than twice the minimum wage in Alabama and workers get such benefits as health care, vision and dental insurance without paying union dues.

The two sides are fully aware that it’s not just the Bessemer warehouse on the line. Organizers hope what happens there will inspire thousands of workers nationwide — and not just at Amazon — to consider unionizing and revive a labor movement that has been waning for decades.

“This is lighting a fuse, which I believe is going to spark an explosion of union organizing across the country, regardless of the results,” says RWDSU president Stuart Appelbaum.

The union push could spread to other parts of Amazon and threaten the company’s profits, which soared 84% last year to $21 billion. At a time when many companies were cutting jobs, Amazon was one of the few still hiring, bringing on board 500,000 people last year alone to keep up with a surge of online orders.

Bessemer workers finished casting their votes on Monday. The counting begins on Tuesday, which could take days or longer depending on how many votes are received and how much time it takes for each side to review. The process is being overseen by the National Labor Relations Board and a majority of the votes will decide the final outcome.

What that outcome will be is anyone’s guess. Appelbaum thinks workers who voted early likely rejected the union because Amazon’s messaging got to them first. He says momentum changed in March as organizers talked to more workers and heard from basketball players and high-profile elected officials, including President Joe Biden.

For Amazon, which employs more than 950,000 full- and part-time workers in the U.S. and nearly 1.3 million worldwide, a union could lead to higher wages that would eat into its profits. Higher wages would also mean higher costs to get packages to shoppers’ doorsteps, which may prompt Amazon to raise prices, says Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Any push to unionize is considered a long shot, since labor laws tend to favor employers. Alabama itself is a “right-to-work” state, which allows workers in unionized shops to opt out of paying union dues even as they retain the benefits and job protection negotiated by the union.

Kent Wong, the director of the UCLA Labor Center, says companies in the past have closed stores, warehouses or plants after workers have voted to unionize.

“There’s a history of companies going to great lengths to avoid recognizing the union,” he says.

Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer and biggest private employer, has successfully fought off organizing efforts over the years. In 2000, it got rid of butchers in 180 of its stores after they voted to form a union. Walmart said it cut the jobs because people preferred pre-packaged meat. Five years later, it closed a store in Canada where some 200 workers were close to winning a union contract. At the time, Walmart said demands from union negotiators made it impossible for the store to sustain itself.

The only other time Amazon came up against a union vote was in 2014, when the majority of the 30 workers at a Delaware warehouse turned it down.

This time around, Amazon has been hanging anti-union signs throughout the Bessemer warehouse, including inside bathroom stalls, and holding mandatory meetings to convince workers why the union is a bad idea, according to one worker who recently testified at a Senate hearing. It has also created a website for employees that tells them they’ll have to pay $500 in union dues a month, taking away money that could go to dinners and school supplies.

Amazon’s hardball tactics extend beyond squashing union efforts. Last year, it fired a worker who organized a walkout at a New York warehouse to demand greater protection against coronavirus, saying the employee himself flouted distancing rules. When Seattle, the home of its headquarters, passed a new tax on big companies in 2018, Amazon protested by stopping construction of a new high-rise building in the city; the tax was repealed four weeks later. And in 2019, Amazon ditched plans to build a $2.5 billion headquarters for 25,000 workers in New York after pushback from progressive politicians and unions.

Beyond Amazon is an anti-union culture that dominates the South. And unions have lost ground nationally for decades since their peak in the decades following World War II. In 1970, almost a third of the U.S. workforce belonged to a union. In 2020, that figure was 10.8%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Private sector workers now account for less than half of the 14.3 million union members across the country.

Advocates say a victory would signal a shift in the narrative about unions, helping refute the typical arguments from companies, including Amazon, that workers can win adequate compensation and conditions by dealing with management directly.

“It is because of unions that we have a five-day work week. It is because of unions that we have safer conditions in our places of work. It is because of unions that we have benefits,” says Rep. Terri Sewell, whose congressional district includes the Amazon facility. “Workers should have the right to choose whether they organize or not.”

Union leaders are circumspect about specific organizing plans after the Bessemer vote, and Appelbaum says he doesn’t want to tip off Amazon to any future efforts. But there is broad consensus that a win would spur workers at some of the 230 other Amazon warehouses to mount a similar union campaign.

It’s less clear whether any ripple effects would reach other prime targets like Walmart and the expansive auto industry that has burgeoned across the South in recent decades. Both have largely succeeded at keeping unions at bay.

The auto workers union has had some of the largest union pushes of the last decade, but their most intense and publicized efforts ended in failure. In 2017, a years-long campaign to unionize a Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, ended with a decisive 2,244-1,307 rejection of the union — the kind of margin that would be devastating in Bessemer. Two years later, however, Volkswagen workers in Tennessee had a much more evenly split vote, with 776 workers supporting unionization and 833 voting against it.

Besides the number of Amazon workers involved, the Alabama campaign has stood out because of how explicitly many advocates have linked the effort to the civil rights movement of the 20th century. The RWDSU estimates that more than 80% of the warehouse workers in Bessemer are Black.

Robert Korstad, a Duke Emeritus professor and labor history expert, says those dynamics could help in Bessemer.

“The history of the Black struggle in Alabama is pretty deeply entrenched in the social, political and religious institutions there,” he says. “We’re starting to see people rise up again. So this Amazon struggle is part of a larger struggle that’s gone on a long time.”

The question, Korstad says, is whether a win in Bessemer truly becomes a “ripple effect” that inspires workers across racial and ethnic lines elsewhere.

Amazon faces biggest union push in its history

NEW YORK (AP) — The second Jennifer Bates walks away from her post at the Amazon warehouse where she works, the clock starts ticking.

She has precisely 30 minutes to get to the cafeteria and back for her lunch break. That means traversing a warehouse the size of 14 football fields, which eats up precious time. She avoids bringing food from home because warming it up in the microwave would cost her even more minutes. Instead she opts for $4 cold sandwiches from the vending machine and hurries back to her post.

If she makes it, she’s lucky. If she doesn’t, Amazon could cut her pay, or worse, fire her.

It’s that kind of pressure that has led some Amazon workers to organize the biggest unionization push at the company since it was founded in 1995. And it’s happening in the unlikeliest of places: Bessemer, Alabama, a state with laws that don’t favor unions.

The stakes are high. If organizers succeed in Bessemer, where nearly 6,000 people work, it could set off a chain reaction across Amazon’s operations nationwide, with thousands more workers rising up and demanding better working conditions. But they face an uphill battle against the second-largest employer in the country with a history of crushing unionizing efforts at its warehouses and its Whole Foods grocery stores.

Attempts by Amazon to delay the vote in Bessemer have failed. So too have the company’s efforts to require in-person voting, which organizers argue would be unsafe during the pandemic. Mail-in voting started this week and will go on until the end of March. A majority of the valid votes received have to vote “yes” in order to unionize.

Amazon, whose profits and revenues have skyrocketed during the pandemic, has campaigned hard to convince workers that a union will only suck money from their paycheck with little benefit. Spokeswoman Rachael Lighty says the company already offers them what unions want: benefits, career growth and pay that starts at $15 an hour. She adds that the organizers don’t represent the majority of Amazon employees’ views.

Bates makes $15.30 an hour unpacking boxes of deodorant, clothing and countless other items that are eventually shipped to Amazon shoppers. The job, which the 48-year-old started in May, has her on her feet for most of her 10-hour shifts. Besides lunch, Bates says trips to the bathroom are also closely monitored, as is getting a drink of water or fetching a fresh pair of work gloves. Amazon denies that, saying it offers two 30-minute breaks during each shift and extra time to use the bathroom or get water.

Fed up, Bates and a group of workers reached out to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union last summer. She hopes the union, which also represents poultry plant workers in Alabama, will mandate more breaks, prevent Amazon from firing workers for mundane reasons and push for higher pay.

“They will be a voice when we don’t have one,” Bates says.

But according to Sylvia Allegretto, an economist and co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley, “history tells us not to be optimistic.”

The last time Amazon workers voted on whether they wanted to unionize was in 2014, and it was a much smaller group: 30 employees at a Amazon warehouse in Delaware who ultimately turned it down. Amazon currently employs nearly 1.3 million people worldwide.

Also working against the unionizing effort is that it’s happening in Republican-controlled Alabama, which generally isn’t friendly to organized labor. Alabama is one of 27 “right-to-work states” where workers don’t have to pay dues to unions that represent them. In fact, the state is home to the only Mercedes-Benz plant in the world that isn’t unionized.

That the union push at the Bessemer warehouse has even gotten this far is likely due to who the organizers are, says Michael Innis-Jiménez, an associate professor at the University of Alabama. Companies typically villainize union organizers as out-of-staters who don’t know what workers want. But the retail union has an office in nearby Birmingham and many of the organizers are Black, like the workers in the Bessemer warehouse.

“I think that really helps a lot,” Innis-Jiménez said. “They’re not seen as outsiders.”

More than 70% of the population of Bessemer is Black. The retail union estimates that as many as 85% of the workers are Black, much higher than the 22% for overall warehouse workers nationwide, according to an Associated Press analysis of census data.

Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, says the union’s success in Bessemer is partly due to the pandemic, with workers feeling betrayed by employers that didn’t do enough to protect them from the virus. And the Black Lives Matter movement, which has inspired people to demand to be treated with respect and dignity. Appelbaum says the union has heard from Amazon warehouse workers all over the country.

“They want a voice in their workplace, too,” he says.

Representatives of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union spend most days outside the entrance of the Bessemer warehouse holding signs and wearing neon vests, although a lot of the unionization effort is being conducted online or by phone because of the pandemic. At the end of a recent workday, some Amazon employees leaving the plant rolled down their car windows and chatted with organizers; others hurried past without acknowledgement.

Some workers from poultry plants have helped. Among them is Michael Foster, a union representative who works at a north Alabama poultry plant but has been in town for more than a month helping with the organizing push.

He says an Amazon employee tried to shoo them away, saying they better make sure they’re not on Amazon property.

“I let them know that this is not my first rodeo,” says Foster, who has helped get two other poultry plants to unionize.

Inside the warehouse, Bates says Amazon has been holding daily classes on why workers should vote against the union. Lighty, the Amazon spokeswoman, says the sessions are a way for employees to get information and ask questions.

“If the union vote passes, it will impact everyone at the site and it’s important all associates understand what that means for them and their day-to-day life working at Amazon,” Lighty says.

Dawn Hoag says she’ll vote against unionization. The 43-year-old has worked at the warehouse since April and says Amazon makes clear that its jobs are physically demanding. Plus, she says she can speak up for herself and doesn’t need to pay a union to do it for her.

“That’s just what I believe,” Hoag says. “I don’t see a need for it at all.”

Unions have been forming in unusual places recently. Last month, about 225 Google engineers formed a union, a rarity in the high-paid tech industry. Google has fired outspoken workers, though the company says it was for other reasons.

At Amazon, things haven’t ended well for outspoken workers either.

Last year, Amazon fired warehouse worker Christian Smalls, who led a walkout at a New York warehouse, hoping to get the company to better protect workers against the coronavirus. Office workers who joined in and spoke about working conditions in the warehouses during the pandemic were also fired, though Amazon says it was for other reasons. An Amazon executive quit in protest last spring, saying he couldn’t stand by as whistleblowers were silenced.

Bates is aware of the risks.

“I know it might happen,” she says about being fired. “But it’s worth it.”

This story was corrected to say that a majority of the valid votes received have to vote “yes” in order to unionize, not the majority of the 6,000 employees at the warehouse.

Associated Press reporter Jay Reeves in Bessemer, Alabama and data reporter Angeliki Kastanis in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Arkansas Senate OKs ban on treatments for transgender youth

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The Arkansas Senate on Monday approved banning gender confirming treatments for minors, sending the governor a restriction on transgender youth that has been criticized by medical and child welfare groups.

The majority Republican Senate voted 28-7 in favor of the legislation. If the bill is enacted it would be the first prohibition of its kind in the country, opponents say. The bill would prohibit doctors from providing gender confirming hormone treatment or surgery to minors, or from referring them to other providers for the treatment.

“This bill sets out to protect children in an area where they very much need protection,” Republican Sen. Alan Clark, a sponsor of the measure, said before the vote.

But pediatricians, social workers and the parents of transgender youth have said it will have the opposite effect on a community already vulnerable to depression and suicide.

“Denying them access to gender affirming health care is denying them the right to be themselves,” Joanna Brandt, the Arkansas mother of a transgender boy, told reporters at a news conference before the vote. “My son will be devastated if he is forced to stop his hormone treatment.”

Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, has not said whether he supports the measure. A spokeswoman said he will review the bill more closely and listen to the debate on it, but did not say when he would make a decision. He has five days, not counting Sunday, after the bill reaches his desk to sign or veto the legislation before it becomes law without his signature.

The measure is among several targeting transgender people that have advanced in Arkansas and other states this year. Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee have enacted measures prohibiting transgender girls and women from competing in school sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

Hutchinson on Friday signed a law that would allow doctors to refuse to treat someone because of religious or moral objections, a move that opponents say could be used to turn away LGBTQ patients.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights group, ran a TV ad in Arkansas over the weekend criticizing the measures targeting trans youth.

“For Arkansas to prioritize unpopular, discriminatory bills like (the treatment ban) during this legislative session, despite the economic devastation the pandemic has had on the state, shows that they prioritize cruelty to children over actually helping Arkansans,” Alphonso David, the group’s president, said in a statement.

Similar transgender treatment prohibitions are being considered by lawmakers in Alabama and Tennessee.

Opponents of the bill include the American Academy of Pediatrics. The group’s president, Dr. Lee Beers, called the measure “discrimination by legislation” and said it would politicize medical care.

The American Civil Liberties Union said it plans to take legal action to block the treatments ban if it’s signed into law. If signed, the ban would take effect later this summer.

Archives for March 2021

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