Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Feeding bluebirds helps fend off parasites

If you feed the birds in your backyard, you may be doing more than just making sure they have a source of food: you may be helping baby birds give parasites the boot.

We’re glad to see the Attorney General reaching out to ICANN to learn what the impact of the sale of the .ORG registry would have on the nonprofit community. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/after-nonprofits-protest-icann-californias-attorney-general-steps-org-battle

Yes, Michael Bloomberg Is Definitely an Oligarch

In the wake of Tuesday night's Iowa caucus results debacle, one question has been on everybody's mind: Is Michael Bloomberg an oligarch?

The query was first raised by Bernie Sanders’ campaign co-chair Nina Turner, in the course of an interview by MSNBC host Chris Matthews. Her description of Bloomberg as an oligarch buying his way into the Democratic debates prompted a spirited defense of the media mogul from The Root’s political editor Jason Johnson. Johnson objected that “Oligarchy in our particular terminology makes you think of a rich person who got their money off of oil in Russia, who is taking advantage of a broken and dysfunctional system.”

This is a strange defense. Aside from the mention of Russia, a subject known to elicit unbalanced responses from liberal commentators, the description fits Michael Bloomberg pretty well. He is indeed very rich, and it can scarcely be denied that he is taking advantage of a broken and dysfunctional political system. Johnson implicitly acknowledged the latter, effectively arguing “hate the game, not the player.” But the problem with this argument is that Michael Bloomberg has long been fighting to preserve the rules of the game that have made him so obscenely wealthy. He’s been acting, in other words, like an oligarch.

Making Bloomberg

Bloomberg is famous for being something of a political chameleon. He was a Democrat for most of his life, became a Republican to run for mayor of New York in 2001, became an independent in 2007, and then became a Democrat again in 2018, apparently in response to President Trump. But throughout all of these changes, one thing has remained consistent: his devotion to the interests of the wealthy.

Bloomberg came into office in 2002 promising to run New York City like a business, and he delivered. He immediately offered city unions contracts with pay raises, but demanded concessions on pensions and healthcare, just as private sector companies have been demanding from unions for decades. At the next round of contract negotiations, when the costs of these concessions became clear to teachers’ union members and they demanded more, Bloomberg simply refused to bargain with them.

He also got rid of pesky democratic impediments to enacting his neoliberal agenda. He placed city schools under mayoral control, eliminating local school boards and implementing policy instead through the Panel on Education Policy, whose members he appointed. At the same time, Bloomberg’s administration expanded charter schools in the city, further putting education under private control. Like a good businessman, he accompanied this privatization blitz with a public relations campaign, expanding the Department of Education’s PR staff from 4 to 23.

Throughout his administration, Bloomberg was also a vocal defender of the interests of the rich. In classic trickle-down fashion, he argued that helping the poor was best accomplished by helping the rich. Want to address poverty? “Attract more very fortunate people. They’re the ones who pay the bills,” he said in 2013. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, Bloomberg ran interference for the banks, repeating right-wing lies that blamed fair housing laws for the mortgage meltdown. When Occupy Wall Street put inequality into the national spotlight, Bloomberg dismissed the protests, arguing that the country had been “overspending” and social services should be cut. And though he’s singing a different tune now, in 2012 he was a dogged opponent of raising the minimum wage.

It would be bad enough if Bloomberg were just a New York problem. However, because of his vast wealth, Bloomberg has secured a role as a player on the national stage, backing politicians and causes that protect the wealth of the billionaire class. He supported George W. Bush for reelection in 2004, after Bush passed massive tax cuts for the rich. He donated money to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and backed a host of ultra-conservative politicians, ranging from religious zealot Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to racist loudmouth Rep. Peter King (R-NY). Though he donated to Democrats as well, up until the 2018 midterms, Bloomberg’s super PAC Independence USA spent more money funding the campaigns of Republicans than Democrats.

Oligarchy in action

Now, Bloomberg is running for the Democratic nomination for president. As with the rest of his political career, he’s running entirely on the support of his personal wealth. So far, he’s spent more $300 million of his personal fortune on his campaign. And following the Iowa caucus debacle, Bloomberg announced he would be doubling his ad spending.

What’s more, Bloomberg has been able to use his obscene wealth to shift the institutional field to his favor. He has picked up a number of endorsements from prominent mayors in whose cities he spent philanthropic money such as Michael Tubbs of Stockton, California and Greg Fischer of Louisville, Kentucky. Other endorsements have come through mayors who received training in Bloomberg’s Harvard City Leadership Initiative.

Even more outrageously, the Democratic National Committee recently eliminated the donor number requirement from the Nevada debate, allowing Bloomberg on the stage even as other candidates were eliminated by the DNC’s strict debate rules. Bloomberg’s money just doesn’t buy him a campaign—it buys his campaign the ability to change the rules.

Michael Bloomberg is, therefore, a perfect example of a “rich person...taking advantage of a broken and dysfunctional political system.” It’s worth remembering that in other countries, Bloomberg wouldn’t be able to throw his wealth around like this. In Canada, for example, candidates and parties are bound to maximum spending limits, scaled to the population of the electoral district in which they’re competing. Not so in the United States, and Bloomberg has taken full advantage.

For his entire career in politics, Michael Bloomberg has backed policies and politicians that protect his fortune. In doing so, he has acted exactly as an oligarch does. The term “oligarch” dates back to ancient Greece. There, Aristotle used it to describe a government which the rich control in their own interests. This has been Bloomberg’s approach to government throughout his career. It’s the game he plays, and anyone who wants to change it will learn very quickly that he is not on their team.

Trump Says Covering All Immigrants Would Bankrupt Our Healthcare System. That’s a Lie.

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Trump put Medicare for All in the crosshairs. Single-payer healthcare will “bankrupt our nation by providing free taxpayer-funded healthcare to millions of illegal aliens,” he seethed, “forcing taxpayers to subsidize free care for anyone in the world who unlawfully crosses our borders.” Like so many of the other claims in Trump’s speech, this one was demonstrably false. If anything, the evidence suggests that immigrants actually subsidize healthcare systems—and it is time for advocates to push back. 

For proponents, the case for single-payer is fundamentally a moral one: Healthcare should be a right, and everybody should be covered. This argument, however, is up against the rancorous rhetoric of the demagogic Right, which is not only advancing dehumanizing narratives of exclusion, but also bolstering those narratives with factual inaccuracies. According to one CNN poll, some 59% of the American public is opposed to providing public coverage to the undocumented. Changing this opinion means overturning the right-wing narrative. To do so, we have to make the case that Trump’s claim—that including all U.S. residents in a single-payer system will bankrupt it—is wrong.  

A fundamental fact about financing healthcare for immigrants is that they are, compared to the native-born population, relatively young, and therefore healthy. As a result, immigrants tend to use comparatively less healthcare (indeed, too little) relative to those born in the United States. At the same time, they still pay into the system—even undocumented immigrants. Precise numbers are hard to come by, but as Paul Van De Water of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has noted, undocumented immigrants were estimated to have contributed a net $12 billion into the Social Security system via payroll taxes back in 2007. Something similar plays out in healthcare. As two important studies led by my colleague Dr. Leah Zallman at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School make clear, in healthcare, immigrants subsidize the U.S.-born.

In a 2013 study published in Health Affairs, Zallman and colleagues examined how much immigrants pay into the Medicare trust fund, relative to how much Medicare spends on their healthcare. They found that while immigrants paid some $33 billion in Medicare taxes in 2009, they only used $19 billion in health services—in other words, they subsidized the trust fund to the tune of nearly $14 billion. In a second study, also published in Health Affairs, researchers turned to private insurance, and a similar picture emerged. Premium contributions from immigrants (including the undocumented) exceeded plans’ outlays on immigrants’ healthcare. In contrast, U.S.-born enrollees contributed less than what they used in care—a deficit of about $163 per native-born person.

Including immigrants in an insurance system, in other words, makes it more actuarially sound. “mmigrants subsidize US natives in the private health insurance market,” the researchers concluded, “just as they are propping up the Medicare Trust Funds.”

Evidence from abroad—in particular, Spain—similarly strengthens the economic case for covering everyone. Spain’s universal system dates back to the 1980s, but as health researcher Helena Legido-Quigley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine described with colleagues in Lancet Public Health, the nation passed a law in 2011 that “gave an explicit right to free health care for all people living in Spain, both Spanish and migrant, irrespective of their legal status, making Spain one of the most migrant-friendly health systems in Europe.” Still, it hasn’t been straightforward path. In 2012, a newly elected conservative government reversed this expansion. They were met, however, with a wave of resistance, including civil disobedience. Some 1,300 doctors and nurses pledged to defy the law and treat immigrants regardless of documentation status, as the British Medical Journal reported. After elections in 2018, the new left-wing government of Pedro Sanchez restored coverage to all. 

In 2018 (the latest year of data available from the OECD), Spain spent some $3,323 per capita on healthcare—compared to more than $10,000 in the United States. It seems unlikely that the the 2019 figures will change that overall picture much. As such, the policy of extending universal healthcare to immigrants has not bankrupted Spain’s system.

Legido-Quigley and colleagues, writing in the British Medical Journal last year, cite other evidence of cost-savings from European nations, including a study in German that found that a policy of limiting healthcare access for asylum seekers and refugees actually led to larger healthcare costs down the road.  

Europe, needless to say, faces the same sorts of right-wing populist forces that we contend with in the United States. Recent conservative governments in the United Kingdom, for instance, have taken steps to restrict access to the National Health Service to migrants. Achieving true universal coverage will be no easier here than abroad. But we should see the impediments as political—not economic. 

For advocates of Medicare for All, the moral case for universal healthcare will always be paramount.  Realizing it, however, requires changing millions of minds and moving millions of voters in the face of an earsplitting barrage of xenophobic bombast from President Trump and his right-wing backers. The enormity of that challenge requires that every relevant argument and data point be drawn upon to make our case. Fortunately, when it comes to the economics of full universal Medicare for All, the facts are with us. 

For advocates of Medicare for All, the moral case for universal healthcare will always be paramount. Even if the above realities were not true, we should still include immigrants in universal coverage, on the basis that healthcare is a human right and no one should be left to die because they can’t afford to go to the doctor, regardless of national origin. However, the claim that immigrants would bankrupt the system is an empirical one that can be disproven, and factual inaccuracies should not be allowed to stand, especially when they are used amplify xenophobic bombast from President Trump and his right-wing backers. The fact that a Medicare for All system that includes immigrants would be economically sound is one of the many data points we can use to make the case to millions of people that it is our moral imperative to build a Medicare for All system that includes everyone.

Few consumers understand THC levels in cannabis edibles

Few cannabis consumers understand what the THC numbers on packages of cannabis edibles really mean, according to a new study. The study, which surveyed nearly 1,000 Canadians aged 16 to 30, found that most consumers could not identify whether a cannabis edible contained 'low' or 'high' levels of THC based on the label.

Simple, solar-powered water desalination

A completely passive solar-powered desalination system could provide more than 1.5 gallons of fresh drinking water per hour for every square meter of solar collecting area. Such systems could potentially serve off-grid arid coastal areas to provide an efficient, low-cost water source.

Molecular 'switch' reverses chronic inflammation and aging

Scientists have identified a molecular 'switch' that controls the immune machinery responsible for chronic inflammation in the body. The finding could lead to new ways to halt or even reverse many age-related conditions, from from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to diabetes and cancer.

The House Just Passed a Sweeping Labor Bill. Here’s Why It Matters.

House Democrats just passed an important blueprint for strengthening unions and building worker power. If signed into law, the labor law reforms within the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would amount to the biggest change to the rules governing employers and workers in generations. Among other major features, it would bolster workers’ ability to unionize, expand organizing rights to more workers and strengthen the right to strike.

Social media users 'copy' friends' eating habits

Social media users are more likely to eat fruit and veg -- or snack on junk food -- if they think their friends do the same, a new study has found.

Feds Find Fourth Amendment Workaround, Buy Phone Locations From Marketing Firms
https://gizmodo.com/feds-find-fourth-amendment-workaround-buy-phone-locati-1841516436 #privacy #security #librem5

Majority of US adults believe climate change is most important issue today

As the effects of climate change become more evident, more than half of US adults (56%) say climate change is the most important issue facing society today, yet 4 in 10 have not made any changes in their behavior to reduce their contribution to climate change, according to a new poll.

Arctic ice melt is changing ocean currents

Using 12 years of satellite data, NASA scientists have measured how the influx of cold, fresh water is affecting the Beaufort Gyre, a major Arctic current.

Cutting Fossil Fuel Subsidies Could Be Even More Beneficial Than We Realized

The world wastes trillions of dollars every year on fossil fuel direct and indirect subsidies. Trillions! The U.S. alone spends hundreds of billions of dollars on them, ten times as much as it spends on education.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/cutting-fossil-fuel-subsidies-could-be-even-more-benefi-1841500311 #climatechange #climatecrisis

Arctic permafrost thaw plays greater role in climate change than previously estimated

Abrupt thawing of permafrost will double previous estimates of potential carbon emissions from permafrost thaw in the Arctic, and is already rapidly changing the landscape and ecology of the circumpolar north, a new study finds.

Anti-Bernie Sanders Attack Ads Are Going to Be Awesome

Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls and might be the Democratic nominee for president of United States. If that happens, you know that Republicans will go after him for being a “democratic socialist.” Soviet nostalgia, here we come!

#Bumblebees’ decline points to mass #extinction – study | #Environment | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/06/bumblebees-decline-points-to-mass-extinction-study

#Science #Biology #Zoology #Ecology #Entomology #Bees #Wildlife #Insects #Biodiversity #Conservation #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming

In the Middle of the Night, Bernie Was Tipped Toward Victory by Working-Class Immigrant Votes

Until late Wednesday night, as the bungled Iowa caucus results trickled in, pundits declared South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg the likely winner in a narrow margin over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I.-Vt.). That evening, Iowa finally began to report the results of the special satellite locations across Iowa where many members of Iowa's working class caucused. At 97% reporting—with major questions around Iowa's process and a recanvass ordered—the New York Times is now giving Sanders a 54% chance of a win, a reversal from its near-certain prediction the day before that Buttigieg had won. 

Turnout didn’t match the record-breaking numbers set by Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. But Iowa factory workers, ethnic and racial minorities, and people with disabilities were empowered to caucus this year with 60 new satellite locations in the state at worksites, college campuses, mosques, Latino Catholic parishes and union halls across the state. The satellite locations went overwhelmingly for Sanders.

At the Hoover Elementary Satellite Caucus in Cedar Rapids, where instructions were read in eight languages and 80% of attendees were reportedly first-time voters, Sanders won nine of the nine delegates.

The Sanders campaign was instrumental in pushing for the satellite caucuses and turning out new, nontraditional voters to them. Sanders volunteers say they appeared to be the only one aggressively canvassing working-class immigrant neighborhoods in Des Moines and Iowa City. (The Elizabeth Warren and Buttigieg campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.) According to the campaign, it knocked on a total of 500,000 Iowa doors in January, and its 200 paid staff and thousands-strong volunteer army filled 10,000 canvass shifts the weekend before the caucus.

Kamal Ahmed of Iowa City, a Sudanese American and regular Democratic voter, said he received literature in the mail from other campaigns but that only Bernie canvassers actually knocked on his door. 

In These Times spent a week before the caucus shadowing a group of ten Sudanese Sanders supporters from the Pheasant Ridge apartment complex in Iowa City as they prepared to caucus at one of two locations. 

“I am caucusing for Bernie because he focuses on the working class and how to make day-to-day life better for workers,” says Eltayeb Elamin, 47.

Elamin was identified twice as a Bernie supporter by volunteer canvassers out doorknocking his Pheasant Ridge apartment building, where many Sudanese Americans live.

But Elamin actually committed to caucus for Sanders as part of a collective of eight other Sudanese women and men who had backed Sanders in 2016. The group met informally several times before coming to a consensus together about which candidate to support this year.

“The Sudanese have a strong community in a lot of ways and we always come together to discuss social issues and the issues that affect working people,” Elamin says. 

“It is very normal to see Sudanese people sitting together, talking about politics,” agrees Bakhit Bakhit, 70, another member of the collective, who also caucused for Sanders in 2016. “I see Bernie trying to build a grassroots social base, which is unusual in this country where elections are the only thing that matters, the Democratic Party has no social base, and the winner writes the platform.”

“Bernie fights for all working people,” says Bothayna Sati-Hussian, 54, of why she supports Sanders. “He fights to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, he fights to make tuition free for all students, and he fights for Medicare for All for everybody.”

On caucus night, after two busloads of Sudanese Americans from Pheasant Ridge arrived at the satellite caucus for foreign language speakers at Caring Hands and More in Iowa City, it awarded all nine of its delegates to Sanders.

The story in Des Moines was the same. At Des Moines' Bosnian Islamic Center Zen Zen satellite caucus, where many caucus-goers were Bhutanese Nepali refugees exiled from their place of birth, Sanders won all nine delegates. At the South Sudanese Center satellite caucus, with various ethnic groups from Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bhutan, Nepal, Eritrea and Liberia, Sanders won four-fifths of the delegates. At the Grand View Satellite Caucus, where caucusgoers of Lao, Hmong, Filipino, Vietnamese and Cambodian descent convened, he won all eight delegates. 

While on the stump for Sanders in Sioux City, Iowa, on January 26, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) explained how the satellite caucus organizing fit into Sanders' theory of change:

When we talk about fighting for someone we don’t know, it means fighting for the least of us. ... In talking about that commitment to the marginalized, do you know what this campaign has done behind the scenes? They have worked to add tons of caucusing sites in marginalized communities this year. Tons. Tons. This campaign and this movement has fought to put caucusing sites in mosques, in latino communities, in rural communities. Because what we’re here to do is dramatically expand the electorate. We’re not just here to win with the same tiny slice of people anymore. We’re going to win by expanding and growing that electorate and we know as organizers that we have the possibility and the capacity to do that.

The author served as a Sanders precinct caption at Iowa City 01, which was not one of the satellite caucuses.

“Let’s Get This Bread”: Bay Area Tartine Bakery Workers Move to Unionize

“What if a bakery kept its heart and soul, but always remained open to new ideas?” asks the website for Tartine, the world-renowned Bay Area bakery. Elsewhere on the site, the bakery boasts of “Production at a human scale.” Today, the humans who produce Tartine’s award-winning bread and pastries have a new idea of their own: a union.

The workers at the five Bay Area locations—four in San Francisco, one in Berkeley—have chosen to become members in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). In doing so, they join their counterparts at another iconic Bay Area institution, Anchor Brewing, one year after Anchor workers went public with their union.

“We’re proud to work at Tartine and want Tartine to be the best it possibly can be,” opens a letter delivered to management Thursday morning by members of the union’s organizing committee. Of the estimated 215 workers at the four locations, 146 signed their name to the letter, a public declaration of their support for the union. The letter requests Tartine voluntarily recognize the union, but notes that should the company refuse, the union will file for a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election. Agustin Ramirez, lead ILWU organizer for Northern California, says the union will file for the election on Friday morning, 24 hours after the letter’s delivery, should the company decline voluntary recognition.

Chad Robertson and Elisabeth Prueitt opened Tartine’s first location in 2002, and have expanded their operations in recent years. The company has opened two new locations in the Bay Area since 2016, and stores continue opening—and closing—in Los Angeles and Seoul, South Korea. Workers say this rapid growth is a key reason to unionize.

“As the company expanded, we were seeing a certain amount of neglect toward the workers—and not only the people, but operations too: money to pay invoices, for example, wasn’t there,” says Pat Thomas, 30, a server at the Tartine Manufactory. “We weren’t getting the attention we felt like we deserved because they were opening all these new locations, and it started feeling more corporate.” Thomas hopes unionization can rescue what was once a positive company environment, “before it’s too late.”

Tartine was “expanding like crazy, opening multiple restaurants in a short period of time, and then telling us that they don't have the money to give us a $1 an hour raise,” says Emily Haddad, 31, a barista at the Manufactory. “It wasn’t really matching up,” she adds.

Indeed, workers feel management is “making it up as they go” when it comes to pay, says Mason Lopez, 36, a barista at the Berkeley location. Many spoke of their wages as nowhere near livable, with employees frequently having to take second and third jobs. Plus, back-of-the-house staff is largely excluded from the tip pool, say workers, an arrangement to which some object.

Tartine “can pay workers, the people who are making them the money—the cooks and the prep and the dishwashers and so on—a living wage,” says Hannah Gerard, 27, a server at the Manufactory.

In These Times was not able to reach any back-of-the-house employees for comment. Workers admit to the difficulties of coordinating the front of the house and the back of the house in the campaign, but describe support for the union as “widespread” across all positions and locations, with a worker at one location characterizing support as strongest among dishwashers and prep cooks.

“The dishwashers and prep cooks have been insanely proactive and have gotten a lot of people on board,” says Gerard.
“These are world-class bakers,” adds Lopez, listing off awards the bread has won over the years. “These bakers should be making at least $25 an hour, something that mirrors their experience and level of skill, and then you find out they're making minimum wage and barely in the tip pool. Why?”

Throughout history, bakers have a storied record of organizing. One of the first acts proposed by the Executive Committee of the Paris Commune in 1871 was a ban on night-work, a response to bakery workers’ longstanding demands. In the United States, too, bakers’ unions have a long history. The Journeymen Bakers’ Union, founded in 1880, merged into what is now the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers’ International Union (BCTGM), which still represents some 140,000 members, mostly in the food processing industry.

In addition to higher wages, Tartine workers speak of a desire for paid-time off, as well as a say in decisions relating to employee health insurance. While Tartine offers health insurance to anyone who works 25 or more hours per week, the company recently switched workers’ health insurance provider, causing several to lose their doctors. Additionally, several workers say they hope unionizing will bring greater transparency across the company, particularly when it comes to where Tartine’s money is going.

“If the company's telling us that they're broke because their projects are going out of business, we have the right to see for ourselves instead of taking their word for it,” says Thomas. “We’re just asking for a say.”

“Money has been funneling into San Francisco by the bucketload over the last five years, but there's not a lot of follow-through when it comes to restaurant workers, or anyone in cafes, and those are the people that keep these cities running,” says Lopez. “Money changes hands, but we're only getting the minimum that an employer is supposed to pay a person to avoid getting into legal trouble. Put that way, it’s hurtful.”

By announcing their union campaign, Tartine workers follow the lead of those at Anchor Brewing, a craft brewery that unionized last year, also with ILWU.

“When Anchor Steam went public with their unionization, that's what motivated me to say, ‘Let's actually do this instead of just talking about it,’” says Thomas. Following the launch of Anchor’s campaign, he met with people who had helped Anchor Steam workers organize. From there, he says, the process began in earnest.

“We had read that Anchor Steam became public with their union and we thought that was awesome,” says Matthew Torres, 23, a barista at Tartine’s Berkeley location. “We'd talked about it playfully, like ‘Oh, that'd be so cool.’”

Soon enough, a small group began meeting with Anchor Steam workers, an ILWU representative—and, as was true in the Anchor Steam campaign, collaborating with the San Francisco chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), who provided meeting space along with organizing support.

“The process of organizing can be very daunting, very scary, and kind of emotional at times,” says Torres, adding that having DSA present to facilitate space for Tartine workers to connect with other workers was “really, really helpful.” SF DSA plans to hold a rally with Tartine workers at 6pm at 24th Street Plaza Thursday. As with the Anchor campaign, workers hope to immediately build community support for their union.

Several workers stressed interest in working with the ILWU because of its radical history, and in particular, what Lopez describes as its “antiracist advocacy,” referring to ILWU’s willingness to shut down the Port of Oakland in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as its history of political boycotts on cargo.

Tartine workers will join the same ILWU local as Anchor Steam workers, Local 6, expanding the less-traditional shops represented in the local. San Francisco veterinary hospital workers have also organized as Local 6 members, a process that Anchor workers—and DSA San Francisco—have supported.

Local 6 has “pharmaceutical workers, workers at landfills, workers at recycling facilities, workers at chocolate manufactories, radiologist technicians at hospitals, warehouses, and now, workers in the beer industry,” says Ramirez, the ILWU organizer, adding “We believe that the workers have the right to choose their union. The ILWU will be with them until we reach the other side.”

As to how they expect management to respond to the union drive, workers are uncertain (In These Times reached out to Tartine’s Chief Operating Officer, Chris Jordan, for comment, and has yet to receive a response). “Tartine likes to be known as an inclusive and welcoming place,” says Gerard. “Hopefully they will take that reputation and do the right thing: Let us bargain a contract.”

Should unionization lead to an NLRB election, it’s possible the company will push for each Tartine location to hold a separate election, a possibility for which ILWU’s Ramirez says the union is prepared.

Tartine workers emphasize that just because the vast majority of food service work in the United States isn’t currently unionized, that doesn’t mean the industry can’t change its ways.

“I hope people can take inspiration from us, like we did from Anchor Steam,” says Torres. Food service workers “move through jobs every few months or year because these workplaces are bad or unaccountable and I really want to see other people be inspired by what we're doing and do it themselves, and aid them in doing that.”

“A lot of people think restaurant work is not a skill, or not a career,” agrees Lopez, “but you can have a service job be your career. There are plenty of really talented, amazing people working in the service industry; the problem is they aren’t taken care of.” Lopez spoke of how “exhausting” it is “to go from restaurant to restaurant, from bar to bar, and it’s always the same song.”

“Why not make a difference,” asks Lopez. “Why not set an example for other restaurant workers, and maybe inspire them to do the same?”

Steroids could do more harm than good in treating coronavirus

Steroids should be avoided in the treatment of the current novel coronavirus, experts have advised. A commentary article published in The Lancet concludes that, based on evidence from previous outbreaks of similar types of infection such as SARS, steroids provide little benefit to patients and could do more harm than good. They say that clinicians should still administer the treatment for conditions such as asthma and other inflammatory diseases.