Day: September 16, 2023

Nearly one in 10 of America’s unionized auto workers went on strike Friday to pressure Detroit’s three automakers into raising wages in an era of big profits and as the industry begins a costly transition from gas guzzlers to electric vehicles.

By striking simultaneously at General Motors, Ford and Chrysler owner Stellantis for the first time in its history, the United Auto Workers union is trying to inflict a new kind of pain on the companies and claw back some pay and benefits workers gave up in recent decades.

The strikes are limited for now to three assembly plants: a GM factory in Wentzville, Missouri, a Ford plant in Wayne, Michigan, near Detroit, and a Jeep plant run by Stellantis in Toledo, Ohio.

The workers received support from U.S. President Joe Biden, who dispatched aides to Detroit to help resolve the impasse and said the automakers should share their “record profits.”

Union President Shawn Fain said workers could strike at more plants if the companies don’t come up with better offers. The workers are seeking across-the-board wage increases of 36% over four years; the companies have countered by offering increases ranging from 17.5% to 20%.

Workers on the picket lines said that they hoped the strikes didn’t last long but added that they were committed to the cause and appreciated Fain’s tough tactics.

“We didn’t have a problem coming in during COVID, being essential workers and making them big profits,” said Chrism Hoisington, who has worked at the Toledo Jeep plant since 2001. “We’ve sacrificed a lot.”

In its 88-year history, UAW had always negotiated with one automaker at a time, limiting the industrywide impact of any possible work stoppages. Each deal with an automaker was viewed as a template, but not a guarantee, for subsequent contract negotiations.

Now, roughly 13,000 of 146,000 workers at the three companies are on strike, making life complicated for automakers’ operations, while limiting the drain on the union’s $825 million strike fund.

If the contract negotiations drag on — and the strikes expand to affect more plants — the costs will grow for workers and the companies. Auto dealers could run short of vehicles, raising prices and pushing customers to buy from foreign automakers with nonunionized workers. It could also put fresh stress on an economy that’s been benefiting from easing inflation.

The new negotiating tactic is the brainchild of Fain, the first leader in the union’s history to be elected directly by workers. In the past, outgoing leaders picked their replacements by choosing delegates to a convention.

But that system gave birth to a culture of bribery and embezzlement that ended with a federal investigation and prison time for two former UAW presidents.

The combative Fain narrowly won his post last spring with a fiery campaign against that culture, which he called “company-unionism” and said sold out workers by allowing plant closures and failing to extract more money from the automakers.

“We’ve been a one-party state for longer than I’ve been alive,” Fain said while campaigning as an adversary to the companies rather than a business partner.

David Green, a former local union leader elected to a regional director post this year, said it’s time for a new way of bargaining. “The risks of not doing something different outweigh the risks of doing the same thing and expecting a different result,” Green said.

During his more than two-decade career at General Motors, Green saw the company close an assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that employed 3,000 workers. The union agreed to a series of concessions made to help the companies get through the Great Recession. “We’ve done nothing but slide backward for the last 20 years,” Green said, calling Fain’s strategy “refreshing.”

Carlos Guajardo, who has worked at Ford for the past 35 years and was employed by GM for 11 years before that, said he likes the new strategy.

“It keeps the strike fund lasting longer,” said Guajardo, who was on the picket line in Michigan Friday before the sun came up.

The strikes will likely chart the future of the union and of America’s homegrown auto industry at a time when U.S. labor is flexing its might and the companies face a historic transition from building internal combustion automobiles to making electric vehicles.

The walkouts also will be an issue in next year’s presidential election, testing Biden’s claim to being the most union-friendly president in American history.

The limited-strike strategy could have ripple effects, GM CEO Mary Barra said Friday on CNBC.

Many factories are reliant on each other for parts, Barra said. “We’ve worked to have a very efficient manufacturing network, so yes, even one plant is going to start to have impact.”

Citing strike disruptions at its Wayne plant, Ford told about 600 nonstriking workers at the plant not to report to work on Friday, Ford spokeswoman Jennifer Enoch said.

Even Fain has called the union’s demands audacious, but he said the automakers are raking in billions and can afford them. He scoffed at company claims that costly settlements would force them to raise vehicle prices, saying labor accounts for only 4% to 5% of vehicle costs.

In addition to the wage increases, union negotiators are also seeking: restoration of cost-of-living pay raises; an end to varying tiers of wages for factory jobs; a 32-hour week with 40 hours of pay; the restoration of traditional defined-benefit pensions for new hires who now receive only 401(k)-style retirement plans; and pension increases for retirees, among other items.

Starting in 2007, workers gave up cost-of-living raises and defined benefit pensions for new hires. Wage tiers were created as the UAW tried to help the companies avoid financial trouble ahead of and during the Great Recession. Even so, only Ford avoided bankruptcy protection.

Many say it’s time to get the concessions back because the companies are making huge profits and CEOs’ pay packages are soaring.

 

 

Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu has disappeared from public view for more than two weeks and his unexplained absence has triggered speculation about his fate.

Analysts say Li’s disappearance, which follows a series of abrupt purges of top-level officials in recent months, reflects Chinese President Xi Jinping’s desire to strengthen his control over China’s military.

“This incident shows the People’s Liberation Army may be in an unstable state and Xi might hope to create a high level of obedience within the military by abruptly replacing top-level officials like Li,” Ying Yu Lin, an expert on Chinese military affairs at Tamkang University in Taiwan, told VOA in a phone interview.

Li, who became China’s defense minister in March, made his last public appearance Aug. 29, when he delivered a keynote speech at the third annual China-Africa Peace and Security Forum.

The Washington Post reported Friday that Li is under investigation for “corruption” and will likely be removed from his post, citing two unnamed American officials. Reuters reported that the investigation is related to the procurement of military equipment without specifying the types of equipment involved in the case.

Beijing has avoided answering questions related to Li’s whereabouts. During the daily press briefing Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said she had no information about Li’s case when asked. Friday readouts from the Foreign Ministry’s daily press briefings do not mention Li’s case.

Currently, Li is still listed as China’s defense minister and a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Military Commission.

Part of a broader shakeup?

Experts say while it is not unprecedented for high-level officials to be investigated and charged with corruption, Li’s case, which follows the leadership shakeup at the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force and the abrupt removal of former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in July, suggests a large-scale anti-corruption campaign may be under way within the Chinese Communist Party.

“It suggests to me that a major round of anti-corruption campaigns is underway in Beijing,” Brian Hart, a fellow with the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told VOA by email.

Since becoming party general secretary in 2012, Xi has made the anti-corruption campaign a hallmark of his leadership, launching large-scale purges in different sectors and, in some cases, removing political opponents.

With its long history of struggling to contain corruption scandals, the People’s Liberation Army has been a target of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. In Hart’s view, Li’s disappearance and the purging of top commanders of the PLA Rocket Force suggest corruption remains a problem that Xi has not been able to fully eradicate.

“Li rose through the ranks through the PLA’s procurement system, which has always been a major epicenter for corruption,” Hart said in a written response. “It’s worth noting that the current senior Chairman of the Central Military Commission, Zhang Youxia, also led the procurement system before Li, so if he is not put under investigation, it could signal that he is too big or too close to Xi to take down.”

Throughout his career, Li has been known as an expert in weapons development and he has long been in charge of the PLA’s acquisition of rockets and other advanced weapons. And, like Xi, Li is also the son of a veteran of the Mao Zedong era, according to Professor Lin from Tamkang University.

Damaging China’s international credibility

Apart from strengthening his control over China’s military, some observers think Xi’s abrupt purges of top-level officials may also damage China’s international credibility and reduce other countries’ confidence in Beijing.

“While other countries may be dealing with a certain minister from China, that person could be replaced next month or in a few years,” said Professor Lin. “This may increase other countries’ distrust in Beijing during future interactions.”

According to Reuters, several Vietnamese officials said Li was pulled out of a bilateral gathering on defense cooperation between Vietnam and China last week due to unexplained “health reasons.”

The incident is similar to the removal of former Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in July, during which Chinese authorities claimed health issues were behind Qin’s extended absence from public view.

Since the defense minister and foreign minister are both public-facing officials, some experts say the unexplained removal of Qin and the disappearance of Li will damage the credibility of China’s governance model.

“The recent developments are hurting China’s claim of the superiority of its governance system,” Alfred Wu, an expert on Chinese politics at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, told VOA in a phone interview.

“Xi claimed that China’s governance model could become an alternative to the U.S.-dominant world order, but when they keep removing top-level officials abruptly, which country would like to learn this from China?”

Impact on party, military

While recent purges of top officials may affect China’s international image, most experts think the impact on the Chinese military and the Communist Party will be limited. “I don’t think the removal of these top officials will create any chilling effect on others,” Wu said.

“Officials who haven’t been affected by the purge will treat these incidents as a signal that they have more space to operate,” he added. “Under Xi’s one-man rule, officials need to compete to get better positions under the blessing of Xi.”

Even though Li’s disappearance will not directly affect the PLA’s operations and capabilities, Hart said he thinks the incident may reduce confidence in the PLA internally. 

(This Sept. 14 story has been refiled to correct the spelling of ‘of’ in paragraph 16)

Defence Minister Li Shangfu, who has been missing from public view for more than two weeks, has been placed under investigation by Chinese authorities, according to 10 people familiar with the matter.

The investigation into Li relates to procurement of military equipment, according to a regional security official and three people in direct contact with the Chinese military. Reuters was unable to obtain details on which equipment purchases were under scrutiny.

Eight senior officials from the Chinese military’s procurement unit, which Li led from 2017 to 2022, are also under investigation, according to two of the people in direct contact with the military.

The probe into Li, who was appointed as defence minister in March, and the eight officials is being carried out by the military’s powerful disciplinary inspection commission, those two people said.

Reuters’ detailed examination of the allegations against Li and the timing of the probe is based on interviews with sources who interact regularly with senior Chinese political and defence leaders, and regional officials with close knowledge of Chinese politics.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told reporters Friday that she was not aware of the situation. The State Council and the Defence Ministry did not immediately return requests for comment. Li could not immediately be reached.

The Financial Times reported on Friday, citing U.S. officials, that the U.S. government believes Li has been placed under investigation. The Wall Street Journal cited a person close to decision making in Beijing as saying he had been taken away last week for questioning.

The U.S. State Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the media reports that U.S. intelligence officials believed Li was under investigation for corruption.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel on Friday posed the question on X, formerly Twitter, whether Li was under house arrest. The U.S. embassy in Tokyo did not immediately have further comment.

Li was last seen in Beijing on Aug. 29 giving a key-note speech at a security forum with African nations. Earlier that month, he also visited Russia and Belarus.

The probe into the minister started shortly after his return from that trip, according to a person in direct contact with the military and two foreign security officials briefed on the case.

By Sept. 3, his ministry had cancelled a visit by Li to Vietnam for an annual defence meeting between the two countries scheduled for Sept. 7-8, according to a Vietnamese official. Beijing told officials in Hanoi that Li had a “health condition” when it postponed the event, two Vietnamese officials said.

Li’s failure to attend that meeting, and talks with a senior Singaporean military official in China the same week, raised questions among regional diplomats and social media users about his whereabouts.

The probe into Li follows China’s unexplained replacement of Foreign Minister Qin Gang in July after a prolonged absence from public view and a shake-up of the leadership of the People’s Liberation Army’s elite Rocket Force, which is responsible for conventional and nuclear missiles. Chinese officials initially said Qin’s absence was also due to health reasons.

The moves have raised questions from some observers and diplomats about the abrupt changes in China’s leadership at a time when its economy is struggling to recover from strict pandemic closures and its relations with the United States have further soured over a range of issues.

Both Li and Qin were seen by observers of Chinese politics as handpicked by President Xi Jinping, making their absence after less than a year on the job particularly notable. The two men had prominent public-facing roles and also serve among China’s five state councillors, a post outranking a regular minister.

In July, the military’s procurement unit took the highly unusual step of issuing a notice that it was looking to “clean-up” its bidding process. It invited the public to report irregularities dating back to Oct. 2017, when Li was at its helm. He ran the unit until October 2022.

When asked last month by reporters to comment about the whereabouts of two other former senior military leaders who had not been recently seen in public and if they were under investigation, a Defence Ministry spokesman said the military has “zero-tolerance for corruption”, without denying the possibility that they were the subject of a probe.

“We must always blow the horn, investigate every case, punish every instance of corruption and resolutely win the hard and protracted battle against corruption,” the spokesman said.

In 2016, Li was named deputy commander of the military’s then-new Strategic Support Force – an elite body tasked with accelerating the development of space and cyber warfare capabilities. He was then tasked the following year with heading the military’s procurement unit.

Li was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018 over weapons purchases from Russia’s largest arms exporter, Rosoboronexport.

Beijing has repeatedly said it wants those sanctions dropped to facilitate better discussions between the Chinese and U.S. militaries. U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin sought talks with Li during a defence conference in Singapore in June, but did not get beyond pleasantries, according to a Pentagon spokesman.

For Jaime Maussan, a Mexican journalist and longtime UFO enthusiast, they are one of the most important discoveries in the history of humankind.

But for many scientists these two tiny mummified bodies with elongated heads and three fingers on each hand, images of which were beamed around the world this week when they were presented to Mexico’s Congress, are an already-debunked – perhaps criminal – stunt.

At Maussan’s office, in the Mexico City business district of Santa Fe, staff members carefully carry the two closed boxes with glass lids containing the bodies into a green-screened studio, where Reuters had exclusive access on Friday.

Everyone huddles around to get a better look. The bodies appear ancient and share characteristics with humans: two eyes, a mouth, two arms, two legs. Maussan claims they were found around 2017 in Peru, near the pre-Columbian Nazca Lines.

He says he can prove they are unlike anything known on Earth. On social media and in the hearing, he shared scientific analysis and study results he argues proves the bodies are about 1,000 years old and not related to any known Earthly species.

One of them, described by Maussan as a female, was discovered to have eggs inside, he said.

“It is the most important thing that has happened to humanity,” Maussan, 70, said of his crusade to bring awareness to the findings, sitting in his office that is heavily decorated with colorful alien-themed artwork and paraphernalia.

“I believe that this phenomenon is the only one that gives us the opportunity to unite,” he added.

Elsa Tomasto-Cagigao, a respected Peruvian bio-anthropologist, is frustrated such claims are still being given publicity, citing similar alleged finds that were found to be frauds.

“What we said before still stands, they are presenting the same rehash as always and if there are people that keep believing that, what can we do?,” she said by phone. “It is so crass and so simple that there is nothing more to add.”

Previous such finds have been dismissed by the scientific community as mutilated mummies of pre-Hispanic children, sometimes combined with bits of animal parts.

David Spergel, former head of Princeton University’s astrophysics department and chair of a NASA report into unidentified anomalous phenomena, said on Thursday that such samples should be made available for testing by the world’s scientific community.

Maussan shared on social media and in his presentation the results of DNA and carbon dating tests that he said he commissioned on “the beings.”

A Mexican scientist, at the request of Reuters, reviewed the results and concluded they indicated normal life on Earth.

Maussan told Reuters on Friday that the test results were not directly related to the two bodies that he showed Congress this week, however. In fact, he said, they were conducted on an entirely different body, known as Victoria, that remains in Peru.

“They were found in the same place. They have the same physical appearance, they are the same,” Maussan said of Victoria and the two bodies he presented in Mexico. Testing was not done on those two bodies in order to avoid damaging them, he said.

Maussan is no stranger to controversy. He has made claims about other remains in the past that have been widely criticized. He participated in a 2017 TV documentary about other remains found near the Nazca Lines, which experts like Tomasto-Cagigao and paleontologist Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi have said appeared to feature doctored mummies.

Now, he has angered Peruvian officials.

Peruvian Culture Minister Leslie Urteaga has questioned how the specimens, which she said were pre-Hispanic objects, left Peru and says a criminal complaint has been filed.

“I’m not worried. I have done absolutely nothing illegal,” Maussan said.

How the bodies arrived in Mexico is a question he says he cannot answer. Borrowed by Maussan for the hearing, they are in the possession of a Mexican man, who was in Maussan’s office on Friday and who declined to be identified.

When asked how the bodies – whom he called Clara and Mauricio – came to be in his possession, the man replied only that he would reveal all “at the appropriate time.”

Jose de Jesus Zalce Benitez, Director of the Health Sciences Research Institute of the Secretary of the Navy, participated in the congressional hearing, bolstering Maussan’s claims. Now joining him at his office, he calmly explained his interpretation of the science.

“Based on the DNA tests, which were compared with more than one million species … they are not related to what is known or described up to this moment by science or by human knowledge,” he said.

Julieta Fierro, the scientist at Mexico’s National Autonomous University’s (UNAM) Institute of Astronomy who reviewed Maussan’s test results for Reuters, sees far less mystery in the data.

She said that the presence of carbon-14 in studies done by UNAM proves that the samples were related to brain and skin tissues from different mummies who died at different times.

The proportion of the radioactive carbon-14 isotope that is absorbed by living organisms into their tissue decays over time, which allows scientists to determine the approximate year of death of the specimen.

On other planets, the amount of carbon-14 in their atmospheres would not necessarily be the same as on Earth, she said.

All in all, the results “do not show anything mysterious that could indicate life compounds that do not exist on Earth,” Fierro said.

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For a decade, Asal Abasian worked for independent Iranian media outlets including Shargh Daily and Andishe Pouya. But that path brought challenges.

As a journalist who identifies as nonbinary, Abasian was persecuted for their work and their identity.

Abasian, who uses they/them pronouns, was taken multiple times by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC to an unknown location.

There, the guards would subject Abasian to questioning, offensive remarks and “torture talking.”

“I got many threats during all these years,” Abasian told VOA via email. “Online and in person threats … Iran’s society is extremely homophobic and me, as a LGBTQI journalist and feminist even got death threats via social media from Islamic Republic’s cyber army.”

Kiran Nazish, founding director of the Coalition For Women In Journalism, a nonprofit that assists women and nonbinary journalists, said such online campaigns are a serious threat for those in Iran and in exile.

The threat of arrest and online harassment has increased since the mass protests in 2022 over the death of a young Kurdish woman in police custody.

“There are a lot of Iranian journalists, bloggers, analysts, human rights defenders, lawyers, attorneys, feminists who had been speaking more [over the] last year. But we saw very effective online smear campaigns against these journalists,” Nazish told VOA.

The campaigns, she said, have been an effective form of censorship.

Based on their research, her organization has found the state appears to orchestrate such campaigns with teams set up “to troll and create smear campaigns,” she said.

Iran’s Mission to the United Nations did not respond to VOA’s emailed request for comment.

Family also harrassed

For Abasian, the harassment extended to their family. Relatives received threats because of the journalist’s work, which often focused on gender equality and other cultural issues.

In Iran, same-sex relations are a punishable offense. Penalties range from lashings to the death penalty, according to Iran Human Rights, a nonprofit organization based in Norway.

Eventually, the interrogations and harassment became too much. Overnight in October 2021, Abasian fled Iran.

At first, they sought refuge in Turkey. Then, in January 2023 relocated to France.

Since leaving, Abasian has worked as a freelancer for international media organizations. And they have watched closely as Iran arrested dozens of journalists following the protests.

Abasian tattooed the “Woman Life Freedom” slogan in Persian across their collarbone as an act of solidarity.

“I want the international community to know that ‘women, life, freedom’ is still active,” Abasian said. “It’s not just a protest against compulsory hijab, it’s about citizens’ rebellion against Islamic Republic and all their cruelty.”

Compelled to write

Freelance journalist Afra Amid also is closely watching events of the past 12 months. Like Abasian, Amid left Iran in 2021. Now living in Turkey, she goes by a pen name to avoid persecution.

Amid grew up in Iran’s Baha’i community, a religious minority whom rights groups say are singled out for persecution.

In 1991, Tehran introduced a policy stating that the state’s dealings with the minority should ensure that their “progress and development are blocked.”

“Baha’is are severely persecuted in Iran,” she told VOA. “So even without doing anything, there’s a chance that one day, like out of the blue they [the Iranian authorities] will attack your house and arrest you just because of being Baha’i.”

Amid watched as many of her friends were arbitrarily arrested. One was taken into custody for being a kindergarten teacher. In Iran, it is illegal for Baha’is to work with children.

As a Baha’i, Amid wasn’t allowed to attend university in Iran. She attended the underground Baha’i institute for Higher Education. Classes took place in safe houses across Tehran and online.

It was there that Amid discovered her love for journalism. With the encouragement of a professor, she wrote her first story about the pandemic.

She hadn’t considered working as a journalist previously because of the risk.

“It’s like when you’re a woman, you’re a second-rate citizen. When you’re Baha’i you’re a second-degree citizen. When you’re a journalist, you’re not even a citizen,” Amid told VOA. “So imagine you have all of that at the same time. It is such a horrifying life.”

But Amid she felt compelled to write, especially about the human rights violations she witnessed firsthand. Speaking and writing fluent English, she began pitching to foreign newsrooms in Canada, the United States, and Hong Kong.

In Iran, collaborating with foreign media is a punishable offense. Even though she published under her pen name, Amid worried about authorities breaking into her home and finding her laptop.

Amid said she began to feel paranoid walking the streets of Tehran, afraid she was being followed.

“I had a lot of things of talking to foreign journalists on the laptop, and even just one of them gave [authorities] enough excuses to do whatever they want — not just imprisonment, even execution,” Amid told VOA.

Amid cites the charges of “corruption on earth” and “waging war against God” as constant threats.

Last year, Iran Human Rights documented 582 executions in Iran, 15 of which were for “corruption on earth” or “waging war against God.”

Journalism against the law

In its 2022 report, the group referred to the charges as subjective, based on the Revolutionary Courts’ judgments, and used “for a wide range of offences” not easily proved with evidence.

Abasian told VOA that in countries such as Iran, journalism is still a crime.

“If you write your beliefs against the regime, obviously you will be attacked by their security forces,” they said.

Amid said shefeels safer since leaving Iran. In exile, she is able to connect with other journalists and works to bring information out of Iran and to the international community.

Still, she finds it difficult to be in exile. “Sometimes I close my eyes and I imagine myself in my home, and I imagine the streets and everything,” she said. “I’ve been through a lot in my life. But nothing is more painful than not being able to go back.”