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Cameras At UPS, AI & Infrared Torture With IBT 190 UPS Driver Eric Johnson
youtu.be/xkQuUrN4g2E
In an interview IBT president Sean O'Brien claimed that there were not cameras at UPS. He then said that they were there but were not spying on the drivers.
Eric Johnson a member of IBT 190 in Montana and a long haul driver with UPS talks about the cameras and the dangers to UPS and other drivers union and non-union.
He says he was injured by the infrared camera and that he and other UPS Teamsters a many other workers are being tortured by the use of this AI technology introduced into the industry.
This interview was done on 2/26/26
Additional Media:
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IBT Pres Sean O'Brien Tells Members He Stopped AI & Robots At UPS
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UPS Installs On-Truck Surveillance Cameras
www.tdu.org/ups_installs_surveillance_cameras
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Teamsters, AI, Health & Safety & Union Democracy With IBT 396 Steward Hannibal Agular
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"Out Of Control" Truckers, AI Robotics, IR Cameras, UPS, & Teamsters With Eric Johnson IBT 190
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California Teamsters Demand Fair Elections & Demand That CA AG Rob Bonta Close Down Unilect
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Labor leaders from across US come to Bay Area to raise concerns over Trump's tariffs
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Labor Protests Trump's Trade War & Tariffs At Port Of Oakland
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Kill Tariffs Not Workers! Teamsters & ILWU Members Protest Tariffs & Trade War At The Port Of Oakland
youtu.be/DdIzrM2B-9w
Teamsters,The Rise of Fascism,TDU, Labor Notes & IBT Pres SOB With IBT VP John Palmer
youtu.be/3YMBaG-5ZIk
Production Of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
www.labormedia.net
What French Romance Novels Could Tell Us About A.I. and Translation Jobs Popular paperbacks are being translated with the help of machines, raising anxiety among professionals in the field. ww…
USAID Falls, Exposing A Giant Network Of US-Funded “independent” Media
www.mintpressnews.com/usaid-media-funding-cuts-indepdent-news/289093/
The Trump administration’s decision to pause USAID funding has plunged hundreds of so-called “independent media” outlets into crisis, thereby exposing a worldwide network of thousands of journalists, all working to promote U.S. interests in their home countries.
In late January, President Trump—along with help from the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk—began implementing sweeping changes to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on the premise that the organization’s promotion of liberal and progressive causes was a gigantic waste of money. The group’s website and Twitter account have disappeared amid widespread speculation that it will cease to exist or be folded into Marco Rubio’s State Department.
The pausing of aid immediately sent shockwaves across the planet, not least in the international media, many of which, unbeknownst to their readers, are totally dependent on financing from Washington.
In total, USAID spends over a quarter of a billion dollars yearly training and funding a vast, sprawling network of more than 6,200 reporters at nearly 1,000 news outlets or journalism organizations, all under the rubric of promoting “independent media.”
With the money tap unexpectedly turned off, outlets around the world are panicking, turning to their readers for donations, and thereby outing themselves as fronts for U.S. power.
MEDIA ON THE DOLE: CASH FLOW CRISIS HITS HARD
Perhaps the country most affected by this sudden change in policy is Ukraine. While criticizing the decision, Oksana Romanyuk, the Director of Ukraine’s Institute for Mass Information, revealed that almost 90% of the country’s media are bankrolled by USAID, including many that have no other source of funding.
Olga Rudenko, the editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent (an outlet MintPress previously revealed receives funds from Washington), also denounced the decision. Last month, she wrote that the USAID freeze is a greater threat to independent Ukrainian journalism than either the COVID-19 pandemic or the Russian invasion. The Kyiv Independent has since asked its readers to support a funding drive to keep pro-U.S. Ukrainian media alive. Other large Ukrainian outlets, such as Hromadske and Bihus.Info, have done the same.
Anti-government Cuban media have been plunged into a similar predicament. Miami-based CubaNet published an editorial asking readers for money. “We are facing an unexpected challenge: the suspension of key funding that sustained part of our work.” they wrote; “If you value our work and believe in keeping the truth alive, we ask for your support.” Last year, CubaNet received $500,000 in USAID funding to engage “on-island young Cubans through objective and uncensored multimedia journalism.” Cynics, however, might visit the website and see little but anti-communist talking points.
Madrid-based Diario de Cuba is also in dire straits. Last weekend, the outlet’s director, Pablo Díaz Espí, noted that “aid to independent journalism from the government of the United States has been suspended, which makes our work more difficult” before asking viewers to subscribe. Since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the United States has spent giant amounts of money financing media networks in an attempt to bring the government down. Between 1985 and 2013 alone, Radio and TV Martí received over half a billion dollars in taxpayer money.
USAID Head visits exhibition of destroyed russian military equipment in Mykhailivska Square.jpeg
Samantha Power, then-head of USAID, visits an exhibition of destroyed Russian military equipment in Kiev, Ukraine. October, 2022. Photo | AP
Across the world, the funding freeze has put outlets in immediate danger of shutting down. Burmese organizations have already begun firing staff. Around 200 journalists are thought to be directly paid by USAID. “We are struggling to survive,” Wunna Khwar Nyo, chief editor of Western News, told Voice of America. “I cannot imagine [how people will manage] without a salary to pay your rent,” worried Toe Zaw Latt of the Independent Press Council Myanmar.
A recent survey of 20 leading Belarusian media outlets found that a staggering 60% of their budgets come from Washington. Speaking about the USAID funding pause, Natalia Belikova of Press Club Belarus warned, “They are at risk of fading away and gradually disappearing.”
In Iran, U.S.-backed media have already had to fire workers. A BBC Persian report noted that more than 30 Iranian groups held a crisis meeting to discuss how to respond to the aid cuts.
Like in Iran, anti-government Nicaraguan media is highly dependent on subsidies from Washington. U.S.-backed Nicaragua Investiga condemned Trump’s decision as a “serious blow” against a media that “depends largely on the financial and technical support provided by agencies such as USAID.”
Another country awash in Western NGO cash is Georgia. On January 30, Georgia Today noted that USAID financing has been a “cornerstone” of the country since its independence. It warned that many organizations would immediately shutter their doors for good without the constant flow of money.
Similar reports have emerged from Serbia, Moldova, and across Latin America. Meanwhile, social media users have noticed that many of the most prominent anti-China voices on their respective platforms have gone strangely silent since the shutdown.
“INDEPENDENT” MEDIA, BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE US GOVERNMENT
The cuts to USAID, therefore, have highlighted that the United States has consciously created a vast matrix encompassing thousands of journalists worldwide, all producing pro-U.S. content.
Yet, in discussing the USAID cuts, corporate media has insisted on describing these outlets as “independent.” “Independent outlets in [the] former Soviet Union are poised to be hurt by temporary shut down at key US agency,” wrote The Financial Times. “From Ukraine to Afghanistan, independent media organizations across the world are being forced to lay off staff or shut down after losing USAID funding,” The Guardian told its readers. Meanwhile, The Washington Post went with “Independent media in Russia, Ukraine lose their funding with USAID freeze.” Perhaps most notably, even organizations like Reporters Without Borders (RSF) did the same. Clayton Weimers, executive director of RSF U.S., commented, “Non-profit newsroom and media organizations have already had to cease operations and lay off staff. The most likely scenario is that after the 90-day freeze, they will disappear forever.”
There is already a serious problem in modern discourse with the term “independent media,” a phrase commonly defined as any media outlet, no matter how big an empire it is, that is not owned or funded by the state (as if that is the only form of dependence or control to which media is subject). But even at this extremely low bar, all these outlets fail. Indeed, Weimers’ warning underlines the fact that none of them are independent in any meaningful way. They are, in fact, completely dependent on USAID for their very existence.
Not only that, but some USAID-backed journalists candidly admit that their funding dictates their output and what stories they do and do not cover. Leila Bicakcic, CEO of Center for Investigative Reporting (a USAID-supported Bosnian organization), admitted, on camera, that “If you are funded by the U.S. government, there are certain topics that you would simply not go after, because the U.S. government has its interests that are above all others.”
While USAID specifically targets foreign audiences, much of its messaging comes back to America, as those foreign outlets are used as credible, independent, and reliable sources for newspapers or cable news networks to cite. Thus, its bankrolling of foreign media ends up flooding domestic audiences with pro-U.S. messaging as well.
While the press may be lamenting the demise of USAID-backed media, many heads of state are not. “Take your money with you,” saidColombian President Gustavo Petro, “it’s poison.”
Nayib Bukele, President of El Salvador, shared a rare moment of agreement with Petro. “Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up,” he wrote, explaining that:
While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas, and destabilizing movements. At best, maybe 10% of the money reaches real projects that help people in need (there are such cases), but the rest is used to fuel dissent, finance protests, and undermine administrations that refuse to align with the globalist agenda.”
CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE
USAID influences global media and the means of communication in far more profound ways than simply sponsoring news outlets. Last March, a 97-page USAID document was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
The document revealed a vast operation to censor and suppress wide swaths of the internet, including Twitch, Reddit, 4Chan, Facebook, Twitter, Discord and alternative media websites. There, USAID lamented, users were able to build communities to create “populist expertise” and develop opinions and viewpoints that challenge official U.S. government narratives.
Although its internal justification was halting the flow of mis- and disinformation, it seemed particularly concerned with “malinformation” – a concept it defines as speech that is factually correct but “misleading” (i.e., bothersome truths the U.S. government would prefer the public does not know).
Chief among the methods USAID outlines to suppress independent media is what it calls “advertiser outreach” – in effect, threatening advertisers into cutting ties with smaller websites to throttle them financially.
The report makes clear that its main concern is not China or Russia, but its domestic population:
Discussions on disinformation and misinformation often revolve around assumptions of state actors driving the issue. However, problematic information more regularly originates from networks of alternative sites and anonymous individuals who have created their own ‘alt media’ online spaces.”
USAID suggests directing the public towards mainstream, corporate sources of information and “psychologically inoculating” them against inconvenient facts that challenge U.S. power by “prebunking” information before people see it. Prebunking includes “discrediting the brand, the credibility and reputation of those making false allegations”—in other words, a state-directed attack against alternative media and critics of the U.S. government. The full report – and a MintPress News investigation on the subject – can be read here.
USAID, however, is far from the only government institution attempting to control global narratives. The National Endowment for Democracy (reportedly also in Musk and DOGE’s crosshairs) also sponsors media around the world.
The Department of Defense, meanwhile, fields a giant clandestine army of at least 60,000 people whose job is to influence public opinion, the majority doing so from their keyboards. A 2021 exposé from Newsweek described the operation as, “The largest undercover force the world has ever known,” and warned that this troll army was likely breaking domestic and international law.
The Twitter Files further exposed the Department of Defense’s shadowy actions. It showed how the DoD worked with Twitter to carry out a Washington-run influence project across the Middle East, even as the app claimed it was working to shut down foreign-backed disinformation operations. And investigations from MintPress News have revealed how the highest echelons of top social media apps, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, TikTok, and Reddit, are filled with former officials from the CIA, USAID, and other national security agencies.
Furthermore, U.S.-based groups with close government links, such as the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, all give huge grants to journalists and foreign media outlets.
A SHADY ORGANIZATION
Some might ask what the problem with receiving money from USAID is in the first place. Supporters of the organization say it does a great deal of good around the world, helping to vaccinate children or providing clean drinking water. Looking at the organization’s (now defunct) website, one would assume it is a charitable group promoting progressive values. Indeed, many on the conservative right appear to have taken this woke veneer at face value. Explaining his decision to close the organization down, Musk described it as a “viper’s nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America.”
This, however, could barely be further from the truth. In reality, USAID, from its inception, has consistently targeted leftist and non-aligned governments, particularly in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
In 2021, USAID was a key player behind a failed Color Revolution (a pro-U.S. insurrection) in Cuba. The institution spent millions of dollars funding and training musicians and activists on the island, organizing them into a revolutionary, anti-communist force. USAID offered up to $2 million per grant to applicants, noting that “Artists and musicians have taken to the streets to protest government repression, producing anthems such as ‘Patria y Vida,’ which has not only brought greater global awareness to the plight of the Cuban people but also served as a rallying cry for change on the island.”
USAID has also created a number of covert apps aimed at regime change. The most notorious of these was Zunzuneo, often described as Cuba’s Twitter. The idea was to create a successful messaging and news app to dominate the Cuban market, then slowly drip-feed the population anti-government propaganda and direct them to protests and “smart mobs” aimed at triggering a color-style revolution.
In an effort to hide its ownership of the project, the U.S. government held a secret meeting with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to entice him to invest in it. It is unclear to what extent, if any, Dorsey helped, as he has declined to speak on the matter.
USAID protest.jpeg
USAID employees along with politicians and activists gather outside the Capitol Building in Washington DC to protest funding cuts to USAID, February 5th 2025. Photo | AP
In 2014, USAID’s Cuban program was again exposed. This time, the organization had been running fake HIV-prevention workshops as a cover to gather intelligence and recruit a network of agents on the island.
In Venezuela, too, USAID has served as a force for regime change. It was intimately involved in the failed 2002 coup against President Hugo Chavez, funding and training key coup leaders in the run-up to the insurrection. Since then, it has consistently attempted to subvert Venezuelan democracy, including by funding self-declared president Juan Guaidó. It was even at the center of a disastrous 2019 stunt where U.S.-backed figures attempted to drive trucks full of USAID-sponsored “aid” into the country, only to light the cargo on fire themselves and blame the government.
In an attempt to stamp out the threat of socialism, USAID agents are also known to have taught torture techniques to right-wing Latin American dictatorships. In Uruguay, USAID’s Dan Mitrione taught police how to use electricity on different sensitive areas of the body, the use of drugs to induce vomiting and advanced psychological torture techniques. Mitrione wished to demonstrate on live subjects, so he would kidnap beggars from the streets and torture them to death.
The notorious Guatemalan police, complicit in the country’s genocide of the Mayan population, also relied heavily on USAID for training. By 1970, at least 30,000 police officers had undergone counterinsurgency training, organized and paid for by USAID.
USAID was even more heavily implicated in genocide in Peru in the 1990s. Between 1996 and 2000, Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori ordered the forced mass sterilization of 300,000 mostly indigenous women. USAID donated some $35 million to the program, now widely understood to constitute a genocide. No American official has faced any legal repercussions.
USAID’s beginnings can be traced back to 1961, an era when national liberation movements in Latin America, Africa, and Asia were fighting – and winning – independence. Progressive revolutions, such as in Cuba, were inspiring the world, and Communist states like the USSR were developing rapidly, challenging the dominance of the United States.
USAID was established as a counterweight to all this, an attempt to shore up conservative, pro-U.S. governments and undermine or redirect more radical ones. Since its inception, it has worked hand-in-glove with the Central Intelligence Agency.
In 1973, Senator Ted Kennedy wrote a letter to the CIA, directly asking if they were using USAID to carry out operations in Southeast Asia. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger himself responded in the affirmative. For that reason, former CIA officer John Kiriakou labeledUSAID as little more than a “propaganda adjunct of the agency.”
Surprisingly, The New York Times published a similar assessment. In 1978, its correspondent, A. J. Langguth, wrote that the “two primary functions” of the USAID global police training program were to allow the CIA to “plant men with local police in sensitive places around the world” and to bring to the United States “prime candidates for enrollment as CIA employees.
Today, the institution presents itself as trying to empower civil society to take the lead in promoting democracy. But, as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wrote, the past fifty years have authentic civil society actors, such as churches and unions, hollowed out, leaving only astroturfed think tanks and NGOs, “whose purpose, beneath all the verbiage, is to execute political agendas by proxy.”
In the panic surrounding its closure, many USAID figures have let the cat out of the bag and made this point directly themselves. “It’s not a generosity project,” one employee told Fox News, adding, “This is a national security agency and effort at its core.”
OUR UNFREE MEDIA
Ultimately, what this story reveals is that our media is not free; it is dominated by powerful interests. The most powerful of these is the U.S. government. To Washington, controlling public discourse is as important as controlling the seas or the skies. That is why they invest billions of dollars into doing so.
It also explains the reaction whenever actors challenge the U.S.-dominated media ecosystem. In the 2000s, the U.S. military deliberately bombed Al-Jazeera buildings after the network challenged Washington’s narrative around the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. After RT began gaining a foothold in the 2010s, the network was demonized and canceled. TikTok is on the verge of being banned in the U.S., and independent media is constantly shadowbanned, demonetized, defamed and deplatformed.
We like to think we are free thinkers. Yet the revelation that USAID funds a vast network of journalists around the world, shaping narratives favorable to U.S. interests, should highlight the fact that we are swimming in an ocean of propaganda – and most of us do not even realize it. The U.S. is spending billions to promote its interests and demonize China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela and its other enemies, all in an attempt to curate our realities.
While USAID as an organization looks to be formally gone and subsumed by the State Department, Secretary of State Rubio said that many of its functions will continue as long as they are aligned with “the national interest” rather than “charity.” As such, it likely will not be long until the money spigot is turned back on for these pro-U.S. outlets. However, at least USAID’s demise has done at least one good thing; it has exposed vast swathes of global media for what they are: imperial propaganda projects of the United States.
USAID Falls, Exposing a Giant Network of US-Funded “Independent” Media
www.mintpressnews.com
From Ukraine to Cuba, news outlets worldwide are suddenly begging for cash—because their “independent journalism” was actually paid for by Washington all along., global media funding crisis, ind…
"No Cameras At UPS" Sean O'Brien At IBT 2010 Strike At CSUSF
youtu.be/Wj_GfCydhq0
Sean O'Brien, president of the International Brotherhood Of Teamsters said that there were no cameras at UPS during the strike of IBT 2010 at California State University San Francisco. This interview took place on February 17, 2026 about the role of AI and infrared cameras in UPS trucks. Thousands of IBT truck
drivers are facing these cameras up to 70 hours a week and these AI cameras are causing tumors and cataracts according to hundreds of workers.
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youtu.be/vD3Igqb-Ru8
Teamsters Speak Out On AI In Cal
youtu.be/vD3Igqb-Ru8
Teamsters In Southern California Speak Out On AI,The Class Struggle
youtu.be/Ld55pZVykKQ
IBT Pres Sean O'Brien Tells Members He Stopped AI & Robots At UPS
youtu.be/yBa_2gDRz0Q
UPS Installs On-Truck Surveillance Cameras
www.tdu.org/ups_installs_surveillance_cameras
IBT Pres SOB Using AI
thehill.com/homenews/media/5638970-teamsters-substack-newsletter/
Teamsters, AI, Health & Safety & Union Democracy With IBT 396 Steward Hannibal Agular
youtu.be/WN3D4TB1mgM
"Out Of Control" Truckers, AI Robotics, IR Cameras, UPS, & Teamsters With Eric Johnson IBT 190
youtu.be/QcsHR2YjZKo
California Teamsters Demand Fair Elections & Demand That CA AG Rob Bonta Close Down Unilect
youtu.be/SPp-vOV8Ip8
IBT 2010 UC Rank & File Run In Elections & Challenge Officials, UC & UniLect Services
youtu.be/9a5igBfZPXY
Labor leaders from across US come to Bay Area to raise concerns over Trump's tariffs
abc7news.com/post/labor-leaders-us-come-oakland-raise-concerns-president-donald-trumps-tariffs/18…
Labor Protests Trump's Trade War & Tariffs At Port Of Oakland
youtu.be/AEzZyVboNVw
Kill Tariffs Not Workers! Teamsters & ILWU Members Protest Tariffs & Trade War At The Port Of Oakland
youtu.be/DdIzrM2B-9w
Teamsters,The Rise of Fascism,TDU, Labor Notes & IBT Pres SOB With IBT VP John Palmer
youtu.be/3YMBaG-5ZIk
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
www.labormedia.net
What French Romance Novels Could Tell Us About A.I. and Translation Jobs Popular paperbacks are being translated with the help of machines, raising anxiety among professionals in the field. ww…
IBT Pres SOB Using AI
thehill.com/homenews/media/5638970-teamsters-substack-newsletter/
The Teamsters, one of the nation’s largest and most diverse unions with 1.3 million members, unveiled a Substack newsletter Monday, becoming the first major union to use the online forum to reach people outside traditional media.
The move was spearheaded by Sean O’Brien, the general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who wants to put the Faster Labor Contracts Act and the impact of AI on American workers at the forefront of Congress’s agenda.
“Prior to us taking over, the Teamsters were kind of stagnant in the news. We came in with a whole new crew,” O’Brien, is the 11th general president of the prominent union, told The Hill in an interview.
“We had some great success with the media early on, the UPS agreement and a bunch of stuff we are doing,” he said, but he added that the positive media coverage he generated early in his tenure as president was swallowed up by “hit pieces” in the legacy media to which he felt the Teamsters weren’t given a real chance to respond.
In particular, O’Brien isn’t pleased with some of the coverage of The Wall Street Journal, which, for example, published an editorial in October calling the union’s 2023 contract with the UPS a “loser for laid-off workers.”
“They don’t tell the whole truth,” he said of media outlets that have written harsh or critical pieces. “When you call them out on it and you want to do an editorial on what they said, that’s completely edited, completely under their control.”
Dow Jones, the Journal’s parent company, did not respond to a request for comment.
O’Brien said the Substack newsletter will give the Teamsters “to control our narrative” and “target to a direct audience that is going to be focused on our issues.”
“We’re the only union that’s doing it,” he added. “The vision is to put [out] credible information, control the narrative. Look, we’re still going to engage with mainstream media and we have to. … With the emergence of podcasts and unfiltered conversations, [the newsletter] is also a tool for us to grow.”
Lawmakers in both parties increasingly view online platforms that are separate from traditional media outlets as critical to getting their message directly to supporters and potential supporters.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told The New York Times in a recent interview that he’s trying to get his less-tech-savvy colleagues to wrap their minds around the fact that a post on his TikTok feed likely gets much more public exposure than an interview with MS NOW.
“You think about the average person, 18 to 35 years old. Are they getting all their information right now from mainstream media? No, they’re going on podcasts, they’re going on platforms, social media. We think we can do the same with Substack. It’s going to be a great tool for organizing,” O’Brien said.
One of the Teamsters’s first Substack columns is an article on the Faster Labor Contracts Act, a bipartisan bill sponsored by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) that would amend the National Labor Relations Act to require that employers begin negotiating with a new union within 10 days of workers voting to form a union.
And the bill requires that if a labor agreement isn’t reached within 90 days, the dispute will be referred to mediation.
One of the union’s first newsletter items points out that workers, on average, wait 458 days “fighting for their first contract after voting to form a union.”
In October, Hawley introduced O’Brien at a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, where the labor leader said he’s working to cultivate more support among Republicans for labor issues.
“When I took office, I directed the Teamsters union legislative department to confront their own partisan bias. As a result, our union has found new allies on both sides of the aisle,” O’Brien testified at the time.
“There is a realignment around labor taking place within the Republican Party. The Teamsters union wants to encourage that movement by offering multiple paths to support our members and not a single litmus test,” he said.
O’Brien wants to get away from the red-versus-blue partisan lens that collars almost all policy debates in Washington to drill down on the issues in a way that can build support for new legislation and cut across political, geographic and class lines.
“This is going to be a platform where it doesn’t matter if you’re a progressive, a liberal, a Democrat or Republican, independent. It’s going to be strictly based upon the subject matter at hand,” he said.
O’Brien thinks the Democratic Party too often has used high-priority labor issues as a “political football” at election time without making much progress on them during off years.
And he sees potential allies among Trump-aligned populist conservatives, such as Hawley, who want to get things done on Capitol Hill for working men and women.
The newly unveiled Substack highlights another major issue for labor that doesn’t get much attention in public debate — binding arbitration clauses that have become increasingly prevalent in daily American life.
O’Brien’s team wants more Americans to realize that they’re often signing away legal rights without even knowing it when they tap on their phone.
“You order your coffee on an app to save time. You’ve just agreed to arbitration. You tap your contactless transit pass to commute to work. Arbitration. You check the status of a package from Amazon. Arbitration,” the newsletter reads.
It goes on to explain that these arbitration clauses are “designed to live in the background — quiet, automatic, unacknowledged” but the implications are significant because their “fine-print contract language … replaces the right to sue.”
O’Brien said the subjects of arbitration and other hot-button labor issues are “maybe not interesting to the average person” but have widespread influence on people’s day-to-day lives.
“Everybody’s like, ‘Well, that’s boring, whatever,’” he said, noting “99 percent of the people who sign up for a credit card, sign up for a specific service, agree to arbitration, they just don’t know they did.”
The rapid expansion of AI is another top concern of the Teamsters and other unions that want to make sure policymakers are keeping an eye on how new technologies will impact workers — white-collar and blue-collar employees alike.
“AI’s probably one of the biggest threats that we have. Unfortunately, I’m becoming an expert on it,” O’Brien said, calling it one of the “biggest subject matters.”
“A lot of our members’ jobs could be threatened by the implementation of technology and artificial intelligence. It’s great to get an open dialogue on where we see it’s going,” he said.
Teamsters unveil new Substack newsletter to break through traditional media
thehill.com
The Teamsters, one of the nation’s largest and most diverse unions with 1.3 million members, unveiled a Substack newsletter Monday, becoming the first major union to use the online forum to reach p…
Workers are afraid AI will take their jobs. They’re missing the bigger danger.
www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/workers-are-afraid-ai-will-take-their-jobs-they-re-missing-the-bi…
Story by Matthew Call
Workers Are Afraid AI Will Take Their Jobs. They’re Missing the Bigger Danger..jpeg
Workers Are Afraid AI Will Take Their Jobs. They’re Missing the Bigger Danger.
© Adrià Voltà for WSJ
Walk into any corporate office, and you’ll hear the same anxious conversation: Will AI eliminate white-collar jobs?
The optimists insist that new jobs will emerge to replace the ones we lose—after all, it has happened in previous tech revolutions. Pragmatists argue the workforce will simply become more productive with artificial intelligence, creating more value with minimal job cuts. And the pessimists fear entry-level knowledge workers will become obsolete altogether.
But this debate misses a crucial dynamic. Right now, workers are potentially training AI how to make them obsolete. And they often don’t realize it.
The kind of AI used by companies, called an enterprise AI system, can capture everything you do at work and use that information to train itself. These systems can record your interactions within the platform—the prompts you write, the documents you create, the queries you run.
In other words, the company can potentially track—and claim ownership of—every keystroke you make within the system, every idea you document there, every tool you build using that platform. It can identify what approaches worked best, what email language got responses and how you approached those clients. And all that knowledge can become part of the company AI, so it may eventually know, down to increasingly fine details, how you do your job.
Then comes the dangerous part for employees: The AI can pass that information along to anybody else who does your job, or in some cases just do the job itself. Over time, you could become a lot less valuable to your employer—and a lot more replaceable.
This dynamic may fundamentally change the relationship between employer and employee. The stakes are so high and so urgent that both sides are rushing to position (or protect) themselves. Executives are rapidly implementing enterprise AI systems, seeking productivity gains and competitive advantage—and they often aren’t disclosing the implications for job security and privacy. Meanwhile, at least some employees are secretly adopting personal AI tools, sometimes violating corporate policies, so that their employers can’t capture everything they know and do.
Capturing the essence
To understand what’s coming, you need to understand what enterprise AI systems actually are. These are different from the interfaces you use at home. Enterprise AI systems are platforms that integrate directly into corporate workflows—think of Microsoft Copilot embedded in Word, Excel and Outlook, or Salesforce’s Einstein AI woven into customer-relationship management. These systems sit inside the tools where you already work. And they can potentially capture much of your work within the platform, learning from many interactions, and embedding that knowledge into company-owned infrastructure.
What once lived only in employees’ heads, built through years of experience and hard-won expertise, is increasingly being institutionalized in real time. When you leave, at least some of your knowledge stays behind, embedded in systems that will be used by the AI and by your replacement (if a replacement is needed at all).
Imagine that you’re a senior software engineer debugging a system crash. You run a bunch of tests to figure out the problem, and when you discover the solution isn’t in the documentation, you develop a novel workaround. You share the solution with the company, obviously, but the expertise and techniques that you brought to the problem were all yours, in a fundamental way. You figured out the workaround because of what you know and how you work.
That is the way things used to be, anyway. When you do your work through enterprise AI, though, the system doesn’t just record your solution. It can capture your problem-solving approach: which questions you asked first, how you refined the search when initial attempts failed, potentially even the logical steps that led you from symptom to cause. The next time junior engineers face a similar crash, the system may be able to guide them through elements of the methodology you used.
You haven’t lost your expertise. But now the employer also has access to key aspects of that expertise, in a form it controls and can deploy to other employees without you. It has a partial blueprint for how you think, and some of the knowledge that once made you indispensable is now a reproducible company asset.
Making it personal
These revolutionary changes seem to put workers in a tight spot. But I believe employees have an alternative—one that isn’t easy, but could help move the power dynamic back in their favor. Specifically: Employees should consider avoiding their company AI systems when possible and use personal AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot or dozens of others.
These tools operate on completely different terms than enterprise AI. You access them directly. You own your prompts, your workflows, your customizations. The knowledge you create stays with you. Most critically, when you walk out the door, your AI-enhanced capabilities walk with you.
Maybe you’re required to use your company’s enterprise AI for client work. But all the strategic thinking you do before engaging with clients? Develop that using personal AI tools.
I spoke with a regional vice president at an energy company who does exactly that: He uses his firm’s enterprise system for required compliance and documentation, but develops new analytical approaches and tests complex decisions in personal AI tools. The novel insights stay his.
What can be done?
Using personal AI tools is just the first step employees should take, however. To really change the power dynamic, they can act on other fronts.
• Negotiate upfront. When joining a company, people should treat access to AI tools like intellectual-property ownership. Most employment agreements cover IP created on the job, but employees should dig further into a company’s policies before signing on: What gets captured through enterprise AI? How long is that data retained? Can you use personal AI tools for skill development? Can you request deletion of your contributions if you leave?
Most companies haven’t thought through these questions yet, which means there is room to establish reasonable boundaries before you’re locked in.
• Support collective action. Individual opt-out of AI is often impossible, so unions and professional associations need to pay attention. With collective bargaining, workers could demand transparency about the use of enterprise AI and demand fair compensation for the knowledge it gathers. Without collective power, individual employees will keep clicking “accept” on agreements that restructure their jobs simply because they have no alternative.
Concerted employee action may start to change the AI calculus. Employers may find that enterprise AI systems do capture knowledge, but at a steep cost: They may drive away the most talented employees, ones who realize they can build more valuable, portable capabilities with personal tools.
AI is breaking the traditional model of employment in real time faster than anyone realizes. The companies and employees who understand these dynamics will position themselves to capture AI’s benefits. Those who don’t may find themselves on the losing side of the biggest workplace shift in a generation.
Matthew Call is an associate professor in the department of management at Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com.
Workers are afraid AI will take their jobs. They’re missing the bigger danger.
www.msn.com
It isn’t whether artificial intelligence is going to replace them. It’s who will control the knowledge that companies capture from their employees.
Tensions mount as LAUSD board to consider sending 3,200 notices of possible layoffs
www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-02-16/lausd-considers-sending-3200-notices-of-possible-layoffs
Striking L.A. teachers and other workers rally in the rain in 2023.
Los Angeles Unified workers and supporters dance at a rally outside a district office on the second day of a strike over a new contract in March 2023. Labor negotiations are stalled once again amid a proposal to send out more than 3,200 notices of possible layoffs. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)
Los Angeles Times reporter Howard Blume
By Howard Blume
Staff Writer
Feb. 16, 2026 3 AM PT
More than 3,200 LAUSD employees would receive layoff notices under a proposal to be considered by the school board.
The actual number lost is expected to be lower, but state law and union trigger notifications will cover all possible cutback scenarios.
The pending decision has prompted criticism from union leaders.
More than 3,200 Los Angeles Unified School District employees would receive a notice of a possible layoff under a proposal to be considered at Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting, while union leaders call to pause the decision until the state revenue forecast becomes clearer.
The number of workers who are likely to lose their jobs is expected to be much lower, but still could be significant. Other workers would face demotion, pay cuts and new jobs in different places.
The proposed action is part of a plan to close what officials describe as an ongoing structural deficit — meaning that the nation’s second-largest school system is spending more annually than it is receiving. Layoffs have been avoided for more than five years largely because of one-time, accumulated relief aid related to COVID-19.
In a December budget filing, the district projected deficits of $877 million, or 14%, for the 2026-27 school year and $443 million, or 7%, the year after.
“These are dangerously high deficit levels for a public education institution, and more importantly, signal a significant structural imbalance, not a temporary dip,” according to the staff report.
The number of actual layoffs is certain to be much smaller than 3,200. The larger figure reflects required notice provisions under state law and union seniority rules. When a long-tenured employee’s position is eliminated, that employee may be eligible to bump out another employee with less seniority in a lower position. Both employees, however, must receive notice of a possible loss of their position — as well as anyone else in the bumping chain.
A truer picture of the potential job losses may be in the number of central-office positions being “closed” or eliminated.
The board report lists 657 “central office and centrally-funded position closures.” Among those jobs: 220 information technology support technicians, 33 parent education support assistants, 23 gardeners, five area bus supervisors, five stock clerks and three interpreters. Another 52 positions would have reduced hours and 22 positions would be paid at a lower rate.
Los Angeles , CA – January 12, 2026: First grade students in Lilian Umana's class write in their notebooks at the 96th Street STEAM Academy and Dual Language Program School on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026 in Los Angeles , CA. Students of the Los Angeles Unified School District returned back to school for the start of the second semester after the New Year.
Ultimately, the report states, fewer than 1% of the district’s more than 83,000 employees are likely to be at risk of losing a job entirely.
Most district unions remain in negotiations with L.A. Unified. Members of United Teachers Los Angeles voted to give their union’s leaders the right to call a strike at their discretion.
The union is seeking an immediate 16% raise for new teachers, an across-the-board 3% raise in the contract’s second year and significant automatic pay hikes tied to years of experience and continued education. The district is offering 2.5% for the first year of a three-year contract; 2% the next, plus a 1% one-time bonus.
The largest employee unions did not release an immediate response to the budget proposal, which was posted after the close of business Friday. However, in a Feb. 6 letter to the board of education, a coalition of three unions questioned the need for cuts.
“State [tax] revenues for December and January have far exceeded projections in the Governor’s draft budget,” stated the letter, which was signed by UTLA, Local 99 of Service Employees International, which represents the largest number of nonteaching workers, and Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, which represents principals, assistant principals and many middle managers.
Los Angeles, CA – March 15: A crowd gathered in Grand Park infant of City Hall on Wednesday, March 15, 2023, in Los Angeles, CA. United Teachers of Los Angeles and SEIU 99 members hold a joint rally at Grand Park in a historic show of solidarity. It has been almost ten months since the contract between LAUSD and UTLA has expired, and a staggering three years for SEIU members, leaving almost 60,000 employees vulnerable in the midst of a record-high inflation and a housing crisis.
LAUSD teachers union members authorize strike, ratcheting up pressure on contract talks
The three unions also called for a stand-alone meeting on the cuts that would take place before the March 15 deadline for giving employees with a teaching credential notice of a possible layoff.
“If necessary (and to be clear — it is not), the board should schedule a stand-alone meeting in early March prior to the statutory deadline so that you will have the most complete picture of Prop 98 funding at that time,” the letter stated. “This should be the only agenda item. This will give the public the time to engage and understand these devastating proposed cuts.”
The letter added: “The notion that these are dark times for education requiring harmful cuts when there are record high state revenues is fearmongering. The Board should see through this.”
Broadly speaking, the unions have focused on the size of the district’s reserve as of last July, which stood at $5 billion within a total budget of $18.8 billion, while the district has called attention to its structural deficit.
Tensions mount as LAUSD board to consider sending 3,200 notices of possible layoffs
www.latimes.com
Under an LAUSD budget proposal, layoff notices would go out to more than 3,200 but the actual number of layoffs is expected to be closer to 600.
What's Going On: Ex-Pfizer scientist's book recounts battle over lab safety
theday.com/news/828272/whats-going-on-ex-pfizer-scientists-book-recounts-battle-over-lab-safety/
By Lee Howard
Business Editor
Published:Feb 14, 2026 3:00 PMUpdated:Feb 16, 2026 12:05 PM
I covered the Becky McClain fiasco at Pfizer in Groton 16 years ago as she fought the company not only over lab safety but over what seemed to be a fundamental right for a scientist to be able to access records indicating what biological experiment gone wrong had led to her prolonged health problems.
So it came as a bit of a surprise when I heard a few weeks ago that McClain had finally published a book about her long road to justice, a quest that ended in a Hartford courtroom where she wound up winning a $2.3 million civil judgment after a two-week jury trial.
The book, published by Skyhorse Publishing and titled "Exposed: A Pfizer Scientist Battles Corruption, Lies, and Betrayal and Becomes a Biohazard Whistleblower," is a barn burner, taking readers into the labs where she was exposed to a novel lentivirus, into the courtroom where she battled not only Pfizer but a judge who later admitted a conflict of interest and into the offices of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an agency whose personnel appeared to be working in cahoots with her former employer, according to McClain's telling.
"OSHA is not your friend," McClain said she heard from her lawyer over and over.
Indeed, when it came to fighting a powerful corporation, friends were hard to find on a variety of fronts. McClain found it almost impossible to locate a lawyer to take her case, and even doctors were hesitant to buck Pfizer, reluctant even as McClain fought to find out the properties of the virus that apparently infected her and led to terrifying bouts of painful paralysis.
Even most journalists, she said, seemed intimidated about writing in-depth stories about her case. The New York Times finally published an analysis of lab safety issues, according to McClain, only after she won her case and with the intervention of consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who also wrote the forward to her new book.
McClain's book then added this tidbit, to my surprise: "Lee Howard, a reporter for a New London, Connecticut, newspaper, The Day, was the only journalist from a newspaper outlet who took a keen interest in my story and the public health issues prior to winning the lawsuit."
It's true, I followed McClain's story closely as The Day's pharmaceuticals reporter, and I was often surprised at the lack of coverage from other newspapers, who, according to McClain, were sometimes openly antagonistic toward her case.
McClain, a former Deep River resident now living in Albuquerque, N.M., said in a Zoom call last month that she continues to battle for the rights of lab workers exposed to dangers in the workplace. Pfizer, despite losing the lawsuit in 2010, has continued to insist that McClain was not exposed to a biosafety hazard, and the original judge in the case had dismissed all counts involving safety in the workplace, forcing the veteran scientist to make the case a free-speech issue as she insisted the pharmaceutical giant had tried to muzzle her safety complaints.
And there's a lot more to digest in this book, including references to the $100 million in tax credits that the State of Connecticut handed to companies involved in embryonic stem cell research, a giveaway that she said was based on promises of immediate miracle cures that she knew, as a scientist, were many years if not decades away.
"They're telling people they're going to find cures for everything from making paralyzed people walk to curing Parkinson's to everything and anything," McClain said via Zoom. "But as of today, I don't think there's one cure from embryonic stem cells."
McClain's journey from a scientist at Pfizer to a biohazard whistleblower started, according to her book, with her being named to the safety committee at the Groton labs. She soon found that scientists working in the labs had a series of safety concerns, and she started insisting that management take those complaints seriously. But after a series of confrontations, Pfizer eventually disbanded the committee, according to the book. (Pfizer did not respond to a series of questions about allegations in the book.)
She would constantly go through established channels to complain about safety, as the book enumerates, but managers would either pooh-pooh the issue or do testing she said was botched to ensure no problem was detected. Meanwhile, McClain was earning awards for her work, but her manager nevertheless gave her a poor performance review.
So McClain decided to bring her complaints to OSHA, against her lawyer's advice. At first, the agency created to help workers deal with workplace hazards seemed to be willing to help. But in the end, all her attempts to document safety issues went nowhere, she said.
At the same time, McClain's physical health was going downhill after she became infected from an experiment done without permission by a colleague at her worksite. She was diagnosed with a transient condition that led to periodic paralysis.
The effect was "a lightning bolt shot through my spine," she said in the book, yet Pfizer wouldn't release records identifying the "lentivirus that Pfizer exposed me to." Then OSHA informed her that the genetic coding of the virus had been declared a trade secret by Pfizer, according to McClain, and that she therefore had no right to records associated with her exposure.
"I was the lab rat that had been exposed by Pfizer, caged within Pfizer's web of influence, their lies, and their secrets with no health and safety rights," McClain writes in the book. "I was Pfizer's experiment. And I felt vulnerable and violated."
McClain uses the names of local Pfizer scientists she engaged with in the labs and those who opposed her in court, but they have been changed to protect her from potential lawsuits. Several of these Pfizer leaders won scientific recognition and prominent positions, she said, despite the way they treated her. McClain said she soon recognized that the power of money had corrupted large swaths of the scientific community.
"Business interests now overshadowed the once-held academic values of transparency and honesty, severing the social contract that academia had long shared with society in service of the public good," McClain writes in the book. "Patents and trade secrets and private ownership became the names of the game in biotechnology instead of public well being and health."
But far from becoming cynical, McClain continued to plow through writing a book, something she says she was ill-equipped to do. By following the lead of novelists, she realized the power of the cliff-hanger chapter ending, and she used the technique to keep readers craving every word, never quite sure how it will all end.
Her writing takes interesting side turns as well, noting that she came under surveillance in her neighborhood and had her computer hacked. She also tells about how her husband, Mark, was harassed at his job working for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and he was eventually forced out.
"Mark's employer, the FDA was trying to interfere with my federal lawsuit against Pfizer," McClain wrote in the book.
Yet, through it all, and despite several unfavorable rulings from the judge, who insisted she couldn't give testimony that mentioned public health and safety problems, McClain won a unanimous jury decision in her favor. The initial judgment of $1.3 million, which McClain said covered only back pay and employment benefits for 10 years, eventually was upped to $2.3 million, which covered her attorney's fees.
"It was only then, in 2013, after receiving the final payment from Pfizer, that the mysterious cars and men, the surveillance, the computer hacking and the threats against Mark and me suddenly stopped," McClain wrote. "And although I had won, Pfizer never had to address or remedy any of their dangerous biosafety practices, were never inspected by OSHA, nor levied any OSHA fine."
In our interview, McClain tied the lack of oversight of biotech facilities worldwide to our most recent health disaster, the pandemic of 2020-2023, which has been tied most probably to the release of a pathogen from a lab in China. But she said that the stifling of dissenting voices in the scientific community may be just as problematic.
"I want the public to somehow understand that it is an issue that somehow we have to correct," McClain said. "Otherwise, get ready for another pandemic."
"We need better free speech…. You have to have better whistleblower protection. … Quit these gag orders on injured workers. Let doctors and scientists speak their mind and quit calling everything misinformation."
What's Going On: Ex-Pfizer scientist's book recounts battle over lab safety
theday.com
Becky McClain, a former biologist who researched new drugs at Pfizer in Groton, just came out with a book recounting her battles with the company and regulators that led to a $2.3 judgment in her favo…
Panel on Fascism and Working Class Struggle Hosted by CWA 1104 Education Division
us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_O-MeEhiZSKSXx1C45jis-w#/registration
Date & Time
Feb 19, 2026 03:00 PM in
Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Description
Following Max Horkheimer's insight "Whoever is not willing to talk about capitalism should also keep quiet about fascism," in his latest book Late Fascism, Alberto Toscano writes "Whoever is not willing to talk about anti-capitalism should also keep quiet about anti-fascism."
In the midst of internal repression, imperial war and anti-worker policies, and attacks on democratic institutions and popular will we witness growing everywhere, many talk about development of fascism and resistance against it. However, what really is fascism and why is working class struggle against it as a class struggle necessary and fundamental? How is what we are facing a class oppression against the working class that needs to be opposed and overcome by working class power? What kind of dangers await us in the upcoming process, including the next elections, and how should the working class develop power for these dangers in the future? How can we create broad solidarity against the roots of these crises in a profit-oriented system that has no care for human life?
In the latest CWA convention, the resolution #80A-25-06, "A Generational Fight for Our Freedoms," was unanimously passed, naming the fight against authoritarianism a primary objective of the whole union and committing mass educative initiatives to this purpose. Taking up this call, we must pursue the matter further, into the real economic causes of what we are seeing in capitalism and working class mass action against it using productive power.
Join us on February 19th, 6pm ET to discuss these issues with fellow unionists and writers Russ Bellant, Carol Lang (PSC-CUNY), Gabriel Prawl (ILWU), & Steve Zeltzer (PMWG). After contributions from our panel, we will have an open discussion on capitalism, fascism, and advancing working-class power. We invite all unionists, workers, and supporters from our union and beyond to this discussion to develop class consciousness and strategy together in our current moment.
“MALICIOUS AI SWARMS” COULD HIJACK DEMOCRACY—AND MAY EVEN GO UNNOTICED, EXPERTS SAY
thedebrief.org/malicious-ai-swarms-could-hijack-democracy-and-may-even-go-unnoticed-experts-say/
CHRISSY NEWTON·FEBRUARY 12, 2026
A new breed of AI-controlled personas could pose an unprecedented threat to democratic societies, experts have recently warned.
Unlike traditional cyberattacks, these systems operate more insidiously, infiltratingonline communities and shaping narratives.
The warning was presented in a recent policy forum in Science, which argues that swarms of AI personas can mimic human behavior so convincingly that they can influence conversations, sway opinions, and even tilt elections. Compared to the capabilities of botnets in the past, which were clumsy and detectable, these new AI agents can coordinate in real time, respond to feedback, and propel narratives amid thousands of online accounts and conversations.
HOW AI-CONTROLLED PERSONAS WORK
AI models, along with multi-agent systems, can use a single operator to disseminate thousands of AI “voices” that appear authentic, localized, and very human-like. These types of systems can run millions of micro-tests to support and enhance messaging. The results, experts warn, would be a form of manufactured public opinion online that may seem grassroots-driven, but is in fact 100 percent AI-manufactured.
This new AI capability goes beyond classical propaganda as we know it. With AI-controlled personas, responses can be analyzed, tone adjustments can be made, and activity coordinated across networks, enabling swarms to potentially be used to amplify hate speech and polarization, suppress dissenting viewpoints, and guide online discussions in directions favorable to specific political or individual self-interests.
Such technology, in other words, could potentially have the power to create an illusion that a large number of people agree with something, even when they don’t.
EARLY WARNING SIGNS
As of now, full-scale AI swarms remain a theoretical problem, although early indicators involving the potential use of such capabilities are raising concerns internationally. AI-generated deepfakes—and even entirely fabricated news outlets—have already demonstrated the ability to influence recent electoral debates in the United States and in other countries, such as Taiwan, Indonesia, and India, according to Dr. Kevin Leyton-Brown, a computer scientist at the University of British Columbia.
Fundamentally, AI swarms could tilt the balance of power in democracies, said Dr. Leyton-Brown. “We shouldn’t imagine that society will remain unchanged as these systems emerge,” he says. “A likely result is decreased trust of unknown voices on social media, which could empower celebrities and make it harder for grassroots messages to break through.”
Leyton-Brown and others warn that AI swarms could subtly tilt the balance of power in democracies, shaping voter perceptions before anyone realizes they are being manipulated in such a way. Researchers caution that the next major election could become a focal point, serving as a veritable proving ground for these technologies.
In a Substack article, “AI bot swarms threaten to undermine democracy,” Dr. Leyton-Brown and his co-author recently explained the dangers such capabilities represent.
“No democracy can guarantee perfect truth, but democratic deliberation depends on something more fragile: the independence of voices,” they write. “The ‘wisdom of crowds’ works only if the crowd is made of distinct individuals. When one operator can speak through thousands of masks, that independence collapses.”
NASA is working with AI SpaceFactory, a deep tech company, to develop a lunar outpost printed with recycled materials.
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“We face the rise of synthetic consensus: swarms seeding narratives across disparate niches and amplifying them to create the illusion of grassroots agreement,” the authors write.
Through the adaptive mimicry of human social dynamics, the authors of the recent Science Policy Forum argue, AI could potentially represent a significant threat to democratic societies if left unmitigated.
The authors recommend “interventions at multiple leverage points,” adding that a focus on “pragmatic mechanisms over voluntary compliance” may be required in order to overcome such potential concerns, along with efforts to develop safer AI systems overall.
“How malicious AI swarms can threaten democracy” appeared in Science on January 22, 2026.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.
"Malicious AI Swarms" Could Hijack Democracy—And May Even Go Unnoticed, Experts Say
thedebrief.org
A new breed of AI-controlled personas could pose an unprecedented threat to democratic societies, experts have recently warned.
On Pacifica's CDR: Professor Raquel Varela Connects AI, War, and Capitalism; Healthcare Workers Challenge Chatbots and Defend Patients; New York Nurses Strike Major Hospital Chains; Philadelphia Teamster Confronts Racism and Organizes Workers
capitalismraceanddemocracy.org/2026/02/11/professor-raquel-varela-connects-ai-war-and-capitalism-…
By Capitalism, Race & Democracy – February 11, 2026
On February dockers from 6 European countries carried out strikes against the genocide in Gaza, the militarization of Europe, and the attacks on the working class. One of those attacks is the use of AI and robotics to attack the working class and the growing threat of genocide and war. Professor Raquel Varela, who teaches in Lisbon, is a global expert on AI, automation, maritime transportation, and the global economy. She spoke with Pacifica’s Steve Zeltzer.
AI, Dockers, Labor, Imperialism, Fascism & World Capitalism With Raquel Varela
***
NUHW Kaiser Ilana Marcucci-Morris is a licensed clinical social worker in Oakland, California. There are now 32,000 Kaiser nurses and many other workers on strike in part against short staffing. Marucci-Morris talks about her union’s fight against the use of chatbots to replace trained and licensed professional healthcare workers and why that is a threat not only to labor but also to the millions of patients at Kaiser and all other healthcare systems in the US.
***
As we go to air on Feb 9th, some 15,000 nurses of the New York State Nurses Association, braving severe winter weather on picket lines in the Bronx and Manhattan approach Day 30 in their strike against three large hospital networks — Montefiore, NewYork-Presbyterian, and Mount Sinai.
The nurses union is calling for increased staffing to lower patient to nurse ratios, better protections against workplace violence, the exclusion of ICE from hospitals that menace immigrant patients and workers, as well as better wages and benefits that might enable nurses to live in the city where they care for their patients.
Pressure is building with Democratic Party political figures such as Governor Hochul and Mayor Mamdani expressing support for nurses while also calling for a quick end to the strike. The hospitals are using freelance nurses, known as “agency” or “travel nurses” to scab, and management claims essential operations have continued, though there’s no telling for how long. A similar strike three years ago lasted just three days.
What follows are voices from a picket line on Thursday Jan 29 at the Montefiore Weiler Campus in the Bronx. The speakers in order are NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, Montefiore nurse Carolyn Jensen, Democratic New York State Senator Gustavo Rivera, and Montefiore nurse Dahlia Empia. CRD Producers add their voices to the call for victory to the New York State Nurses Association! You can find them on Facebook.
***
During Black History Month, Black trade unionist Richard Hooker Jr., president of Teamsters Local 623 in Philadelphia, is speaking out against President Trump’s renewed racist attacks, which are fueling anger across the Black community and the broader working class. Hooker, who is challenging Trump supporter Sean O’Brien for Teamsters Presidemt, spoke with Pacifica’s Steve Zeltzer about the lessons of the 1934 Minneapolis strike, the need for worker–community solidarity, and why this moment demands a workers’ party and a general strike in the United States.
Richard Hooker Jr. & Teamsters In S. Cal Speak Out On AI,The Class Struggle &The Fight For Democracy
***
We thank all of Pacifica’s sister stations and affiliates who contribute to the production of this show. Today’s program was produced by the Capitalism, Race & Democracy collective, with contributions from Thomas O’Rourke and Steve Zeltzer.
You can find this and all previous episodes at our website “capitalism race and democracy dot ORG”. Make sure you click the subscribe button. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @PacificaCRD.
Thanks for listening!
Music:
Bruce Springsteen, “Streets of Minneapolis”
POWER TO THE PEOPLE. (Ultimate Mix, 2020) – John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
Sweet Honey in the Rock, “More than a Paycheck”
capitalismraceanddemocracy.org
On February dockers from 6 European countries carried out strikes against the genocide in Gaza, the militarization of Europe, and the attacks on the working class. One of those attacks is the use o…