Professional news: It's my first day as the business and tech reporter on the digital team
@ABC
. I’ll be writing breaking news and enterprise stories on big tech, inequality, labor, economic trends, and other things. Story tips or Dad jokes welcome at Max.Zahn
@abc
.com.
NEW: Tim Walz has emerged as a popular VP pick among labor unions, sources tell ABC News.
Walz has drawn support for his record of pro-labor legislation in a blue-leaning state and his potential appeal with voters in Midwest battlegrounds Wisconsin and Michigan, they said.
SCOOP: Unions have united behind Kamala Harris but concern has emerged over the potential selection of Mark Kelly as VP due to his unwillingness to back the PRO Act.
"This is a huge problem," said one union president who back Harris but opposes Kelly as VP.
Thirteen Congresspeople, including
@SenSanders
@AOC
@IlhanMN
, sent a letter calling on the Dept. of Labor to "immediately investigate chronic violations of workplace safety at all Amazon warehouses."
The letter cites this story
@SharifPaget
and I wrote
.
@FlyingWithSara
told ABC News that she considers Walz one of two top candidates for the vice presidential nod, along with Andy Beshear.
"It makes a lot of sense to lean in harder on workers’ rights when the MAGA talking points are trying to say they’re for working people."
"People are high on Walz," said Steve Rosenthal, a political consultant who has spoken with unions about the potential vice presidential nominee.
But, sources added, labor unions lack a consensus choice.
"Mostly people understand the desperate need to win,” Rosenthal said.
NEWS: 600 Amazon workers at a warehouse in Staten Island have signed a petition protesting working conditions and demanding increased break time as well as company-provided Metrocards. Workers will deliver the petition in a protest outside the facility tonight.
@TwuSamuelsen
""Senator Kelly is the son of two union police officers and has been a strong supporter of workers throughout his time in the Senate," Kelly spokesperson
@JacobNPeters1
told ABC News.
Kelly told
@HuffPost
in 2021 he supports PRO-Act's "overall goals" but has "some concerns"
Last summer,
@SharifPaget
and I began requesting 911 reports for Amazon warehouses nationwide. What we got back startled us.
Thanks to everyone w/
@newmarkjschool
and
@dailybeast
who helped us on this.
I asked
@stevenmnuchin1
about
@GretaThunberg
's call for fossil fuel divestment. He said, “After she goes and studies economics in college she can come back and explain that to us.”
#WEF2020
Here's the story:
Some professional news...this week is my first as a reporter
@YahooFinance
. I'm excited to be here! Send all your tips and takes to max.zahn
@oath
.com
Top U.S. union leaders call on Amazon to close all warehouses and give workers full leave pay until the company addresses coronavirus health risks. Backers of the demand include
@MaryKayHenry
,
@RichardTrumka
,
@rweingarten
who lead organizations with tens of millions of members.
I was escorted off of Bronx Community College by security on two consecutive days in October. Wrote this piece for
@CJR
about the crackdown on journalists at public colleges in the era of
@realDonaldTrump
Spoke to two labor allies of Biden who want him to step aside and a third who said they will back an alternative presidential nominee.
“There’s no a person in the labor movement who isn’t worried,” a labor leader told me.
An Amazon warehouse worker alleges he was fired for speaking out about the working conditions at a facility in Staten Island, where
@RWDSU
is trying to unionize employees. Amazon says the worker was fired for committing a safety violation.
The union at an Amazon on Staten Island is leading with 55% of the vote after 1,298 votes.
Labor prof
@ErikLoomis
told me a victory at the facility would be "world-changing."
UPDATE: with 3/10 boxes fully counted
@amazonlabor
is currently winnings its elections 717-581, or a net of 136 votes.
No idea how many total ballots there are, i'd estimate upwards of 3,500 total. Unknown number of challenged ballots.
there have been 5 voided ballots.
On
@HLNTV
,
@SharifPaget
and I talked about our
@thedailybeast
story that found 189 instances of emergency assistance summoned to Amazon warehouses for mental health episodes.
We discuss the current and former employees who said the stressful work contributed to their crises.
100+ McDonald’s and other fast-food workers are on strike today in Tampa, St. Louis and Memphis,
@fightfor15
says. They're protesting unsafe working conditions, lost hours and pay cuts. Workers for Whole Foods, Amazon, and Instacart have also refused to work this week.
.
@1199SEIU
and
@32BJSEIU
— with a combined 563,000+ members, two of most powerful union locals in NY and nationwide — endorse
#GreenNewDeal
. Clear signal to 2020 Democratic presidential candidates vying for major labor endorsements.
Execs at tech giants
@facebook
,
@Google
,
@amazon
and
@Apple
say they want a national law that protects user data. But I found that at the state level, lobbyists on behalf of Big Tech have fought data privacy bills this year in at least 13 states.
"It appears that the West Virginia teachers’ strike will last indefinitely as rank and file teachers in a majority of counties around the state have promised to continue their strike until the state legislature addresses their concerns."
Reading words of concern about racial injustice from CEOs at Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo — banks that paid $565 million combined to settle lawsuits over discriminatory home lending in the aftermath of the Great Recession, but did not admit wrongdoing.
At noon
@SharifPaget
and I will be on
@HLNTV
talking about our
@thedailybeast
story that found 189 incidents of emergency assistance summoned to Amazon warehouses for suicide attempts and other mental health episodes across 46 warehouses in 17 states.
Potential Democratic VP pick Mark Kelly tells
@HuffPost
he would vote for the PRO Act a day after I reported concern among unions about his unwillingness to support the labor reform legislation.
If you apply for a job, a robot will probably be the first thing to read your resume. For
@MONEY
, I talked to experts about how to make sure the robot puts you at the top of the digital pile. You're welcome!
#jobsearch
I wrote up how the
#HQ2
decision shows strength of NY labor, even when divided.
“support of some unions for the deal was outweighed by a political environment that they themselves helped create: one replete with pro-labor allies at the grassroots level”
“The working class has been left behind. I don’t know how you feel, but I’m fucking angry,” UAW President Shawn Fain says at rally in Detroit where Vice President Kamala Harris is set to speak.
@JusticeFastFood
@fightfor15
Mica Hargrove, an 18-year-old high school student from Queens, has worked at Arby’s for a year. She joined
@JusticeFastFood
in Aug when an organizer came to her store. “He’s telling me these are your rights,” she said. “I’m noticing my manager has never informed me of these." 2/x
Sad to hear about the tragic and sudden death of SEIU 32BJ President Hector Figueroa (
@figue32bj
), one of the most powerful and influential labor leaders in NYC
My first for
@YahooFinance
breaks down college football bowl teams by their apparel sponsor, with a great graphic from
@DFosterGraphics
. Bonus: Try counting the swooshes in the pic at your peril.
Big news. Chris Smalls, who rose to prominence as leader of watershed union victory at Amazon warehouse in 2022, will officially be replaced as head of Amazon Labor Union.
Breaking: Amazon workers at the JFK8 fulfillment center on Staten Island, New York, voted to elect reform officers in the first-ever leadership election.
Thank you
@craignewmark
for your generous gift to my school. And thank you
@nytimes
for dignifying it with the journalistic response it deserves: addressing the elephant in the room
Civil rights groups are challenging an Alabama law that prevents Birmingham from enacting a citywide $15 minimum wage, on the grounds the law discriminates against black residents who receive disproportionately low wages
@fightfor15
Community organizer and Democratic Socialist
@JuliaCarmel__
announced she's running for State Senate against incumbent Democrat
@SenatorDilan
. The district includes Williamsburg, Bushwick and Greenpoint.
West Virginia teachers unions call for strike to start tomorrow in protest of an education bill that would create the state's first charter schools — a bill the unions consider retaliation for last year's strike.
When
@Uber
kicks drivers off their app for low
#ratings
, the drivers have one chance to get back on: a class on how to receive five star ratings. I sat in on one, all students were immigrants who learned not how to manage the car but the passengers.
Fast food worker org
@JusticeFastFood
, launched today in NYC as the next step in the
@fightfor15
, is an advocacy group that—like a
#union
—is funded by dues deducted from workers' paychecks. It could be the new model of low-wage
#labor
organizing in the U.S. Meet its leaders 1/x
An
#Occupy
Wall Street protester found out she was a millionaire and now advises rich young people on how to use their money to reduce the inequality that enriched them. My latest
@MONEY
Advocacy groups will release a report today using OSHA data to show a 2018 rate of illness and injury at the facility that is three times higher than the overall national rate for warehouse work, the groups say.
I went on TV to talk about the best business TV of the year, including "American Factory," "Succession," and "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley"
Highlight: “Documentaries have had a huge resurgence,”
@maxzahn_
says about 2019 business movies. “With streaming, we see documentaries get attention they don’t often.”
UAW President Shawn Fain tells MSNBC the union will not endorse Kamala Harris at this time. The union will let its endorsement process play out at its own pace.
He says he spoke to Harris on Wednesday. “We had a really good conversation,” he says.
"I remember thinking, 'I'm going to die,'" a patient told
@graisondangor
in this terrific and disturbing report on how health insurers have circumvented a law that requires them to put mental health coverage on equal footing with physical ailments.
Went on
@StartHereABC
to talk about Elon Musk's stock manipulation trial and how Tesla's struggles exemplify a major shift in the electric vehicle industry
Thanks
@TheBradMielke
and co. for having me!
Amazon warehouse workers at a facility in Staten Island will walk out tomorrow “due to the company’s lack of safety protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic,” says
@RWDSU
, which has been organizing workers there.
Black women are underrepresented among political donors, but many have given big sums to
@KamalaHarris
over her career. I wrote about how they could be an unsung financial wellspring for her 2020 campaign.
The
@CynthiaNixon
endorsement has split the Working Families Party from its biggest remaining union backers. This has huge implications for the New York left, which depends on community groups for broad issue advocacy but depends on unions for money.
BREAKING: Big unions — SEIU and CWA — quit Working Families Party on eve of now-likely Cynthia Nixon endorsement.
Cuomo pushing for MORE: Wants unions to defund liberal groups backing her.
LOTS of details with
@jessemckinley
here:
I sought comment on impeachment from 37 of Donald Trump's closest and wealthiest business allies, including Sheldon Adelson, Robert Mercer, and Steve Schwarzman.
Only three took the opportunity to defend him.
@YahooFinance
#impeachment
Philadelphia becomes second city (after NYC) to introduce just-cause legislation, which requires an employer to show reason for firing a worker. The proposal has been pushed by 160,000 member union
@32BJSEIU
, which is behind the
@fightfor15
in NYC.
This from UMich professor
@dynarski
argues for the role of unions in narrowing wealth inequality, and gets at the crux of the debate over why wage growth is sluggish ()
Scoop: Sen. Kamala Harris will skip UC Berkeley Commencement address in solidarity with over 24,000
@AFSCME
UC workers set to begin strike on Monday.
More in this week's labor news round up with
@MikeElk
:
I wrote about the millions in campaign contributions that
@Walmart
's political action committee has given to Republican candidates for Congress, many of whom have fought gun control and received funding from the
@NRA
I wrote
@MONEY
about young people giving up financial stress in the U.S. for online English tutoring abroad.
Pros: $20 per hour, live near beach, add $10K to savings.
Cons: No healthcare, "Kids quite frequently go to the bathroom in the middle of class"
Scoop: Robert Mueller's team gave up millions in pay to join the Russia probe. A document reviewed by
@MONEY
shows how much he and his top lawyers make
I wrote about how the
#SCOTUS
decision in
#Janus
intensifies a recruiting war for public workers between unions and conservative groups, and what it means for New York, the country's most unionized state via
@GothamGazette
.
@amazon
weekly worker injuries more than doubled at the heart of the holiday season, according to a study released by advocacy groups
@NelpNews
@AwoodMpls
@nychange
and others that examined OSHA data from 28 facilities in 16 states
Saw
@willagreer
work hard for months to tell this
@theindicator
story of how tariffs devastated a Canadian game shop that relied on Magic cards from the U.S.
Come for the nerdy hijinks, stay for the store owner's reaction when the tariffs get lifted.