US autoworkers shut down General Motors - World Socialist Web Site

 

US autoworkers shut down General Motors

16 September 2019

Forty-six thousand General Motors workers walked out at midnight Sunday evening. The shutdown of 35 manufacturing facilities in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee and New York will cost GM as much as $400 million in lost production each day.

Despite its frantic efforts to avoid a strike, the leaders of the United Auto Workers (UAW)—who have been exposed as criminally corrupt agents of the auto companies—concluded that they were not in a position to prevent a mass walkout.

The announcement of the strike was delivered at a press conference by UAW Vice President Terry Dittes. Demoralized and frightened, Dittes spoke as if he were attending a funeral.

Just the day before, the UAW had instructed its members to cross the picket lines of janitorial workers belonging to the same union. The UAW has refused to call out workers employed at Ford and Fiat-Chrysler, seeking as best they can to avoid mobilizing the full strength of autoworkers.

Workers at a rally against auto plant closures in Detroit earlier this year

The shutdown of General Motors is a major escalation of the class struggle in the United States and internationally. The powerful social movement that began last year with teachers is expanding into the industrial working class. The decades-long suppression of the class struggle—ruthlessly enforced by an alliance of trade unions, corporations and the government—is breaking down.

As workers begin this fight, they must survey the battlefield and develop a strategy based on an understanding of who are their allies and who are their enemies.

Workers are confronting General Motors, the symbol of the power of American capitalism, with a market capitalization of $55 billion. But GM is itself part of a globally-integrated auto industry, involving the labor of millions of workers all over the world.

Every struggle by workers has a political dimension, but in this case the politics are especially clear. The auto industry has, for forty years, been the target of efforts by Democratic and Republican administrations to expand corporate profits at the expense of the working class.

Forty years ago, in 1979, the Democratic administration of Jimmy Carter and a Democratic Party-controlled Congress insisted that the so-called bailout of Chrysler required massive concessions by workers and the closure of factories. This was followed soon after by the Republican Reagan administration’s firing of PATCO air traffic controllers, which launched a wholesale assault on the entire working class.

In 2008, the Obama administration insisted on halving the wages of new hires as part of its restructuring of the auto industry. The mass layoffs, plant closures and pay cuts imposed under Obama led to record profits for the automakers.

In the four decades of social counter-revolution, GM, Ford and Chrysler have slashed 600,000 auto jobs, with only 158,000 jobs left. The pay of a newly hired auto worker has fallen by half.

The expansion of corporate profits through the impoverishment of workers is the basic law of the capitalist system. Profit does not fall like manna from heaven: it is extracted at the point of production from the working class. The value created by workers through the labor process is distributed to the capitalists who exploit them.

The unjust and exploitative character of this system is demonstrated by the salaries of the auto executives and the billions of dollars disbursed to investors in the form of profit.

GM CEO Mary Barra, with her annual salary of $21.87 million, makes in a day twice what a new autoworker earns in a year. GM posted a profit of $11.8 billion last year. It has spent more than $10 billion on stock buybacks since 2015.

The claim that GM does not have the money to meet workers’ demands for a restoration of their pay and benefits should be dismissed with contempt.

Even as workers are fighting the corporations, the government and the capitalist system as a whole, their most determined enemy is the organization that claims to represent them—the bribed and corrupted United Auto Workers.

The UAW’s endless betrayals of workers’ interests has culminated in the cesspool of corruption that has engulfed the entire leadership, bribed to the tune of millions of dollars from management.

Everything workers are now fighting against, from plant closures to starvation wages and the multi-tier wage and benefit system, is the product of the concessions enforced by the UAW. To believe that this will now change is to indulge in the most dangerous illusions.

While the UAW officials were shown to have spent millions of dollars in workers’ money on golf games, cigars, whiskey and prostitutes, the UAW has announced that workers will get a miserable $250 per week in strike pay—and this only after the first full week of a strike.

GM workers face many enemies, but they also have powerful allies.

Autoworkers enjoy overwhelming support and sympathy from the working population in America. The exploitative conditions that autoworkers are fighting against are those felt by millions of workers throughout the country, who have had their pay cut and benefits destroyed, and who are treated worse than the machines they operate.

Workers at GM must call on their brothers and sisters at Ford and Fiat Chrysler to join their strike, in order to shut down the entire US auto industry and bring maximum economic and political pressure to bear on the auto bosses.

Just as importantly, workers must appeal for support from workers and youth throughout the country and around the world—support that they will readily receive.

The GM walkout is the latest stage in a global strike wave. The strike by US autoworkers is unfolding in the context of an international movement of the working class. Just last week, 8,000 GM workers went on strike in Korea, and French transit workers shut down the subways of Paris. Over the past year, auto workers in India and Mexico have waged powerful strikes. In France, Puerto Rico and Hong Kong, workers and youth have been involved in mass demonstrations in defense of their social and democratic rights.

The struggle can only succeed if it is taken out of the control of the UAW traitors. Workers must elect rank-and-file committees to organize and expand the strike.

These committees must demand:

● A 40 percent increase in pay to begin recovering decades of wages lost due to illegitimate concessions by the corrupt UAW and the corporations that bribed them.

● End the tier system! Equality in the workplace! All workers, including part-time and contract workers, must immediately be brought up to top pay and benefits.

● Restore jobs! Reopen Lordstown and other closed plants and rehire all laid-off and victimized workers. Stop all plant closings and layoffs!

● Honor the retirees! Reverse all cuts in retiree health care and pensions.

● Democracy in the factory! For workers’ control over production, line speed and safety.

● $750 per week in strike pay! The UAW, together with the AFL-CIO, controls billions of dollars in assets, which they use to fund junkets and pay six-figure salaries to thousands of executives. These resources, plundered from dues and retirement plans, must now be disbursed!

In this struggle, the Socialist Equality Party, which produces the Autoworker Newsletter and helps publish the World Socialist Web Site, pledges its full support to the workers.

The Socialist Equality Party will do everything it can to build a new militant socialist leadership in the working class. It will provide workers with the information they need to assist in the organization of their struggle, to rally support throughout the country and internationally.

We call on workers to attend our upcoming online forum, which last week drew together more than 300 workers, to discuss the strategic issues that autoworkers face as they conduct this great and critical struggle.

The WSWS Editorial Board

We need your support

The WSWS recently published its 75,000th article. Become a monthly donor today and keep up this vital work. It only takes a minute. Thank you.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/09/16/pers-s16.html

2019-09-16 05:20:27Z
52780383790725

Iran has launched more than 12 cruise missiles in Saudi Arabia - report - The Jerusalem Post

Breaking news. (photo credit: JPOST STAFF)

Iran launched nearly 12 cruise missiles and more than 20 drones from its territory in an attack on Saudi oil facilities - a senior US government official told the US network ABC, Israeli news agency Walla! reported on Monday.

The Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen took responsibility for the attack, which damaged oil company Aramco's facilities and resulted in a significant drop in Saudi global oil supplies, but the senior official claimed it was a lie: "It was Iran. The Houthis took credit for something they did not do."

`; document.getElementById("linkPremium").innerHTML = cont; (function (v, i){ });

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Iran-has-launched-more-than-12-cruise-missiles-in-Saudi-Arabia-report-601825

2019-09-16 05:09:00Z
52780385084578

WeWork IPO spells rough landing for CEO Neumann - Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Adam Neumann showed he can capitalize on troubled times a decade ago, tapping into demand for workspace by those forced out of jobs in the aftermath of the financial crisis to grow WeWork into a global brand commanding a $47 billion valuation.

FILE PHOTO: Adam Neumann, CEO of WeWork, speaks to guests during the TechCrunch Disrupt event in Manhattan, in New York City, NY, U.S. May 15, 2017. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz -/File Photo

Yet his plans to take WeWork’s corporate parent the We Company public have backfired, as his company becomes the poster child for a bubble in venture capital fundraising that has pushed some start-ups to unsustainable valuations.

The We Company is contemplating slashing its valuation to as low as $10 billion from the $47 billion billing clinched in a private fundraising round in January backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The sharp drop comes amid investor criticism of widening losses and Neumann’s firm grip on the company.

Neumann, 40, is under pressure to proceed with the initial public offering (IPO) to raise cash to keep WeWork’s operations going. The New York-based company rents workspace to clients under short-term contracts, even though it pays rent for them itself under long-term leases.

It is by far the biggest crisis Neumann has faced in his career, after arriving in New York at the age of 22 following service in the Israeli military.

He failed in several ventures before selling his first co-working firm, Green Door, for $300,000 with business partner Miguel McKelvey a decade ago. Neumann and McKelvey used the proceeds from that sale to start WeWork, with its first customers coming to the lower Manhattan site just off Chinatown in February 2010, after seeing ads in Craigslist.

Community was a driving force behind the new venture, launched at a time when millions who had lost jobs during the 2008 financial crisis were looking for flexible work space.

“It quickly became apparent that people were ready for a new approach to work, not just their workspace,” Neumann said in a blog post in 2016, marking the launch in Berlin of WeWork’s 100th site.

Neumann’s parents divorced when he was a boy and he moved 13 times as a child and adolescent, living awhile in Indianapolis where his mother, an oncologist, finished her medical residency. He has called his childhood challenging because of the moves.

They returned to Israel where he lived in kibbutz Nir Am, near the Gaza Strip, and later served in the Israeli military, which he says taught him to be something greater than himself.

Neumann’s experience on a kibbutz and McKelvey’s growing up in a five-mother commune in Oregon have been cited as a reason the pair hit it off. McKelvey is an architect with the title of chief culture officer at WeWork.

Neumann, now a billionaire as the majority owner of We Company, also has said he thought money was the goal in life until he met his wife Rebekah, a cousin of actress Gwyneth Paltrow.

Formerly called chief brand director, Rebekah Neumann is referred to as a co-founder of WeWork. She is also a filmmaker and introduced Neumann to Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism that has attracted celebrity followers. They have five children.

ELEVATING WORLD’S CONSCIOUSNESS

The early success of the shared workspace validated the global community Neumann envisioned where people can achieve more together than alone, or in the words of the company’s famous mantra: “to make a life, not just a living.”

Neumann arrived in New York in 2001 where he lived with his sister Adi, an Israeli model, and started a handful of businesses that failed, including women’s shoes and a line of baby clothes with knee pads called Krawlers.

“When I came to New York I was angry about my history,” Neumann told a luncheon at the New York Stock Exchange in June 2017, adding he learned that you don’t deserve anything. “I became happy. My past helped make who I am today,” he said.

Neumann, described as key to setting WeWork’s strategic direction and execution priorities in the IPO filing, can come off as a bit zany. In the 2016 blog post he said the future of cities would require a healthy mix of 70% magic and 30% logic.

The We Company also said in the filing that its mission is to elevate the world’s consciousness and that as a community company it is committed to maximum global impact, a vision Neumann endorses.

Reporting by Herbert Lash in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wework-ipo-neumann-newsmaker/wework-ipo-spells-rough-landing-for-ceo-neumann-idUSKBN1W009Z

2019-09-15 10:15:00Z
CBMifWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnJldXRlcnMuY29tL2FydGljbGUvdXMtd2V3b3JrLWlwby1uZXVtYW5uLW5ld3NtYWtlci93ZXdvcmstaXBvLXNwZWxscy1yb3VnaC1sYW5kaW5nLWZvci1jZW8tbmV1bWFubi1pZFVTS0JOMVcwMDla0gE0aHR0cHM6Ly9tb2JpbGUucmV1dGVycy5jb20vYXJ0aWNsZS9hbXAvaWRVU0tCTjFXMDA5Wg

Vapers seek relief from nicotine addiction in — wait for it — cigarettes - NBC News

Lucas McClain started smoking cigarettes in high school but switched to vaping after he heard e-cigarettes were a safer alternative.

His vape of choice became the Juul, the king of electronic cigarettes — which comes with a king-size nicotine hit.

Now 21, McClain wants to quit so badly that he’s turning back to the problem he fled in the first place: good old-fashioned cigarettes.

“Juul made my nicotine addiction a lot worse,” the Arlington, Va., resident said. “When I didn’t have it for more than two hours, I’d get very anxious.”

Even though McClain knows the dangers of cigarettes — lung cancer runs in his family — he thinks it might be easier to kick cigarettes than his Juul. Plus, his mom keeps warning him about the mysterious vaping-related illnesses that have sickened hundreds across the country.

So last month, McClain bought his first pack of cigarettes in years. Then he tweeted about it.

“Bought a juul to quit smoking cigarettes,” he wrote, “now I’m smoking cigarettes to quit the juul.” He ended with this hashtag: #circleoflife.

Bought a juul to quit smoking cigarettes... now I’m smoking cigaretttes to quit the juul #circleoflife

— El Mac (@elmacadelic) August 21, 2019

One Juul pod, which provides about 200 puffs, contains as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. On stressful days, McClain could finish a pod in three hours — and as he and others figure out just how potent these and other e-cigarettes are, many want out.

Some are turning back to combustible cigarettes — or taking them up for the first time — in a dangerous bid to lower their nicotine intake and ultimately get off their vapes.

“Isn’t it ironic that to quit juul I bought cigarettes,” says one Twitter user. Another points out that it’s “strange” that she used the device to quit smoking cigarettes but is now “far more addicted to my Juul than I ever was to cigs.”

“It sucks,” she said.

Lucas McClain holds a pack of cigarettes and his Juul at his home in Arlington, Va. McClain is back to smoking cigarettes in the hope of quitting the Juul.Lynne Shallcross/KHN

It isn’t a complete surprise that some young people are “going back to the product they were trying to quit in the first place,” said Pamela Ling, a professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco who studies tobacco and its marketing.

But it is worrisome because cigarettes contain toxins and chemicals that are dangerous to their health, she said.

Vaping may not be safe either.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating at least 380 cases of lung disease in 36 states — mostly among young people — possibly linked to vaping nicotine and marijuana. Six people have died. California is investigating at least 60 cases.

The back-to-smoke trend flies in the face of the e-cig industry’s most insistent PR pitch: Vaping helps people quit smoking cigarettes. In fact, San Francisco-based Juul Labs, which commands 75 percent of the e-cig market, says in its mission statement that the company aims to eliminate cigarettes by giving adult smokers “the tools to reduce or eliminate their consumption entirely.”

In an emailed statement, Juul didn’t directly address the decision by some of its users to revert to cigarettes, but again clung to the refrain that its products are “designed to help adult smokers switch from combustible cigarettes to an alternative nicotine delivery system.”

Ted Kwong, a Juul spokesman, said Juul is not designed to get people off nicotine or to treat nicotine dependence.

For those who criticize Juul’s high nicotine content, Kwong noted that pods come in two strengths — 5 percent and 3 percent nicotine concentrations — letting users customize their “switching journey.”

Monday, the Food and Drug Administration reprimanded Juul for promoting its products as being safer than cigarettes without FDA permission. It gave Juul 15 business days to respond.

Vaping has become big business, with the global market projected to hit $48 billion by 2023.

Smoke or vapor, cigarette makers win either way. Altria, which sells Marlboro and other tobacco brands in the U.S., invested nearly $13 billion in Juul for a 35 percent stake last year. Altria has proposed reuniting with Philip Morris International, a unit it sold off in 2008.

One Juul pod provides about 200 puffs and can contain as much nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. As young adults realize how potent the Juul and other e-cigarettes can be, some are turning back to combustible cigarettes.Ana B. Ibarra/KHN

Even though the industry says vaping is intended for adults, Juul and other vaping pens took off among young people about two years ago when teens began taking the devices to school and teachers mistook them for flash drives. Students took hits in campus bathrooms and halls, and even in class when teachers weren’t looking.

The e-liquids inhaled from the devices contain nicotine and come in thousands of fruity flavors that appeal to kids.

Michigan last week became the first state to ban sales of flavored e-cigarettes in an attempt to end teen vaping. In June, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors banned the sale of all e-cigarettes, beginning in early 2020. Juul is fighting back with a November ballot measure, Proposition C, backed by millions of its own dollars.

Many former smokers attest that vaping was the only thing that helped them quit cigarettes, but the science is mixed. Some studies have shown that many vapers continue to smoke cigarettes.

The FDA has approved seven treatments for smoking cessation, including patches, gums and lozenges. Vapes are not among them, said Dr. Elisa Tong, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California-Davis.

Tong said vapers may be using more nicotine than they realize. She understands why some choose to go back to cigarettes, but she doesn’t recommend it.

“What they’re doing is trying to taper down super high levels of nicotine,” she said. “Unfortunately, manufacturers don’t have a manual on how to quit their devices.”

Dr. Amanda Graham, senior vice president of innovations at the Truth Initiative, an anti-tobacco advocacy group, said she is seeing “desperation and misguided approaches” from teens and young adults trying to free themselves from nicotine.

“Young people are fumbling in the dark with what seems logical,” Graham said. “But there is no safe level of cigarette smoking.”

Early this year, Graham’s group launched a digital program to help teens and young adults quit their vaping devices. Since then, 41,000 people between 13 and 24 have enrolled in “This is Quitting,” which sends them tips and support via text messages.

Chris Gatus of Whittier, Calif., switched from traditional cigarettes to Juul because he thought the device would help him quit smoking, he said.

But because his Juul is always glued to his palm, he found himself using it everywhere and all the time.

“I’ve sort of forgotten what it’s like not to be on nicotine,” said Gatus, 21.

He switched back to cigarettes this year after noticing his growing addiction, but that only resulted in his using both. Now he’s trying different vaping pens, looking for something less harsh than the Juul or cigarettes, he said.

Last week, Ryan Hasson of New York City threw out his Juul after experiencing strong chest pains and labored breathing when exercising — and after hearing about the growing number of vape-related illnesses. He had never felt such strong symptoms when he smoked old-fashioned cigarettes, he said.

“I don’t plan on ever smoking again, but if I had to choose, I would much rather buy cigarettes over a Juul,” said Hasson, 25.

The same is true of his friends, he said.

“I think a lot of people are quitting completely or going back to cigarettes,” he said. “They’re waking up to the reality that maybe this isn’t as safe as we once thought.”

This KHN story first published on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.

Follow NBC HEALTH on Twitter & Facebook.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/vaping/vapers-seek-relief-nicotine-addiction-wait-it-cigarettes-n1054131

2019-09-15 09:00:00Z
52780383182811

'I was non-stop Juuling up a storm': 10 college students on their vaping addictions - CNN

But what do actual vapers think?

CNN went to New York City's Washington Square Park to speak with young people who had or currently have a vaping habit in order to understand their experiences, thoughts and reactions to the recent health warnings.

The conversations -- all with college students between 18 and 21 -- give a look into how the nicotine-addicted are dealing with two intertwined public health crises: an epidemic of youth vaping and the outbreak of serious lung illnesses.

Here are their stories.

'I was non-stop Juuling up a storm'

Sydney Kinsey, a 21-year-old NYU student, started smoking cigarettes while abroad in London, and her habit intensified on a semester abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. So to quench her nicotine addiction, she got a Juul in June. A Juul is an e-cigarette device, slightly smaller than a pen, that uses pods filled with nicotine in liquid form.

She initially liked that it was convenient and kept her from smelling like cigarette smoke. But she started feeling worse about her use recently.

"I could tell that it was making me feel worse body-wise, head-wise. I was getting a lot more anxious, but then also my joints and my lungs hurt more," she said. "I was using it way more than I ever used (cigarettes). Like instead of going out and smoking like a cigarette a day, I was like non-stop Juuling up a storm, which is not fun."

Juuling was expensive, she said, and she started seeing news about deaths from vape-related illness and reading about Juul's questionable marketing practices.

So she quit about a week ago, tossing her Juul in a city trash can so she wouldn't change her mind. She said she misses it.

"It's like my phone. It's the same addictive quality as my phone, as like I just expect to have it in my pocket, and I miss having it in a pocket to do something with," she said.

'You can feel that it's hurting your lungs'

Investigators aren't exactly sure what's causing these vaping-related lung illnesses. But the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said all the cases reported using e-cigarettes and some have reported a history of vaping THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana.

That's not much of a surprise to Laura Kesnig, 21.

She began vaping black market THC cartridges while attending The New School in New York, and she knew those weren't good for her.

"You're buying them illegally, so who knows what's being put in them," she said. "It's funny because when you hit it, you can feel that it's hurting your lungs. It doesn't feel like hitting a joint or hitting anything. It hurts you.

"But we just told ourselves for so long that it's fine, it'll be fine, it's weed, it can't hurt you. And then this stuff comes out and it's like, we knew this all along."

Kesnig said she started smoking marijuana at about 15 but moved to vaping THC because of its ease.

"Those were just so easy," she said. "You don't have to do anything. You just buy it and then you just hit it, and it's so easy."

The ease of vaping, compared to lighting up a joint, made it more addicting for her, and she could feel her concentration going down from using it so often. She finished her last THC cartridge last week and has gone back to smoking "good, old, regular weed," she said.

"(I feel) actually better, honestly better," she said.

'I know it's bad'

Brooklyn Johnson's whole family smokes cigarettes, but tobacco has never had much appeal for her.

Instead, the 20-year-old NYU student bought a Juul this summer on a whim and now vapes about a pod a week.

"I just had the idea in the back of my head for like two years, and then this summer I was like, whatever man, I'm just gonna do it," she said. "It wasn't really like a big deal, I guess. I was just like, I know it's bad, I probably shouldn't, and then I just gave in."

She was nonchalant about vaping, saying it was just something to do.

"(It's) something to have in my hand and to be doing. There's a head rush but it's more of like an activity than like a way it makes me feel," she said. "If I'm watching TV, I'll be Juuling."

After reading news about the vaping-related lung illnesses, she said she has thought to herself that she should probably quit.

"I still haven't. I don't know," she said. "This sounds morbid, but I think there are more likely ways for me to die than by Juuling."

'I got pretty into it'

Juul Labs says its product "has always only been intended to be a viable alternative for the one billion current adult smokers in the world."

Still, Ethan Uno first tried a friend's Juul at a party when he was 17, and he got hooked after just one night.

"By the end of the night, I loved it, how it felt, the nicotine high," he said. "I got one the next day and I got pretty into it."

Uno, a 20-year-old from San Diego, California, knew it wasn't good for him. But it was so accessible.

"You could literally do it at any point in the day, like while you're doing homework. So it was so easy in that sense," he said.

He vaped consistently for about six months, but then only sporadically after that. He hasn't touched nicotine in over a year, he said, a decision he made partly out of concern that it would hurt his health.

"I kind of figured that would come up, just the fact that it's un-experimented. And that's kind of what subconsciously pushed me away from it," he said.

The medical cases of vaping-related lung illness have been personal for him. He said a friend's little brother was hospitalized with a lung issue that was most likely caused by vaping.

'Like eating a cookie'

With a purple NYU lanyard around her neck -- the telltale sign of a college freshman in her first weeks of class -- Olive was walking around the university with a Juul in her grip.

"I just like it," the 18-year-old said of vaping. "It's the same kind of like where you like eating a cookie. I just enjoy it."

She said she picked up the habit from friends back in Washington state and has been vaping for a couple months now. But she's been reading the news about its health risks, so she said she is planning to quit "soon." It's a loose plan, she admitted.

"It just freaks me out that we don't know the long-term effects of vaping like we do with cigarettes, but I don't know. It's just kind of scary," she said.

Olive declined to give her last name, saying that her mom, an emergency care doctor, would not be happy with her. That was another reason she wanted to quit.

"So I also feel really guilty. I feel bad," she said. "If my mom knew, she'd be pissed."

'It seems like fear-mongering'

Stephen Cambor, 20, first started vaping when he was about 14, in eighth or ninth grade, and he remembered his first time well because it "put me on my ass," he said.

"I was like, 'Oh I can get super f***** up for like 10 seconds and then go back to class," he said. "Like a really strong head buzz to the point where, like, all your blood feels like it's buzzing."

Now a 20-year-old NYU student, he uses a little less than one Stig, a disposable e-cigarette, per day.

He said he's "thinking about" stopping because he's noticed that vaping makes it really hard to get over illnesses, like a cold. But he's not convinced that regular e-cigarette use is causing this outbreak of serious lung illnesses.

"That's why I'm 'thinking about' quitting instead of saying I'm quitting, because a lot of it seems like fear-mongering," he said. "Simply because none of the news articles are really getting any specifics on how these kids died, and what was different about their cases from the millions of other people who knew what they were doing."

'I'm not gonna be buying cigarettes for like $18'

Andrea DeLeon, 20, picked up her vaping habit on the streets of New York City.

"I literally found a Juul on the street," she said. "I picked it up and took it home, cleaned the tip, and I was like, alright this is gonna be cheaper because I got this for free and I'm not gonna be buying cigarettes for like $18."

She had been a casual cigarette smoker before coming to New York. Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, DeLeon grew up in a place where cigarettes were everywhere, and she started smoking them in social situations when she was 18.

"Like any bar you go to, people are going to be smoking outside," she said. "It's just part of the culture."

The habit became more frequent when she came to college in New York, in a high-stress environment and surrounded by people who smoke. After finding the Juul on the ground, she vaped for about a year, smoking about a pod every few days, she said.

But she says she started reading concerning stories about Juul's health effects, and she became addicted to the nicotine. She knew she needed to quit, so she gave the Juul to her friend.

Instead, she began rolling her own tobacco cigarettes to quench her nicotine dependence, and she recently quit that, too. She's now on her third week without any nicotine.

"It feels good to get to that point where I can say no to someone, and not just be like, 'All right, I'm just gonna smoke.' It's good," DeLeon said. "I don't need a cigarette to talk to my friend. I can just tell my friend let's go outside so I can hear you better."

'It's sort of short-sighted'

Zane Kerr, 21, started smoking cigarettes in high school in Raleigh, North Carolina, but he got into vaping his sophomore year at NYU. It was convenient.

"When I was using the e-vape it was so much easier that I could bring it around with me," he said. "I would do it all the time. I would do it in bathrooms here, in between class, whatever, like all the time."

In general, he'll switch back and forth between vaping and smoking. But he hasn't used his vape since about June; he's been more interested in rolling his own cigarettes with loose tobacco.

"I still have a nicotine addiction, so I'm gonna get it one way or another. It's mostly what's economical for me," he said.

Kerr said he knows smoking has long-term effects -- his grandfather died young after years of smoking cigarettes.

"To just be honest with you, I don't know how much I really care about my health right now. It's sort of short-sighted, but it is what it is. I'm just young. I get to not care, which is nice."

'Gummy bear or something'

Kayla Nelson now vapes the mint-flavored Juul, but she got started on a decidedly different taste.

"Like gummy bear or something," she said. "(It was) pretty good."

The 20-year-old from Tampa, Florida, smoked cigarettes in high school, but she knew that wasn't sustainable and she didn't like the smell or taste. So in college at NYU she got a Suorin vape, and she later got a Juul. She now vapes about one or two pods a week.

She said she "probably" wouldn't have started vaping if it wasn't for that gummy bear flavor, and said the Trump administration's move to ban flavored e-cigarettes makes sense.

"I wish they didn't, but I understand why they did, because underage kids shouldn't be smoking so early," she said.

'It sounds awful, telling myself all this'

"Sam," an NYU student who declined to give his real name, began smoking cigarettes when he was in the military in Singapore, and he started vaping to cut back on his cigarette use.

"(It's) pretty identical to me as cigarettes, except it doesn't come with the smell or the stigma," he said. "Now obviously that has changed to the point where there is now a stigma against it, too."

He said he is off cigarettes now. He knows vaping isn't ideal but he can't quite quit it; he tried to do so cold turkey last year, but the nicotine withdrawal gave him headaches and made him irritable.

"You definitely feel it in your throat. You feel the physiological craving of it, in my opinion," he said.

He now uses a "lush ice"-flavored Stig, a disposable e-cigarette. As he skillfully played with the Stig in his fingers, Sam listed off a series of reasons he continues to vape.

College is stressful. This is the lesser of two evils. He's at a transient time in his life. It's more affordable.

Then he stopped talking as he listened to his own words.

"It sounds awful, telling myself all this, right, like, actually vocalizing it," he said.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/15/health/vaping-ecigarette-students-portraits/index.html

2019-09-15 08:23:00Z
52780383182811

850 UAW Aramark workers in Michigan, Ohio strike - WDIV ClickOnDetroit

DETROIT - More than 850 Aramark workers in Michigan and Ohio walked off the job Saturday at midnight over better wages, health care and retirement.

Related: Contract countdown -- Will UAW strike when GM deal expires?

“We have UAW members who work long, hard hours and are still on public assistance,” said Gerald Kariem, Director of UAW Region 1D. “It’s shameful.”

According to the UAW, Aramark maintenance workers in Hamtramck, Warren, Flint, Grand Blanc and Parma, Ohio have been working on an extended contract since March of 2018.

“Every day, UAW members go to work and keep these plants profitable,” said UAW Region 1 Director Frank Stuglin. “It’s astounding that Aramark has not agreed to bargain in good faith over their contributions.”

Key issues involve wages, caps on health insurance, vacation time, job security and retirement plans.

“Every day these UAW members play a crucial role in keeping these plants operating," said UAW Region 2B Director Rich Rankin. "Aramark needs to provide these workers with fair wages and benefits.”

---

Copyright 2019 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.clickondetroit.com/automotive/850-uaw-aramark-workers-in-michigan-ohio-strike

2019-09-15 04:18:36Z
52780383790725

Apple and Disney split, while AT&T gets it from all sides - Yahoo Finance

Disney CEO Bob Iger stepping down from the Apple board is a big deal not just because it shows the degree to which Apple is getting into Disney’s business of original content, (making Iger too conflicted to be on an incipient rival’s board), but also because it signals how the content and distribution facets of the media business are converging.

The media biz has always been about frenemies and evolving alliances which makes for tricky navigation even in quiescent times. But the current environment has been particularly marked by turmoil and the appearance of rocky reefs and shifting shoals. Never mind Disney (DIS), just ask the folks at AT&T (T). Even Jack Sparrow would find these waters challenging.

In the case of Disney, the trouble here comes from Apple (AAPL) of course, while with AT&T, a Wall Street firebrand and an old-fashioned carriage skirmish are to blame.

Let’s start with Disney though, and their slow-burn, fall-out with bestie, Apple.

I was noodling on that relationship as my Apple Watch kept defaulting to a Toy Story motif. Annoying but sensical since Toy Story is a Pixar property (a unit of Disney), and Disney and Apple have been practically related since Steve Jobs sold Pixar to Disney for $7.4 billion in 2006. The all-stock deal made Jobs Disney’s largest shareholder and the black-turtlenecked-one took a seat on Disney’s board.

And thus began a cozy relationship between the two companies that extended up to and beyond Steve Jobs’ death in October of 2011 and Iger joining Apple’s board one month later. How cozy? Disney was the first studio to sell TV shows and movies on the iTunes store for instance. Disney revamped its stores to make them look more like Apple’s. And Jobs, Iger and Tim Cook have lavished praise on each other.

Now not so much.

With the announcement of Apple TV+ this week, a streaming subscription service with Apple-produced original movies and TV shows, Apple has planted its flag squarely in Disney’s turf. Producing original programming is not the business of a hardware company, or a software company, or a platform. It’s the business of a media company, a la Disney. But actually it’s even more pointed than that. Debuting on Nov. 1 at $4.99 a month, (and, in an aggressive leveraging of its ecosystem, free for a year if you buy an Apple device) Apple TV+ comes out before and undercuts Disney’s streaming service offering which arrives on Nov. 12 at $6.99.

Disney stock took a hit on the news. Netflix (NFLX) a bit too.

Awkward!

CUPERTINO, CA - OCTOBER 27: Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks on stage during a product launch event on October 27, 2016 in Cupertino, California. Apple Inc. unveiled the latest iterations of its MacBook Pro line of laptops and TV app. (Photo by Stephen Lam/Getty Images)

Apple could buy Disney in a heartbeat

Iger acknowledged this discomfort, but had characterized streaming conflicts mostly as a potential problem since it “has not been discussed all that much” by the Apple directors. But that changed. In this flywheel era, and as service becomes more and more important to Apple, one part of the business is increasingly connected to another, it became untenable for Iger to simply recuse himself from specific discussions.

(This is reminiscent of what occurred in 2009 when then Google (GOOG, GOOGL) chairman Eric Schmidt, resigned from the Apple board as the iPhone and Google’s Android became massive competitors. Jobs was explicit about Schmidt: “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android...Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”)

Let’s not forget—and not to suggest anything here—but with a trillion dollar market cap, Apple could buy Disney, (worth only $247 billion) in a heartbeat. “We think a big acquisition is on the horizon,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives says about Apple. A Disney deal would be a big lift. More likely is the winding down of what had been an unusually close, business buddy act.

Not that Apple and Disney will completely disconnect. In the media world, it’s bad business not to do business with everyone.

Speaking of connected, let’s turn to AT&T’s conundrum.

To borrow from that 1990s (Verizon predecessor) NYNEX commercial, and per usual on Planet TMT (telco, media, tech if you must know), ‘we’re all connected.” But if we’re referring to vintage slogans, maybe ‘reach out and touch someone’—that kinda creepy AT&T jingle from the 1980s—would be more apt.

After all, it’s T not VZ that’s being poked sharply in the ribs, in this case via a 23-page missive from the Argentine Agitator itself, Elliott Management, a most-feared activist hedge fund run by billionaire Paul Singer, who’s enamored of conservative politics, LGBT rights and business battles to the death, particularly in the case of the aforementioned South American country which was forced into submission after a decade long fight.

Even before this, it hasn’t been a happy time for AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, who after acquiring DirecTV and Time Warner for a combined $176 billion and leveraging his balance sheet to the point where it now has the dubious distinction of being the nation’s most levered company outside of the banking sector, has, not-so-shockingly, watched his stock lag not only arch rival (and Yahoo parent company) Verizon (VZ), but also the market writ large by more than a hundred percentage points over the past decade. (Stephenson became CEO in 2007.) Which is why of course Elliott came knocking.

Graphic by David Foster

Taking the ‘fr’ out of frenemy

To make matters even more high-profile, the Tweeter-in-chief immediately blasted out his support of Elliott’s campaign (remember POTUS hates AT&T property CNN and tried to block the TWX/T merger), though the president showed restraint by not suggesting that Stephenson should be replaced, by say, John Bolton.

But what might sting Stephenson more than Trump’s tweet, is this little nugget on page five of Elliot’s letter. To wit: “Jeff Bewkes, the CEO who sold Time Warner to AT&T, recently referred to the vertical integration of content and distribution as a “fairly suspect premise.” In other words, Bewkes offloaded his company to Stephenson based on a premise, he is now calling ‘fairly suspect.’

Ouch. That’s taking the ‘fr’ out of frenemy.

The end game in this little drama? Elliott says that if AT&T moves off the dime it “can achieve $60+ per share of value by the end of 2021.” How? It’s pretty clear to me that Elliott wants T to shed itself of DirecTV and Warner, which has jump-started another round of the endless media parlor guessing game. Who buys Warner (which owns the movie studio, HBO and the Turner networks including CNN, TNT, TBS the Cartoon Network.) Netflix? Apple? Softbank (SFTBY)? And then which direction does Direct go? T-Mobile (TMUS)/Sprint (S)?

All this means no rest for the weary, or should I say the investment bankers, who must be licking their chops, particularly the boys and girls over at Morgan Stanley (MS), who made honk-you money first by building TimeWarner into the biggest media company on the planet, then taking it all apart, then selling it to AT&T, and now perhaps (please, please!) selling it off again.

Watch this space as Elliott ramps up the pressure. And bet that this one won’t take 10 years.

"Star Wars" film franchise creator George Lucas, left, shakes hands with Walt Disney Co. Chairman and CEO Bob Iger during a dedication ceremony for the new Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge attraction at Disneyland Park, Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in Anaheim, Calif. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Disney is playing offense

And to fully circle the square, and somewhat lost with all the other sturm and drang, Disney is playing offense, (not defense as in the Apple situation) and warned AT&T and DirecTV subscribers—on Monday Night Football of all places—that they may lose access to Disney’s networks including ESPN, ABC and the Disney Channel in a good old fashioned carriage dispute. Not much to know here other than it’s all about the money. But Disney going public like that apparently hurt AT&T’s feelings: "We’re disappointed to see The Walt Disney Co. put their viewers into the middle of negotiations.”

So to sum up: Apple’s rattling Disney’s cage, while Disney is banging on AT&T, which is taking it on the chin from Singer, who’s being cheered on by Trump. Imagine being AT&T and having Singer, Trump and Iger come after you all in the same week.

The damage was minimal though. Netflix stock was up (on a bullish note from Piper Jaffray), so too was AT&T, which makes sense with Elliot pushing and pushing. As for Disney which traded down, betting against Iger has never been a winning strategy.

Longer term, Disney and Apple will go their separate ways. Both of their streaming services may click, (I would bet on Disney), but the market won’t likely support all the offerings from Netflix, Apple, Disney, Hulu, Comcast (CMCSA), Warner, etc. At some point peak content really is a thing. Look for consolidation or shutdowns. As for AT&T, at some point it will likely be broken up.

Bottom line, despite the treacherous market, these are pretty good businesses—AT&T’s debt notwithstanding. I wouldn’t worry about sinking ships.

Andy Serwer is editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter: @serwer.

Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit

This article was featured in a special Saturday edition of the Morning Brief on September 14, 2019. Get the Morning Brief sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Friday by 6:30 a.m. ET. Subscribe

Read more:

Why Netflix is poised to survive the new ‘TV bubble’

Facebook's Zuckerberg and Sandberg are this involved with the company's content issues

Negative interest rates are coming and they are downright terrifying

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance

Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, SmartNews, LinkedIn, YouTube, and reddit.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-splits-disney-att-all-sides-120210788.html

2019-09-14 12:02:00Z
52780382062819