Lessons From The Environmental Catastrophe Of East Palestine Norfolk Southern Railroad Derailment

UPS outlines plans to close at least 200 facilities
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/28/wfxk-m28.html

Jacob Crosse
11 hours ago
Join the UPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee to fight against the closures! Email upsrankandfilecommittee@gmail.com, or fill out the form below.

In an investors presentation held Tuesday in Louisville, Kentucky, top executives of United Parcel Service (UPS) announced plans to shutter 200 facilities in the United States and lay off thousands of workers, as part of their plans for the “Network of the Future.”

While previous layoffs have already been reported extensively by the WSWS, this is the first time that UPS has issued its comprehensive nationwide plan to slash jobs. UPS executives estimated that the company would save $3 billion by the end of 2028 by consolidating facilities and implementing automation at the remaining hubs.

Earlier this year, UPS announced it would be laying off 12,000 salaried employees. This was quickly followed by mass layoffs of pre-loaders at facilities across the United States, including in New York and California. The ongoing jobs bloodbath at UPS is part of a wave of layoffs at the company and in virtually every industry across the globe.

The cuts are being enabled through the collaboration of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which rammed through a sellout contract last summer by deliberately concealing that these cuts were coming. Tuesday’s presentation underscores the urgent need for workers to take matters into their own hands, organize a rebellion against both management and the sellout artists in the union bureaucracy.

It also fully confirms the warnings made at the start of the year by the UPS Workers Rank-and-File Committee that “New technologies are being rolled out that can eliminate almost all of the work inside the warehouses. The jobs of nearly 200,000 part-timers at UPS are at risk.” That statement called for a “counter-campaign” by workers to defeat the attack on jobs.

In their slides presented to investors Tuesday, UPS executives outlined 63 sites in the US that would be targeted for automation by the end of 2028. These include hubs in Albany and Syracuse, New York; Mesquite, Texas; as well as Hartford, Chelmsford and Providence, Massachusetts.

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A map showing where UPS plans to initiate "major automation projects" by the end of 2028. [Photo: UPS]
Some of the facilities that will be consolidated—that is, closed—include the Windsor, Ashland, Leominster and Nashua Hub in Massachusetts. In Albany, New York, the NY Capital Village Center will be closed, as will the Chalk Hill Center in Texas.

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A map of the state of Massachusetts showing where UPS plans to shutter certain facilities, and transform others into automated hubs. [Photo: UPS]
In his slide presentation, Nando Cesarone, president of US domestic operations at UPS, emphasized that the “Network of the Future” would bring “new automation and technology tools to materially improve productivity.”

This “highly productive network” will operate with “less dependency on labor,” a slide in Cesarone’s presentation explained. Another of his slides, titled “Actions We Are Taking Right Now” to increase “operating margin,” listed “Building and Sort Closures” as the top item.

Cesarone confirmed that UPS would be closing “40 sorts this year, up from 30 in 2023,” but he stressed that “every single work area is being scrutinized for automation opportunities, not just our sortation hubs,” per Freightwaves.

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Automation and Consolidation projects in Texas. [Photo: UPS]
In his presentation, Bala Subramanian, chief digital and technology officer for UPS, highlighted the “strategic bets” the company was taking to boost profits. “Artificial Intelligence and Gen AI” and “Robotics and Automation” were the top items listed.

The last major presentation made clear how these cost savings would be squandered on the company’s wealthy investors. Chief Financial Officer Brian Newman outlined the “Capital Allocation Policy/Priorities” for the company; two of the four listed were a “stable and growing dividend” for shareholders and to use “excess cash” to “repurchase shares.”

Executives did not place an exact figure the number of layoffs. But in an interview with Bloomberg Television following the presentation, UPS CEO Carol Tomé confirmed the company planned to boost profits by raising prices, including a 5.9 percent general rate increase this year, and automation.

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UPS CEO Carol Tomé on Bloomberg, March 26, 2024. [Photo: Bloomberg]
Asked by her Bloomberg host to elaborate on the “layoffs coming,” and “what more should investors expect?” Tomé replied, “We have got to right-size our business, so we did make some decisions to do just that under our operating model of fit to serve. Moving past though, is the very exciting opportunity that we have to drive out costs through automation.

“Did you know we have over 1,000 buildings in the United States? And many of these buildings were built 50, 60 years ago. … As we looked at the buildings we said, ‘My gosh, we have an opportunity, actually, to consolidate buildings … that aren’t automated into brand new, automated buildings and drive productivity.”

By end of the “initial phase,” Tomé said UPS would have “400 buildings that are fully automated.”

“And with this automation,” she added, “we are going to drive out costs. We will drive out $3 billion in costs between now and 2028,” with “half of that” being “realized by 2026.

“And with end-to-end automation … we don’t need as many people to move the packages inside the buildings that we have today,” she said.

In an interview with CNBC the same day, Tomé explained that the company’s plans for mass layoffs was fully realizable due to “the cost nature of our new Teamster contract.”

“We are very pleased with that contract,” Tomé said. “The compounded annual average growth rate of wages and benefits is 3.3 percent over a five-year period, but it is front-end loaded.

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A slide highlighting the role of the Teamsters bureaucracy in providing “Labor Certainty” so that UPS can implement its cost-cutting automation plans. [Photo: UPS]
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“So … in year one we want to grow our volume and our revenue and our operating profit dollars,” she continued. “And then in years two and three we want to grow volume, revenue and operating profit margin.

“Why will margins expand past year one? Because we are going to anniversary the first year of the Teamster contract in August, and the cost growth rate drops dramatically after that.”

Describing the “Network of the Future” as “one of the most exciting initiatives” in the last 100 years of the company, Tomé lamented that while the UPS delivery network was highly “integrated,” it was “old.”

The company is “going to collapse some buildings that we don’t need any longer into larger, more automated buildings,” she said. “We will invest to make this happen, we will invest about $9 billion over five years, but in that five-year time frame, we will enjoy $3 billion of savings, of which 50 percent will be recognized within the first three years.”

The Teamsters bureaucracy, which has said next to nothing about the layoffs this year, continued its guilty silence after Tuesday’s conference. Neither Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, nor the Teamsters social media accounts have released a statement yet on the pending destruction of thousands of jobs, or what plans the Teamsters have to fight against the layoffs.

The silence of the union bureaucrats is not a mistake. They knew automation and the cuts it would entail were coming, yet they did nothing to fight to defend workers’ jobs. Instead, they blocked UPS workers from striking together with actors and writers, who were already on strike and eager for reinforcements, and instead sold the rotten contract as “historic.”

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UPS outlines plans to close at least 200 facilities

Portending a jobs bloodbath, UPS CEO Carol Tomé confirmed the company would be automating “everything.”

www.wsws.org

IBT Stopped AI & Robots At UPS Said IBT Pres Sean O'Brien At Sacramento Rally Against Robo Trucks
https://youtu.be/yBa_2gDRz0Q
On September 19, 2023 at a Sacramento rally against robo trucks and cars, IBT president Sean O'rien told the Teamster members that in the UPS contract the union had protected jobs at UPS by stopping AI and robots.
UPS has recently laid off thousands of part time workers and has announced plans to install AI and robots at 63 sites and by 2028 to cut the workforce by more than 30%.
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net

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IBT Stopped AI & Robots At UPS Said IBT Pres Sean O’Brien At Sacramento Rally Against Robo Trucks

On September 19, 2024 at a Sacramento rally against robo trucks and cars, IBT president Sean O’rien told the Teamster members that in the UPS …

youtu.be

IBT Stopped AI & Robots At UPS Said IBT Pres Sean O'Brien At Sacramento Rally Against Robo Trucks

SFMOMA & CITY COLLEGE STOPPED SUING EACH OTHER OVER COMMUNIST MURAL

https://brokeassstuart.com/2024/03/21/sfmoma-city-college-stopped-suing-each-other-over-communist-mural/
21 MAR 2024
ALEX MAK – MANAGING EDITOR 0
Updated: Mar 22, 2024 09:11

When the SFMOMA first suggested moving Diego Rivera’s 74-foot-wide-by-22-foot mid-century masterpiece of a mural across town for a temporary display in an SFMOMA gallery, experts said it would cost an insane amount of money and would be like moving, “a 70-foot eggshell.” But the mural is an ageless classic, and it was living in a seismically unfit and poorly lit theater at City College scheduled for demolition, where only a few passing students had been enjoying it on a daily basis.

Personally, I think it should be made a permanent installation in Union Square so millions of people will see and visit it, as it is a priceless piece of San Francisco history. We should mount it on the defunct Barneys facade in Union Square as a testament to the failures of capitalism. ⁠

But no one cares what this pinko thinks ; )

Pan American Unity, Diego Rivera, in it’s temporary haunt. at SFMOMA. Image via mliu92

Back in 2021, SFMOMA hired engineers from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México who collaborated with art installation experts at Oakland’s Atthowe Fine Art Services, to painstakingly move the massive 83-year-old concrete mural panels across town taking 7 trips using a truck with custom-made shock absorbers.

Our communist comrad Diego would have been happy that they used Atthowe to move the mural, as Atthowe is a well-respected, local employee-owned co-op, and not some big corporate capitalist conglomerate. AND they worked with Mexican nationals on the project.

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SFMOMA estimated the cost of taking down the mural, transporting it, and reinstalling it in both directions was just under $4 million.

$4 million. Sweet Trotsky!

Why this project is so hard and so expensive to do these days is a bit of a head-scratcher, considering Rivera originally painted the mural for the Pan American Fair in 1940 on Treasure Island, and they managed to store it unscathed on an artificial island using the same 1940s tools available to Diego. Then in 1961 they managed to move it from the middle of the bay to City College without damaging it, using 1960s technology, something tells me it cost $200 including bridge tolls but I digress…they took no chances, and spared no expense in 2024!

$4 Million DOLLARS! Sweet Inflation!

Three panels of Diego Rivera’s 1940 mural known as ‘Pan American Unity.’ Photo courtesy City College of San Francisco

By the way it is a magnificent piece of art that needs to be seen in person and SFMOMA did an excellent job with the exhibit and you can still hear the audio tour here.

Diego’s exhibition at SFMOMA closed in January, and the total bill had since inflated to $6.4 million.

$6.4 million! Sweet Proletariat!

Then the two non-profit institutions were locked in a legal battle over who would fit the bill for Diego’s incredibly expensive storage and return to College that was costing millions extra.

SFMOMA’s threw down the gauntlet, claiming City College should foot the bill for the mural’s return and storage while City College fired back, calling foul play on SFMOMA’s handling of the budget and deadlines.

THEY SAID, ‘IT COULDN’T BE DONE,’ THEY SAID, ‘IT WOULD COST AN INSANE AMOUNT OF MONEY’, THEN THEY SAID, “FUCK IT, LET’S DO IT ANYWAY”. – LOCAL ECCENTRIC ALEX MAK.

This month the two institutions agreed to drop their respective lawsuits and split the bill. Under terms of the settlement both parties will now share the cost of the overage. The exact amount was not specified…

“The settlement is the result of a positive, collaborative effort by SFMOMA and CCSF’s board leadership and includes essential cost-sharing to support the complex work involved in moving the fragile 30-ton, 22-foot-high-by-74-foot-long mural,” the parties stated in a joint news release.

The mural still belongs to City College of San Francisco and will be installed in a new art complex being built on campus in coming years, financed by an $845 million bond measure passed by voters in 2020.

I wonder what the transport and installation will cost once they finish their new home…accounting for inflation of course…probably best that they refrain from specifics…

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SFMOMA & City College Stopped Suing Each Other Over Communist Mural

Personally, I think it should be made a permanent installation in Union Square so millions of people will see and visit it, as it is a priceless …

brokeassstuart.com

East Palestine Norfolk Southern Derailment & Rail Labor
https://youtu.be/jpPtKs1u0z8
At a labor community conference in East Palestine, Ohio on March 23, 2024, trade unionists including
railroad workers talked about the derailment and the systemic causes of the disaster.
Speakers Included:
John Palmer, Teamsters International Vice President
Andrew Sandberg, IAMAW District 19 President
George Waksmunski, UE President Eastern Region
Chris Silvera, IBT 808 Secretary Treasurer
Jeff Kurtz, IBT BLET locomotive engineer and Iowa State Legislator, Railroad Workers United RWU
Additional Media:
The Nightmare In East Palestine Ohio: East Palestine Residents & Workers Speak About Healthcare
https://youtu.be/63KBHaZYc1Y
‘If I don’t talk no one’s going to know’: Stories of pain from East Palestine move coalition members to action
https://www.unionprogress.com/2024/03/24/stories-of-pain-from-east-palestine-move-coalition-members-to-action/
Coalition of residents, unionists and activists coming together in East Palestine to demand health care
https://www.unionprogress.com/2024/03/19/coalition-of-residents-unionists-and-activists-coming-together-in-east-palestine-to-demand-health-care/
The East Palestine Catastrophe Lessons, The Stafford Act & Biden With Mike Schade & Chris Albright
https://youtu.be/8EG7ZH48N2M
East Palestine Resident & LIUNA 1058 Chris Albright Appeal "We Need Health Care”
https://youtu.be/pSeFFT4xV94
East Palestine One Year After The Catastrophe, The Nightmare Continues
https://youtu.be/4u3m9kwChxQ
Workers Speak Out On 1 Year Anniversary Of E.Palestine Railroad Wreck "We Need Healthcare”
https://youtu.be/LIJdg-UAw8E
East Palestine Wreck & Lessons With Striking Pitttsburgh Post Gazette Reporter Steve Mellon
https://youtu.be/OvDAlfkQ0o4
Workers Speak Out On 1 Year Anniversary Of E.Palestine Railroad Wreck "We Need Healthcare”
https://youtu.be/LIJdg-UAw8E
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net

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East Palestine Norfolk Southern Derailment & Rail Labor

At a labor community conference in East Palestine, Ohio on March 23, 2024, trade unionists including railroad workers talked about the derailment and…

youtu.be

Head of embattled S.F. nonprofit had been accused of mismanaging city funds before
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/embattled-nonprofit-mismanagement-providence-19361438.php
By Maggie Angst
March 27, 2024

Patricia Doyle gives a speech at a press conference held by San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Oct. 25, 2023, to announced the reopening of the Oasis Inn, a 59-unit shelter for families. Doyle is the executive director of the Providence Foundation, a nonprofit organization that receives public funds to operate shelters and other housing programs in San Francisco.
Patricia Doyle gives a speech at a press conference held by San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Oct. 25, 2023, to announced the reopening of the Oasis Inn, a 59-unit shelter for families. Doyle is the executive director of the Providence Foundation, a nonprofit organization that receives public funds to operate shelters and other housing programs in San Francisco.
The head of an embattled organization that operates homeless shelters in San Francisco previously led another nonprofit that faced similar financial troubles, raising questions about whether city officials are properly vetting nonprofit service providers.

Patricia Doyle, executive director of the Providence Foundation of San Francisco, was flagged by city officials more than a decade ago after they found the previous nonprofit she ran overspent its contract budgets and billed the city for credit card purchases without supporting documentation. That nonprofit, the Inter-City Family Support and Resource Network, was denied a city contract renewal due to “a substantial degree of fiscal mismanagement,” according to records obtained by the Chronicle.
Now Doyle’s Providence Foundation is accused by the city of similar patterns of mismanagement.
San Francisco officials are investigating staff complaints that the Providence Foundation, which runs shelters as well as other housing programs across the city, is violating city labor laws and using hiring practices marred by nepotism. The Controller’s Office is also monitoring the organization’s finances after the city said it overspent on three separate city contracts by hundreds of thousands of dollars, among other financial and compliance issues.

Although the Providence Foundation first contracted with the city prior to Doyle becoming executive director in 2019, the nonprofit rapidly expanded under Doyle’s leadership during the pandemic and was awarded new city contracts, including operating shelter-in-place hotels. San Francisco went from paying the nonprofit about $2 million to $3 million a year prior to the pandemic to $8 million to $9 million during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 fiscal years, according to city spending records.
“Someone at the city should have raised a red flag when they became aware that she (Doyle) was at the Providence Foundation,” said David Brown, an accountant who previously worked with Doyle. “She’s doing the same things she was doing back then.”
Doyle did not return requests for comment. After weeks of trying to reach the nonprofit’s attorney, Don Sullivan, he responded in an email Tuesday saying that he was “waiting for direction” from the nonprofit’s board and could not comment by press time.
The revelations about Doyle’s past come amid broader concerns about how San Francisco officials scrutinize the backgrounds of those leading the 600 or so nonprofits that provide critical city services, such as operating shelters and addiction treatment programs. The city, which spends $1.7 billion annually on these contracts, is now investigating the leaders of two other nonprofits facing accusations of financial mismanagement.
Members of the Board of Supervisors are questioning why the city continued to contract for years with SF Safe, whose leader had a history of financial mismanagement and is now accused by the city auditor and nonprofit’s board of misspending public funds and fraud. The leader of a third nonprofit, the United Council of Human Services, which focuses on the homeless and has lost several contracts with the city over alleged financial improprieties, was previously convicted of stealing public money.

San Francisco supervisors recently passed legislation to create greater oversight and accountability of nonprofit contractors. Supervisor Catherine Stefani, who sponsored the legislation, said in a statement that the past allegation of financial mismanagement against Doyle “underscores the urged need for enhanced vetting and transparency measures in our contracting process.”

Emily Cohen, a spokesperson for the city’s homelessness department, did not answer questions regarding the matter, including whether the department was aware of Doyle’s previous problems. Cohen said in a statement that the “situation” was “under investigation” and “HSH cannot currently comment.”
The City Attorney’s Office and District Attorney’s Office would not say whether they were investigating Doyle or the Providence Foundation.
Doyle founded the Inter-City Family Support and Resource Network in 2002. The organization then contracted with San Francisco’s Human Services Agency from 2003 to 2007 to operate a family resource center in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood for about $1 million annually. The center offered a food pantry, family support groups, workshops and case management.
But the city declined to renew the nonprofit’s contract in late 2007 after saying it failed for 18 months to resolve a myriad of financial issues, according to city records. The organization had in May 2015 had its nonprofit status suspended by the California Secretary of State, which said the group failed to submit required paperwork.
Nearly a year later, in April 2006, Human Services Agency officials first notified Doyle that they had “serious concerns” about the nonprofit's spending of public dollars and requested a meeting with her and her accountant, David Brown. The nonprofit had spent a year's worth of funding within six months and failed to pay expenses for the family resource center despite reimbursement from the city, according to an April 2006 letter from the department to Doyle.
“We believe that your organization is in a state of fiscal crisis and it is imperative that we mutually ascertain the level of this crisis,” the letter read.
A city-ordered March 2007 independent audit noted that Inter-City was provided an additional $200,000 in public funds to pay off debt it accumulated due to overspending. It also found that the agency failed to document employee vacation accruals and billed the city for credit card expenses but failed to record what was purchased.
The Controller’s Office reviewed allegations of financial mismanagement at that time, but the department told the Chronicle in February it could not provide the documents because the agency is not required to maintain those types of records for more than five years.
Trent Rhorer, director of the Human Services Agency since 2000, said he did not remember specifics but recalled that the department didn’t uncover any illegal spending of taxpayer dollars, characterizing the problems as “more a lack of proper fiscal controls.” His agency declined to renew Inter-City’s contract in December 2007, citing a “substantial degree of fiscal mismanagement.”
Dave Curto,then the contracts director at the Human Services Agency, told the Chronicle the city had “plenty of reasons” to terminate the contract earlier, but declined to do so because officials were “short of providers in the Bayview.” Curto said, “Pat is a really good person, she was just financially incompetent.”
If the contract had been terminated before it ran its course, Doyle and the nonprofit could potentially have been temporarily suspended or barred from doing business with the city. Inter-City and Doyle were never added to a list of disbarred organizations or executives.
After losing the contract, Inter-City was sued by the nonprofit’s landlord and ordered by a judge to pay more than $40,000 in overdue rent. The nonprofit and Doyle also faced three additional complaints in small claims court for allegedly failing to pay for grant-writing services and for financial statements prepared by an accountant, records show.
Following the problems at Inter-City, the nonprofit dissolved. In 2009, Doyle joined the Providence Foundation as director of operations, according to her LinkedIn account. She was named its executive director in 2019,when the nonprofit was already under contract with the city’s homeless department.
The Providence Foundation — the philanthropic arm of Providence Baptist Church, a fixture of Bayview-Hunters Point for more than six decades — receives millions of dollars annually from the city’s homelessness department to operate a homeless shelter with a navigation center as well as a storage facility for homeless individuals, a housing subsidy program and the Oasis Family Shelter, a 59-room emergency shelter for families at 900 Franklin St.
Documents obtained by the Chronicle through public records requests indicate that the nonprofit has struggled for years to stay in compliance with the city’s nonprofit contracting requirements, especially those involving fiscal record-keeping.
A July 2023 monitoring report from the Controller’s Office found that the nonprofit inappropriately invoiced the city for a toll evasion charge, as well as “sugar-sweetened beverages,” and failed to submit receipts for multiple other expenses billed to the city. It also stated that, in some cases, the agency recorded an employee as having worked but failed to record the employee’s hours on timesheets provided to the city.
The city’s Labor Standards and Enforcement division is now investigating complaints that Providence deprived its staff of paid breaks and holidays and failed to pay them accurately for time worked.
An independent audit, ordered by the city and completed in late January, found “no evidence” that the nonprofit “engaged in intentional wage theft.” The auditor instead blamed unpaid breaks and holidays on “technical glitches” and an “ambiguous” employee handbook.
Joshay Jetton, a former Providence employee, said he was fired in December 2023 because of a petition that was circulated demanding that employees be paid for holidays. Jetton said he was wrongly blamed for creating the petition.
Joshay Jetton poses for a portrait outside the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement at City Hall in San Francisco on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Jetton submitted a labor violation complaint to the city which started an investigation into the Providence Foundation, a nonprofit shelter operator contracted with the city.
Joshay Jetton poses for a portrait outside the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement at City Hall in San Francisco on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Jetton submitted a labor violation complaint to the city which started an investigation into the Providence Foundation, a nonprofit shelter operator contracted with the city.
Benjamin Fanjoy/The Chronicle
After being fired, he filed a report with the Labor Standards and Enforcement division for personnel violations. Kenisha Roach, Providence’s director of operations, sought a restraining order against him, accusing Jetton of threatening her on social media. A Superior Court judge denied Roach’s request, citing a lack of convincing evidence, according to court records reviewed by the Chronicle.
“They’re messing with our livelihoods,” Jetton said. “I tried to do everything the right way, and they retaliated against me.”
Providence staff members have filed complaints with the homelessness department alleging that Roach recorded confidential meetings at the Oasis Family Shelter, while hiring and giving preferential treatment to family members and friends.
Roach told a Chronicle reporter that she could not comment, citing a Providence policy that prohibits employees from speaking to the media.
According to city records, the homeless department ordered Providence to remove video and audio recording equipment inside meeting rooms at the Oasis Family Shelter but received subsequent reports that the nonprofit failed to do so. HSH sent a corrective action letter to the agency in December demanding again that it disconnect such devices and hold a listening session for shelter guests to air their grievances.
Oasis clients and staff members told the Chronicle that the session had not taken place and that the cameras were still up as of the end of February.
“I was very committed to my job … but I would never go back there,” said Sharmagne Williams, a former Providence employee for five years. “The job is too messy.”
The question now is whether the city should have taken different actions once Doyle began running the Providence Foundation.

John Pelissero, director of government ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, said city officials have a responsibility to properly vet nonprofit leaders to ensure that “taxpayer dollars aren’t going to be squandered.”
“They need to make sure up front that they’re starting with an individual and organization that are trustworthy and have a record of being effective,” Pelissero said. He said officials should specifically review other nonprofits that an executive director may have been associated with and contact public agencies they contracted with.
“You wouldn't hire someone without finding out whether they … left their previous position on good terms,” he said.
The vetting process for nonprofit contractors varies across city departments, but all are required to ensure an agency is not blocked from receiving funding at the local or federal level, that they’re registered as a business with the city and that they’re in good standing with the California Attorney General Registry of Charitable Trusts.
The homelessness department’s evaluation process includes a review of the nonprofit’s relevant experience and required certifications, proposed budgets, staffing levels and references submitted by the organization.
Rhorer said he was never asked by the homelessness department about the financial issues at Inter-City after Doyle became the head of the Providence Foundation. “I think you’d be asking a lot from a single city department to understand every contractual agreement with every organization and staff of those organizations,” he said.
“It’s also jumping to the conclusion that Ms. Doyle is the reason that these organizations are financially mismanaged,” Rhorer added. “All these organizations are supposed to have a board of directors and financial officers who oversee this.”
Cohen, the spokesperson for the homelessness department, told the Chronicle earlier this year that the department was trying to help Providence work through its deficiencies because they “played an important role” in the community and, as a Black-led organization, had the “faith and trust of much of the community.” She said, “We really are trying to wrap around this organization and provide them simultaneous support and accountability.”
Reach Maggie Angst: maggie.angst@sfchronicle.com

By Maggie Angst
March 27, 2024

Patricia Doyle gives a speech at a press conference held by San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Oct. 25, 2023, to announced the reopening of the Oasis Inn, a 59-unit shelter for families. Doyle is the executive director of the Providence Foundation, a nonprofit organization that receives public funds to operate shelters and other housing programs in San Francisco.
Patricia Doyle gives a speech at a press conference held by San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Oct. 25, 2023, to announced the reopening of the Oasis Inn, a 59-unit shelter for families. Doyle is the executive director of the Providence Foundation, a nonprofit organization that receives public funds to operate shelters and other housing programs in San Francisco.
The head of an embattled organization that operates homeless shelters in San Francisco previously led another nonprofit that faced similar financial troubles, raising questions about whether city officials are properly vetting nonprofit service providers.

Patricia Doyle, executive director of the Providence Foundation of San Francisco, was flagged by city officials more than a decade ago after they found the previous nonprofit she ran overspent its contract budgets and billed the city for credit card purchases without supporting documentation. That nonprofit, the Inter-City Family Support and Resource Network, was denied a city contract renewal due to “a substantial degree of fiscal mismanagement,” according to records obtained by the Chronicle.
Now Doyle’s Providence Foundation is accused by the city of similar patterns of mismanagement.
San Francisco officials are investigating staff complaints that the Providence Foundation, which runs shelters as well as other housing programs across the city, is violating city labor laws and using hiring practices marred by nepotism. The Controller’s Office is also monitoring the organization’s finances after the city said it overspent on three separate city contracts by hundreds of thousands of dollars, among other financial and compliance issues.

Although the Providence Foundation first contracted with the city prior to Doyle becoming executive director in 2019, the nonprofit rapidly expanded under Doyle’s leadership during the pandemic and was awarded new city contracts, including operating shelter-in-place hotels. San Francisco went from paying the nonprofit about $2 million to $3 million a year prior to the pandemic to $8 million to $9 million during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 fiscal years, according to city spending records.
“Someone at the city should have raised a red flag when they became aware that she (Doyle) was at the Providence Foundation,” said David Brown, an accountant who previously worked with Doyle. “She’s doing the same things she was doing back then.”
Doyle did not return requests for comment. After weeks of trying to reach the nonprofit’s attorney, Don Sullivan, he responded in an email Tuesday saying that he was “waiting for direction” from the nonprofit’s board and could not comment by press time.
The revelations about Doyle’s past come amid broader concerns about how San Francisco officials scrutinize the backgrounds of those leading the 600 or so nonprofits that provide critical city services, such as operating shelters and addiction treatment programs. The city, which spends $1.7 billion annually on these contracts, is now investigating the leaders of two other nonprofits facing accusations of financial mismanagement.
Members of the Board of Supervisors are questioning why the city continued to contract for years with SF Safe, whose leader had a history of financial mismanagement and is now accused by the city auditor and nonprofit’s board of misspending public funds and fraud. The leader of a third nonprofit, the United Council of Human Services, which focuses on the homeless and has lost several contracts with the city over alleged financial improprieties, was previously convicted of stealing public money.

San Francisco supervisors recently passed legislation to create greater oversight and accountability of nonprofit contractors. Supervisor Catherine Stefani, who sponsored the legislation, said in a statement that the past allegation of financial mismanagement against Doyle “underscores the urged need for enhanced vetting and transparency measures in our contracting process.”

Emily Cohen, a spokesperson for the city’s homelessness department, did not answer questions regarding the matter, including whether the department was aware of Doyle’s previous problems. Cohen said in a statement that the “situation” was “under investigation” and “HSH cannot currently comment.”
The City Attorney’s Office and District Attorney’s Office would not say whether they were investigating Doyle or the Providence Foundation.
Doyle founded the Inter-City Family Support and Resource Network in 2002. The organization then contracted with San Francisco’s Human Services Agency from 2003 to 2007 to operate a family resource center in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood for about $1 million annually. The center offered a food pantry, family support groups, workshops and case management.
But the city declined to renew the nonprofit’s contract in late 2007 after saying it failed for 18 months to resolve a myriad of financial issues, according to city records. The organization had in May 2015 had its nonprofit status suspended by the California Secretary of State, which said the group failed to submit required paperwork.
Nearly a year later, in April 2006, Human Services Agency officials first notified Doyle that they had “serious concerns” about the nonprofit's spending of public dollars and requested a meeting with her and her accountant, David Brown. The nonprofit had spent a year's worth of funding within six months and failed to pay expenses for the family resource center despite reimbursement from the city, according to an April 2006 letter from the department to Doyle.
“We believe that your organization is in a state of fiscal crisis and it is imperative that we mutually ascertain the level of this crisis,” the letter read.
A city-ordered March 2007 independent audit noted that Inter-City was provided an additional $200,000 in public funds to pay off debt it accumulated due to overspending. It also found that the agency failed to document employee vacation accruals and billed the city for credit card expenses but failed to record what was purchased.
The Controller’s Office reviewed allegations of financial mismanagement at that time, but the department told the Chronicle in February it could not provide the documents because the agency is not required to maintain those types of records for more than five years.
Trent Rhorer, director of the Human Services Agency since 2000, said he did not remember specifics but recalled that the department didn’t uncover any illegal spending of taxpayer dollars, characterizing the problems as “more a lack of proper fiscal controls.” His agency declined to renew Inter-City’s contract in December 2007, citing a “substantial degree of fiscal mismanagement.”
Dave Curto,then the contracts director at the Human Services Agency, told the Chronicle the city had “plenty of reasons” to terminate the contract earlier, but declined to do so because officials were “short of providers in the Bayview.” Curto said, “Pat is a really good person, she was just financially incompetent.”
If the contract had been terminated before it ran its course, Doyle and the nonprofit could potentially have been temporarily suspended or barred from doing business with the city. Inter-City and Doyle were never added to a list of disbarred organizations or executives.
After losing the contract, Inter-City was sued by the nonprofit’s landlord and ordered by a judge to pay more than $40,000 in overdue rent. The nonprofit and Doyle also faced three additional complaints in small claims court for allegedly failing to pay for grant-writing services and for financial statements prepared by an accountant, records show.
Following the problems at Inter-City, the nonprofit dissolved. In 2009, Doyle joined the Providence Foundation as director of operations, according to her LinkedIn account. She was named its executive director in 2019,when the nonprofit was already under contract with the city’s homeless department.
The Providence Foundation — the philanthropic arm of Providence Baptist Church, a fixture of Bayview-Hunters Point for more than six decades — receives millions of dollars annually from the city’s homelessness department to operate a homeless shelter with a navigation center as well as a storage facility for homeless individuals, a housing subsidy program and the Oasis Family Shelter, a 59-room emergency shelter for families at 900 Franklin St.
Documents obtained by the Chronicle through public records requests indicate that the nonprofit has struggled for years to stay in compliance with the city’s nonprofit contracting requirements, especially those involving fiscal record-keeping.
A July 2023 monitoring report from the Controller’s Office found that the nonprofit inappropriately invoiced the city for a toll evasion charge, as well as “sugar-sweetened beverages,” and failed to submit receipts for multiple other expenses billed to the city. It also stated that, in some cases, the agency recorded an employee as having worked but failed to record the employee’s hours on timesheets provided to the city.
The city’s Labor Standards and Enforcement division is now investigating complaints that Providence deprived its staff of paid breaks and holidays and failed to pay them accurately for time worked.
An independent audit, ordered by the city and completed in late January, found “no evidence” that the nonprofit “engaged in intentional wage theft.” The auditor instead blamed unpaid breaks and holidays on “technical glitches” and an “ambiguous” employee handbook.
Joshay Jetton, a former Providence employee, said he was fired in December 2023 because of a petition that was circulated demanding that employees be paid for holidays. Jetton said he was wrongly blamed for creating the petition.
Joshay Jetton poses for a portrait outside the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement at City Hall in San Francisco on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Jetton submitted a labor violation complaint to the city which started an investigation into the Providence Foundation, a nonprofit shelter operator contracted with the city.
Joshay Jetton poses for a portrait outside the Office of Labor Standards Enforcement at City Hall in San Francisco on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. Jetton submitted a labor violation complaint to the city which started an investigation into the Providence Foundation, a nonprofit shelter operator contracted with the city.
Benjamin Fanjoy/The Chronicle
After being fired, he filed a report with the Labor Standards and Enforcement division for personnel violations. Kenisha Roach, Providence’s director of operations, sought a restraining order against him, accusing Jetton of threatening her on social media. A Superior Court judge denied Roach’s request, citing a lack of convincing evidence, according to court records reviewed by the Chronicle.
“They’re messing with our livelihoods,” Jetton said. “I tried to do everything the right way, and they retaliated against me.”
Providence staff members have filed complaints with the homelessness department alleging that Roach recorded confidential meetings at the Oasis Family Shelter, while hiring and giving preferential treatment to family members and friends.
Roach told a Chronicle reporter that she could not comment, citing a Providence policy that prohibits employees from speaking to the media.
According to city records, the homeless department ordered Providence to remove video and audio recording equipment inside meeting rooms at the Oasis Family Shelter but received subsequent reports that the nonprofit failed to do so. HSH sent a corrective action letter to the agency in December demanding again that it disconnect such devices and hold a listening session for shelter guests to air their grievances.
Oasis clients and staff members told the Chronicle that the session had not taken place and that the cameras were still up as of the end of February.
“I was very committed to my job … but I would never go back there,” said Sharmagne Williams, a former Providence employee for five years. “The job is too messy.”
The question now is whether the city should have taken different actions once Doyle began running the Providence Foundation.

John Pelissero, director of government ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, said city officials have a responsibility to properly vet nonprofit leaders to ensure that “taxpayer dollars aren’t going to be squandered.”
“They need to make sure up front that they’re starting with an individual and organization that are trustworthy and have a record of being effective,” Pelissero said. He said officials should specifically review other nonprofits that an executive director may have been associated with and contact public agencies they contracted with.
“You wouldn't hire someone without finding out whether they … left their previous position on good terms,” he said.
The vetting process for nonprofit contractors varies across city departments, but all are required to ensure an agency is not blocked from receiving funding at the local or federal level, that they’re registered as a business with the city and that they’re in good standing with the California Attorney General Registry of Charitable Trusts.
The homelessness department’s evaluation process includes a review of the nonprofit’s relevant experience and required certifications, proposed budgets, staffing levels and references submitted by the organization.
Rhorer said he was never asked by the homelessness department about the financial issues at Inter-City after Doyle became the head of the Providence Foundation. “I think you’d be asking a lot from a single city department to understand every contractual agreement with every organization and staff of those organizations,” he said.
“It’s also jumping to the conclusion that Ms. Doyle is the reason that these organizations are financially mismanaged,” Rhorer added. “All these organizations are supposed to have a board of directors and financial officers who oversee this.”
Cohen, the spokesperson for the homelessness department, told the Chronicle earlier this year that the department was trying to help Providence work through its deficiencies because they “played an important role” in the community and, as a Black-led organization, had the “faith and trust of much of the community.” She said, “We really are trying to wrap around this organization and provide them simultaneous support and accountability.”
Reach Maggie Angst: maggie.angst@sfchronicle.com

SF Mayor Breed Pushed Corrupt Providence Patricia Doyle's Operation Mayor London Breed Announces Opening of 430 New Shelter Beds for Homeless Residents New shelters at 711 Post and the Baldwin SAFE Navigation Center represent expansion and diversification of shelter bed capacity in San Francisco

https://www.sf.gov/news/mayor-london-breed-announces-opening-430-new-shelter-beds-homeless-residents

July 19, 202

San Francisco, CA — Mayor London N. Breed today announced that San Francisco will open 430 new shelter beds for homeless residents, through a combination of 250 semi-congregate beds at 711 Post and 180 private rooms at the Baldwin SAFE Navigation Center. These two new shelters reflect San Francisco’s evolving shelter program and highlight the impact of innovative shelters opening throughout the City. As shelter in San Francisco expands, the way shelter is viewed is diversifying. While congregate shelters will always be part of the Homelessness Response System, COVID learnings and feedback from people experiencing homelessness have informed the strategy for new shelter concepts. In addition to the 430 new shelters beds being opened today, HSH plans to add back 592 shelter beds throughout the system that were taken offline during COVID. That means that this September, the City will have over 1,000 new beds available for people living unsheltered not available today. "We are working tirelessly to continue expanding shelter, housing, and supportive services throughout San Francisco,” said Mayor Breed. “The openings of these two new sites add hundreds of new beds for people to transition off our streets into shelter, and get them on a path to stable housing instead of camping in our neighborhoods. With each new facility we open, paths are being created that ultimately lead to safer, healthier lives for people on our streets.711 Post is a former youth hostel located in the lower Nob Hill neighborhood that is being leased by the City. The units are a mix of singles, doubles, and quads. The building has several amenities including lobby and front desk, basement, community area, commercial kitchen, dining space, laundry room, office space, security camera system, elevator, lockers and luggage storage, and bathrooms and showers on each floor. Staffing will include a site director, a facilities manager, site supervisor, site monitors (practitioners), maintenance, janitorial, security/front desk, and care coordinators. Two meals a day will be provided as well as laundry service.“I’m extremely proud to represent a neighborhood like Lower Nob Hill that has not only welcomed a disproportionate share of homeless services and supportive housing sites, but continues to hold the City accountable to ensure their successful operations,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin. “I want to thank HSH, DPW, Urban Alchemy and the Lower Nob Hill Neighborhood Alliance for committing to a long-term community-building process to address homelessness and create healthy stable neighborhoods for everyone.”The Baldwin SAFE Navigation Center, previously known as the Baldwin Hotel and located on 6th Street, will provide additional non-congregate shelter options within HSH’s Temporary Shelter portfolio. The building has several amenities including lobby and front desk, basement, community area, kitchen/pantry, dining space, laundry room, office space, medical clinic, security camera system, elevator, and shared bathrooms and showers on each floor. The site staffing will include de-escalation/safety staff at entry, front desk staff, monitors on each floor and in common areas, janitorial staff, property management, and case management staff services include 2 meals a day, laundry, janitorial, de-escalation, DPH medical services, and case management services.“The redesigned Baldwin Hotel will put a roof above the heads of nearly 200 unhoused residents, and its communal gathering spaces and case management and medical services will help build community and encourage healthy living habits,” said District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey. “It’s important to cater to the specific needs of shelter guests, and this new facility does just that while keeping residents in their neighborhood and close to the people and places they know.”“These two new innovative programs, along with tiny cabins, safe sleep and a vehicle triage center, are critical in helping to meet the increasingly specialized needs for shelter in our community,” said San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing Director, Shireen McSpadden. “The Mayor’s dynamic vision for new shelter expansion will meet people where they are at by giving people more diverse options for places to sleep inside and off the streets.” “The 711 Post Street model provides both dignity and stability to our guests, which are the building blocks to healing,” said Lena Miller, CEO of Urban Alchemy. “We are an organization that is in the business of transforming chaotic environments and this housing gives us an opportunity to disrupt negative cycles with a safe, clean and healthy environment that can change lives.” "Five Keys is excited to partner with San Francisco's Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to launch this latest navigation center,” said Five Keys Executive Director, Steve Good. “From our direct experience operating multiple housing programs in San Francisco, we get to see the direct impact programs such as this have on our guest lives. It cannot be understated how navigation centers not only save lives but make San Francisco a better place to live for everyone." “Providence Foundation of San Francisco is proud to embark on this co-partnership with Five Keys as we open the Baldwin SAFE Navigation Center,” said Providence Foundation Director of Operations, Patricia Doyle. “It is our goal to work within the community with Five Keys to provide exceptional support to the homeless population of San Francisco.” Additional expanded and diversified shelter also includes: 70 cabins at 33 Gough, Safe Sleep in the Bayview and Mission, and a Vehicle Triage enter. These programs demonstrate shelter strategically expanded and diversified, and a new vision for shelter in San Francisco. San Francisco provides shelter and housing to over 14,000 homeless and formerly homeless people across the community every night.

New advocacy coalition forms in support of East Palestine

https://www.morningjournalnews.com/news/local-news/2024/03/new-advocacy-coalition-forms-in-support-of-east-palestine/?fbclid=IwAR0-Rc0gEhnbAb5gwlvCJG6JMbw2cOJ8JpFFZxWbrXYsiKkUdd0ubklsL98_aem_AWpojYeQZPq9hBf8YcOy29H1t7FK43F_WGy6beYvyr2YEpqUGhWXsYx_lTYWanmZfnWUPy1YY99ib0EC60jLbByV
LOCAL NEWS
MAR 26, 2024

STEPHANIE ELVERD
Staff Writer
selverd@mojonews.com

Jami Wallace, a resident of East Palestine. and a member of the Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment, speaks during a rally that brought environmental groups, labor unions and residents together to demand Norfolk Southern and the government do more in East Palestine and the surrounding communities in the wake of last year’s derailment an chemical release. The rally was held Saturday at the East Palestine Country Club. Also pictured is Christina Siceloff. (Photo by Stephanie Elverd)

NEGLEY — East Palestine resident Rob Two-Hawks used a simple analogy to get a serious point across about the environmental and health concerns left behind in the wake of last year’s Norfolk Southern train derailment during a gathering at the East Palestine Country Club in Negley on Saturday.

“If an aquarium is making your fish sick, you don’t treat the fish without treating the aquarium first,” he said. “You treat the fish but you have to fix what’s making the fish sick.”

Two-Hawks was part of a panel of residents who spoke at the Justice for East Palestine Residents and Workers Conference, which brought together area residents, environmental activists and labor groups to demand improvement in railway safety as well as health monitoring and health care for those impacted by the rail disaster.

The rally was organized by the Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment (a grassroots movement to advocate for area residents) and environmental groups Food & Water Watch and the Breathe Collaborative, brought buses of support from Pennsylvania and as far away as Iowa.

The newly-formed Justice for East Palestine Residents and Workers Coalition’s main objective is to demand a Presidential Emergency Declaration for East Palestine and the surrounding communities impacted by the derailment and the enactment of the Stafford Act – a law that mobilizes federal resources to aid state and local governments in disaster relief.

Since the derailment, residents have reported an array of medical symptoms — persistent nosebleeds, headaches, rashes, eye irritation, respiratory and digestive difficulties, cognitive issues, seizure-like episodes and rectal bleeding — they say are as direct result of the derailment and chemical release and have been self-advocating for more federal support.

Six months after the disaster, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine made a formal request to President Joe Biden for a Major Presidential Disaster Declaration relating to the derailment.

The Biden administration did issue an Executive Order on Sept. 20 that instructed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to designate a federal disaster recovery coordinator to oversee the long-term recovery efforts. Jim McPherson, an emergency management specialist and experienced disaster recovery coordinator, was tabbed to conduct a comprehensive assessment of any “unmet needs” that are not addressed by Norfolk Southern and would qualify for federal assistance. During his first trip to the area in February, President also announced six National Institute of Health (NIH) to help study the potential epidemiological and environmental damage of the derailment. To date, that declaration has not been made and evidence gathered during McPherson’s assessment has not been released.

While the order by Biden and the NIH studies are a move in the right direction residents and the newly formed coalition say the federal government can and do more, noting that a disaster declaration would open up a wealth of resources and support from those who are still living in turmoil and uncertainty a year after the derailment. The coalition maintains that, aside from the 1.1 pounds of vinyl chloride that was vented and burned from five tank cars – an event the National Transportation Safety Board called “unnecessary” earlier this month, a cocktail of chemicals like butyl acrylate and ethyl acrylate spilled during the derailment has had detrimental impacts on public health and the environment.

Residents have also been calling for the enactment of Social Security Act 1881a which promises free Medicare to environmental-hazard victims.

Chris Albright is an East Palestine resident that developed congestive heart failure following the derailment and said healthcare for East Palestine and surrounding communities is paramount. A gas pipeline worker and a member of LIUNA 1058, Albright said the health ailments have prevented him from working.

“I am unable to provide for his family and I have three girls. I lost my health benefits,”he said “I can’t afford my medications because of something that Norfolk Southern could have and should have been prevented.”

Chistina Siceloff, a Darlington, Pa. resident living six miles away from the derailment said she has experienced a long list of health symptoms since the rail disaster and has spent countless hours looking for answers through doctor appointments and phone calls to health care providers. She also pointed out that before the derailment, she had not sought medical care since 2016, and that her symptoms are shared with other residents in Darlinton.

“We need to have medical monitoring for ourselves, our children and at least their children,” Siceloff said. “Our doctors still don’t know what to tell us. A year later, we still don’t know what was or what still remains in our environment or in our homes.”

Aside from medical care, health coverage and health monitoring, the coalition is also demanding the rail industry implement changes to make sure another community does not suffer the same fate as East Palestine. They are also calling for an immediate passage of The Railway Safety Act that would mandate among other things, hotbox detectors every 10 miles of track, advance notice to local officials of trains carrying hazardous cargo and a minimum two-person crew on every train. The legislation was first introduced by U.S. Senators J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) on March 1, 2023, but the bill is yet to make it to the Senate floor.

Pushback from the rail industry and strong rail lobbyists have stalled its movement. The coalition said Norfolk Southern and all Class 1 railroads should not only stop opposing the bill but support it.

Albright said serious change and true recovery will only come with the help of many, noting that it will take the strength of numbers to force the railroads and the government agencies into action.

“It was a catastrophe that happened and changed our lives and we are never going to get back to normal,” he said. “We didn’t want that train to derail. We didn’t ask for the train derailment and we can’t do anything about it without the help of everybody in this room and everybody in this country. It’s going to take all of us to get past this and let people know what happened here and what is still happening.”

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New advocacy coalition forms in support of East Palestine

NEGLEY — East Palestine resident Rob Two-Hawks used a simple analogy to get a serious point across about the environmental and health concerns left…

www.morningjournalnews.com

AFL-CIO to workers: Fight AI with one hand behind your back
https://www.thechiefleader.com/stories/afl-cio-to-workers-fight-ai-with-one-hand-behind-your-back,52108

Last December, the AFL-CIO announced a collaboration with Microsoft. In exchange for not opposing AI, Microsoft promised to take a neutral position on further unionization by its workers.
The problem with this new partnership is that the AFL-CIO is asking workers to fight with one hand behind their backs while Microsoft enters the ring with an armed robot at its side.
The agreement will result in Microsoft literally schooling workers and unions about why AI is good for them, informing workers when AI is forced on them, and lobbying together to support AI.
For the AFL-CIO, the main prize was the company’s promise to remain neutral when more Microsoft workers unionize. So far there has been one neutrality agreement with 376 Communications Workers of America workers at the Microsoft owned ZeniMax game company.
The agreement avoided a National Labor Relations Board representation election but has not yet resulted in a first contract after nearly a year of bargaining. So far, the only agreement has been that Microsoft will inform members of ZeniMax Workers United-CWA when it uses AI and bargain the impacts on them. In addition, 23 of 77 temp workers have been converted into full-time permanent employees and the remaining temps promised full-time jobs once an agreement is ratified. Ordinarily, changing employment status during bargaining would be considered an unfair labor practice.
The AFL-CIO and CWA have proved to be cheap dates for the multinational corporation. Microsoft has about 220,000 employees worldwide, 120,000 of them in the U.S. This means the new union has a membership of only .0017 percent of Microsoft’s employees.
Microsoft has tamed the federation at the perfect time. The AFL-CIO promises to snuggle with AI at just the moment when workers are fighting AI in Hollywood, the New York modeling industry, hotels and tech. This is a huge payday for Microsoft, which is the largest investor in OpenAI, the inventor of the widely used ChatGPT.
This agreement is historical in yet another way. It is a historical capitulation to the boss when a string of studies shows AI will likely de-skill and even replace hundreds of millions of workers in the next few years. The workers most at risk of deskilling or being made obsolete are those in law, health care, administrative support, writing, art and education.
Thanks to sci-fi movies and books, we commonly think of AI as humanoid machines that will outsmart humanity and obliterate us. But current “generative” AI, which can create something new based on its capacity to make decisions, predict outcomes and solve problems, is becoming an advanced tool that will be used alongside human workers. Like all previous tools, it will be used to de-skill and replace parts or all of the work we do and get us to produce more for less wages.
The impact of this type of AI will be much like the way the assembly line de-skilled craft workers and tied us to the conveyor belt. Early assembly-line workers didn’t sign sweetheart deals to give the boss a free hand but they formed powerful industrial unions such as the Industrial Workers of the Worldand The Union for Everyone to disrupt them.
Today, the AFL-CIO’s “partnership” with Microsoft would be the equivalent of unions giving industrial engineer Frederick Taylor a free pass to use his time-motion studies to control assembly line workers without any opposition.
According to Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, the agreement shows that “by working directly with labor leaders, we can help ensure that AI serves the country’s workers.” This is doubtful. AI is not being developed or introduced to “serve” workers but to automate some of our work, replace us, reduce labor costs, increase control over our labor, and make us work harder and produce more in less time.
When the CEO of one of the world’s most powerful corporation is talking about “serving” workers, it’s time to count the family silver the AFL-CIO gave away for empty words.
Control of AI will not come from receiving advance notice that the boss will make workers use AI or replace us with it. Notification is not the same as giving consent. The deal allows Microsoft to force AI on the workers and the union to file a grievance or bargain over it. This leaves the power in the company’s hands to act and the workers to react after the fact.
We need to instead see AI as a weapon against workers in the struggle for control of work. One month before the AFL-CIO sell-out to Microsoft, the Vegas Culinary Workers Union Local 226 ratified a new contract for 10,000 Caesars workers. The union had threatened a citywide strike just ahead of the Formula One Grand Prix weekend and two months before the Super Bowl in that city. To avoid the strike, the company agreed to a CBA in which it must not only inform the workers six months in advance when it wants to use AI and also provide retraining, benefits and severance for job losses.
Retraining and severance are steps in the right direction. But the supposed benefits of increased productivity from AI need to be shared through less work. Reducing the official workweek to 32 hours would be a good start if it applies to all workers not just those paid by the hour.
AI won’t be fought by empty promises, new policies and laws, or even CBAs alone. It will require that workers continue shifting our organizing to democratically controlling our work. The long Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which ended shortly before the AFL-CIO’s capitulation, proved that only workers’ actual or threatened disruption will put a leash on AI.
Thankfully, the AFL-CIO is so far out of step with workers’ fight against AI that this deal will soon be historically irrelevant.
Robert Ovetz is the editor of “Workers' Inquiry and Global Class Struggle,” co-editor of the new “Real World Labor (Vol. 4)” and the author of “When Workers Shot Back: and “We the Elites: Why the US Constitution Serves the Few.” Follow him at @OvetzRobert.

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AFL-CIO to workers: Fight AI with one hand behind your back – The Chief

Last December, the AFL-CIO announced a collaboration with Microsoft. In exchange for not opposing AI, Microsoft promised to take a neutral position …

www.thechiefleader.com

The Nightmare Continues In East Palestine Ohio: East Palestine Residents & Workers Speak At Meeting
https://youtu.be/63KBHaZYc1Y
The poisoning of the residents and workers of East Palestine continues. At a national conference in East Palestine, Ohio on March 23, 2024 speakers including residents and workers from East Palestine talked about their health conditions and the struggle to get healthcare for themselves and their families.
Residents are demanding that President Biden deaclare East Palestine a mass casualty incident site under the Stafford Act which would allow all residents and workers to get healthcare and also allow them to sell their houses so that are not forced to continue to be contaminated and poisoned by staying in a
dangerous toxic disaster site. The railroad Norfolk Southern and the EPA continue to deny that residents and workers are being sickened by the ignition of the vinyl chloride by the managers of Norfolk Southern railroad.
Additional Media:
The East Palestine Catastrophe Lessons, The Stafford Act & Biden With Mike Schade & Chris Albright
https://youtu.be/8EG7ZH48N2M
East Palestine Resident & LIUNA 1058 Chris Albright Appeal "We Need Health Care”
https://youtu.be/pSeFFT4xV94
East Palestine One Year After The Catastrophe, The Nightmare Continues
https://youtu.be/4u3m9kwChxQ
Workers Speak Out On 1 Year Anniversary Of E.Palestine Railroad Wreck "We Need Healthcare”
https://youtu.be/LIJdg-UAw8E
East Palestine Wreck & Lessons With Striking Pitttsburgh Post Gazette Reporter Steve Mellon
https://youtu.be/OvDAlfkQ0o4
Workers Speak Out On 1 Year Anniversary Of E.Palestine Railroad Wreck "We Need Healthcare”
https://youtu.be/LIJdg-UAw8E
Production of Labor Video Proje

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The Nightmare In East Palestine Ohio:East Palestine Residents Speak About Their Fight For Healthcare

The poisoning of the residents and workers of East Palestine continues. At a national conference in East Palestine, Ohio on March 23, 2024 speakers…

youtu.be

The Nightmare In East Palestine Ohio:East Palestine Residents Speak About Their Fight For Healthcare

Injured Longshore Workers Speak Out & Rally Against Corrupt Workers Comp System & Corporate Crimes

Union Busters & Privatizers Want CCSF Chancellor To Stay At CCSF
CCSF chancellor’s term could be extended following flawed vote on his ouster
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/ccsf-voting-snafu-reverse-trustees-effort-oust-19363749.php
A bungled late-night vote to fire the fiscally prudent chancellor of City College of San Francisco could result in his staying beyond the end of his contract in June, as the school faces state scrutiny over its financial stability, the Chronicle has learned.
Questions about the fate of Chancellor David Martin arose in recent days after an anonymous tipster alerted some college officials that a vote by the Board of Trustees to let Martin’s contract lapse, taken after midnight on Jan. 25, was mislabeled as a union negotiation conference instead of an employee dismissal.
Martin’s supporters hope the erroneous description will force the trustees to offer him another year at the helm — as specified in his contract if a non-renewal vote happens after March 15.

“We have to respect the contract. This was a complete misstep,” said trustee Shanell Williams, who left the meeting as the board entered its closed-door session after 11:30 that night. “I probably would have stayed. But I didn’t know we were going to be voting.”
The chancellor’s contract requires the board to notify him in writing of their decision not to extend it — but the decision has to be made by March 15. Otherwise, “the chancellor shall be deemed to be rehired” for another year, the contract says.
Williams said she will ask at Thursday’s trustees’ meeting that the vote be struck down on grounds that it violated California’s Brown Act, which sets rules for public meetings. The law requires that each closed-session item not only be described on the agenda, but also “orally announced” beforehand.
Neither happened, said Williams and trustee Aliya Chisti, who also left when the meeting recessed into closed session. Williams said she left because it was late and she had to work the next day. Chisti, who said she felt ill, monitored the meeting from home but wasn’t allowed to vote remotely.
Board President Alan Wong and Vice President Anita Martinez, who voted not to renew Martin’s contract, did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did Susan Solomon, who seconded the motion.

Lawyer Kathryn Meola, a consultant serving as City College’s attorney, also did not respond to a request for comment. Nor did the chancellor.
The apparent blunder came to light days before the state Community College Board of Governors met on Monday and expressed concerns about City College’s precarious accreditation, revealed in January when accreditors found the trustees out of compliance with standards — including failing to follow the board’s own policies and ignoring the chancellor’s authority.
It’s the second time in a decade that City College has run afoul of accreditation requirements, and members of the Board of Governors noted with alarm that the trustees didn’t accept a recent offer of state help.
“Should we be more aggressive on that?” asked Tom Epstein, a long-time board member. “Keeping an eye on (the trustees) is not a bad thing.”
City College is at risk of “adverse action” if it doesn’t come into accreditation compliance by 2027. Last week, the school’s Academic Senate sternly condemned the trustees for causing the trouble.
Underlying these difficulties is the tense relationship between Martin and the union-backed majority on the college Board of Trustees.
The board hired Martin in 2021 amid state warnings that the college must cut spending significantly or face insolvency, and expected him to rescue the school. But San Francisco voters soon replaced much of that board. The new, union-backed majority has opposed the layoffs and course reductions Martin put in place.
“The board should not be spending energy and financial resources on a chancellor search,” says CCSF trustee Aliya Chisti. “We have a capable chancellor that is ready to serve.”
“The board should not be spending energy and financial resources on a chancellor search,” says CCSF trustee Aliya Chisti. “We have a capable chancellor that is ready to serve.”
Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle
The ninth chancellor in eight years, Martin stabilized City College for the first time since it was nearly shut down during an epic battle from 2012 to 2017 to keep its all-important accreditation. The college remains fiscally fragile because of next year’s expected loss of new funding for certain schools, including City College, under a revised formula for allocating cash.
The four trustees in the majority have clashed often with Martin. In October, after accreditors issued a 69-page report foreshadowing their decision, Vice President Martinez responded with a five-page rebuttal declaring that the trustees run the college and should not hand over “complete” authority to the chancellor.
The chancellor notified the trustees last summer that planned to leave when his contract expires in June. He hasn’t commented publicly on that decision.
More than 450 supporters signed a petition in January urging the trustees to keep Martin. Several believe the chancellor would stay if he and the board could work together.
Among the trustees’ accreditation violations is failing to “act in a manner consistent with (their) policies and bylaws.”
On Jan. 25, the trustees listed an agenda item for closed session: “Conference with Labor Negotiator.”
But the minutes published later reflected what they actually voted on: “Motion to not renew the Chancellor’s contract after June 30, 2024. It was approved by Martinez, Solomon, Wong and Vick Chung.
Only Murrell Green voted no. Williams and Chisti had already left the meeting.
Chisti said she wasn’t sure if the vote was valid, but that the chancellor should be given the option to stay.
“The board should not be spending energy and financial resources on a chancellor search,” she said. “We have a capable chancellor that is ready to serve.”
Reach Nanette Asimov: nasimov@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @NanetteAsimov

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CCSF chancellor’s term could be extended following flawed vote on his ouster

CCSF trustees voted after midnight Jan. 25 to oust Chancellor David Martin. Errors in the process could make the decision moot, giving him a contract…

www.sfchronicle.com

Can SF get an independent study of toxic risk at Hunters Point?
Plus: Preserving history on the waterfront, and preserving the waterfront from sea-level rise. That's
The Agenda for March 24-

https://48hills.org/2024/03/can-sf-get-an-independent-study-of-toxic-risk-at-hunters-point/
By TIM REDMOND
MARCH 24, 2024
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The San Francisco Civil Grand Jury pointed out in 2022 a major time-bomb of an issue at the Hunters Point Shipyard, which developers still want to turn into housing:

Tons of toxics, including some radioactive material, are buried in the soil—and as the sea level rises, that material could and probably will rise to the surface, even if the developers put concrete on top of it.

The US Navy now agrees it’s a problem.

Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in 2020. Photo by Chris Michel via WikiCommons
Mayor London Breed, however, has completely dismissed the data, saying that she won’t implement the grand jury’s recommendations and that the Navy’s cleanup plans are “extensive and thorough:”

“While we agree that the cleanup process is complex and often technical and that climate change will continue to affect San Francisco in many ways, overall we disagree partially or wholly with many of the (grand jury’s) findings and recommendations in the report,” Breed said.

But Sup. Shamann Walton is siding with the grand jury. He’s introduced legislation that would allocate $500,000 to pay for an independent study through the Public Utilities Commission of the groundwater toxics issue. From the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s report:

The June 2022 Civil Grand Jury Report, “Buried Problems and a Buried Process: The Hunters Point Shipyard in the Time of Climate Change,” concluded that the City was not adequately monitoring the impact of sea level rise on the environmental contamination in the Hunters Point area. The report recommended that the Mayor and/or City Administrator commission a report on potential interactions of groundwater with hazardous materials and planned modifications to the site under multiple sea level rise scenarios and that the Mayor and Board provide funding for the study.

That measure comes before the Budget and Appropriations Committee Wednesday/27.

The challenge: Breed has in the past refused to spend money that the supes have appropriated if she doesn’t like the idea. The hearing starts at 4pm.

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Can SF get an independent study of toxic risk at Hunters Point? – 48 hills

Plus: Preserving history on the waterfront, and preserving the waterfront from sea-level rise. That’s The Agenda for March 24-31

48hills.org

The Nightmare Continues In East Palestine Ohio: East Palestine Residents & Workers Speak At Meeting
https://youtu.be/63KBHaZYc1Y
The poisoning of the residents and workers of East Palestine continues. At a national conference in East
Palestine, Ohio on March 23, 2024 speakers including residents and workers from East Palestine talked
about their health conditions and the struggle to get healthcare for themselves and their families.
Residents are demanding that President Biden deaclare East Palestine a mass casualty incident site
under the Stafford Act which would allow all residents and workers to get healthcare and also allow them
to sell their houses so that are not forced to continue to be contaminated and poisoned by staying in a
dangerous toxic disaster site. The railroad Norfolk Southern and the EPA continue to deny that residents
and workers are being sickened by the ignition of the vinyl chloride by the managers of Norfolk Southern
railroad.
Additional Media:
The East Palestine Catastrophe Lessons, The Stafford Act & Biden With Mike Schade & Chris Albright
https://youtu.be/8EG7ZH48N2M
East Palestine Resident & LIUNA 1058 Chris Albright Appeal "We Need Health Care”
https://youtu.be/pSeFFT4xV94
East Palestine One Year After The Catastrophe, The Nightmare Continues
https://youtu.be/4u3m9kwChxQ
Workers Speak Out On 1 Year Anniversary Of E.Palestine Railroad Wreck "We Need Healthcare”
https://youtu.be/LIJdg-UAw8E
East Palestine Wreck & Lessons With Striking Pitttsburgh Post Gazette Reporter Steve Mellon
https://youtu.be/OvDAlfkQ0o4
Workers Speak Out On 1 Year Anniversary Of E.Palestine Railroad Wreck "We Need Healthcare”
https://youtu.be/LIJdg-UAw8E
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net

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Labor Media – Labor Media

SF City Workers Protest Contracting Out & Prepared To Strike As City Offers Only 2% Wage Increase https://youtu.be/EEKa89dFQD4 Seventeen thousand San…

www.labormedia.net

Cops and judges can’t get away with violating reporters’ First Amendment rights
The latest attack on press freedom by the SF cops shows the need for vigilance—and accountability.
https://48hills.org/2024/03/cops-and-judges-cant-get-away-with-violating-reporters-first-amendment-rights/
Richard Knee
By
RICHARD KNEE
MARCH 19, 2024
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An unlawful search warrant and gag order that San Francisco police and a magistrate judge imposed recently on the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center was one of a long line of abuses of journalists by local government entities, and it underscores again that press freedom and source confidentiality protection laws don’t by themselves do the job. Some other cases in point:

The search warrant for Bryan Carmody, which the courts later overturned
● Nick Varanelli, a Sacramento City College photojournalist, was arrested while covering a San Francisco antiwar rally in March 2003. He had shown police his press ID, but officers at the scene said students didn’t qualify as actual journalists and he had to move on. He continued photographing, was arrested, and spent eight hours in jail before his father came to spring him. The district attorney later dropped bogus charges of rioting and blocking traffic.

● San Francisco sheriff’s deputies assaulted four credential-bearing journalists who were covering a political protest in City Hall in May 2016. Injuries to two of the journalists were so serious as to necessitate hospitalization.

● San Francisco police, acting on five unlawful search warrants, raided the home and office of freelance journalist Bryan Carmody in May 2019, handcuffing him for six hours and seizing professional equipment that police hoped would reveal who had fed Carmody details on the death of Public Defender Jeff Adachi. Police Chief William Scott offered the bogus excuse that Carmody was suspected of obtaining the information as part of a theft ring. In fact, Carmody had received it—legitimately—from a Police Department insider. At least two of the five judges involved knew that Carmody is a journalist but issued the warrants anyway, in clear, flagrant violation of California’s journalists’ shield law.

And from what appears on the application for the search warrant against the S.F. Bay Area IMC, better known as the grassroots news website Indybay, it’s plain that both police Sgt. Michael Canning, who signed the application, and San Francisco Magistrate Judge Linda Colfax, who issued the warrant, knew or should have known that Indybay is a news outlet, and that (1) both documents thus violated California’s Shield Law protecting the right of journalists and news media to keep information source identities and unpublished/unaired materials private, and (2) Judge Colfax’s order that Indybay keep silent about the search warrant and the reason for its issuance violated the First Amendment protection against prior censorship.

(The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which helped Indybay pro bono to beat back the warrant and the gag order, provided a copy of the warrant and the application to 48 Hills. Readers can access it here.)

What was the Canning- and Colfax-damning evidence that appears on the application? Indybay’s own, “About Us,” description of its activities:

The San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center (Indybay) is a non-commercial, democratic collective of bay area independent media makers and media outlets, and serves as the local organizing unit of the global Indymedia network.

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Every tax-deductible donation helps us grow to cover the issues that mean the most to our community. Become a 48 Hills Hero and support the only daily progressive news source in the Bay Area.

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Principles of Unity: San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia

We strive to provide an information infrastructure for people and opinions who do not have access to the airwaves, tools and resources of corporate media. This includes audio, video, photography, internet distribution and any other communication medium.
We support local, regional and global struggles against exploitation and oppression.
We function as a non-commercial, non-corporate, anti-capitalist collective.
Canning quoted also from Indybay’s stated “Editorial Policy”:

The Indybay newswire operates on the principle of open publishing, an element essential to the global Indymedia network. Simply put, open publishing is to news and information what open source code is to software. In practice, the open publishing newswire allows anyone to instantaneously self-publish their work on https://www.indybay.org.

People are encouraged to “become the media,” to use their own skills and abilities of observation, writing, and creativity in posting text, video, audio, photos, and artwork directly to the website. The post is then viewable at the top of the breaking newswire.

What triggered the application and warrant was publication on Indybay’s newswire on Jan. 18 of what Indybay called “a pseudonymous communiqué by ‘some anarchists’ … claiming credit for smashing 18 windows at the San Francisco Police Credit Union that night. It stated that the building was ‘attacked for Tortuguita.’ Tortuguita, active in the struggle to stop ‘Cop City’ in Atlanta, was shot and killed by Georgia state troopers on January 18, 2023.”

Police wanted the digital Internet Protocol address “and other identifying information about the author of the communiqué,” Indybay recounted. Indybay’s full account is available here.

It’s one thing to subpoena for a specific piece of information and another to issue a search warrant, First Amendment attorney Thomas R. Burke, who represents 48 Hills and represented Carmody and quashed all the warrants issued against him, told me. A subpoena is “like a sniper shot” while a search warrant is “like a dragnet (that) steals the entire newsroom. Seizing a laptop (computer) or a cell phone – these days is the seizure of an entire newsroom because hundreds of investigations and their sources and other unpublished information are likely to be captured. That (search warrant) is never going to be permissible,” said Burke, who taught media law at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism for nearly two decades and is a partner in the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine.

Thomas Burke, attorney for Carmody, talks to the press at a hearing to overturn the warrant
Even a subpoena, though, is unlawful if it is an attempt to pry loose a journalist’s confidential-source ID or unpublished/unaired materials.

California’s Shield Law is codified in state Constitution Article I, Section 2, and in state Evidence Code Section 1070. Both declare that journalists shall not be held in contempt by a government entity for refusing to identify an information source or to disclose unpublished information.

Perhaps equally powerful is state Penal Code Section 1524(g): “No warrant shall issue for any item or items described in Section 1070.”

Many press-freedom activists believe current laws suffice to protect journalists from abuses such as those described above and to provide remedies when those abuses occur. Respectfully, I disagree. And I am not the first to do so publicly. For instance, Tim Redmond, 48 Hills’ founder and editor, has long argued for rules and regulations that would hold Shield Law violators’ feet to the fire.

The journalism community shares responsibility for protecting its own. Burke recalled that a number of reporters covering Carmody’s post-search-and-seizure court fight questioned aloud on whether he was a journalist. “I had to remind them that he carried an SF Police Department media credential,” Burke said.

When freelance video-journalist Josh Wolf spent 226 days in federal detention, in 2006-07, for refusing to surrender footage of a July 2005 protest demonstration in San Francisco, Chronicle political columnist Debra Saunders said he didn’t qualify as a journalist because he worked without an editor looking over his shoulder, but that he should be released anyway because keeping him locked up cost too much taxpayer money—all this notwithstanding that the Society of Professional Journalists contributed $30,000 to Wolf’s legal fight.

Back to the main question: Mario Trujillo, who led the EFF legal team representing Indybay, told me that “the most important piece of this for me is making it as easy as possible to challenge these unlawful warrants in court. I think this overlaps with the accountability question you are asking. A few things that could help:

“● Creating local court rules that clearly outline the steps for challenging these warrants.

“● Making it easy to recover attorney fees if a news organization prevails.

“● If a warrant looks like it targets the press, allowing for an adversarial hearing before the warrant is issued.

“● Making it easier to recover damages from police in subsequent civil rights lawsuits when constitutional rights are at issue.”

Burke pointed to the state Commission on Judicial Performance as a possible avenue for holding judges accountable when they violate journalists’ rights. The commission is, according to its website, “the independent state agency responsible for investigating complaints of judicial misconduct and judicial incapacity and for disciplining judges, pursuant to article VI, section 18 of the California Constitution.”

Judges and police personnel showing a pattern of violating journalists’ rights should face penalties up to and including dismissal, Burke said.

Amen.

Richard Knee is a San Francisco-based freelance journalist and sunshine and First Amendment activist.

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Cops and judges can’t get away with violating reporters’ First Amendment rights – 48 hills

The latest attack on press freedom by the SF cops shows the need for vigilance—and accountability.

48hills.org