Amazon Facing Down Whole Foods Unionization Efforts
Whole Foods workers are trying to unionize. Previous attempts at unionization have been made by workers at the grocery chain, but these efforts were made before Amazon acquired the company earlier in 2018. The email introducing the unionizing efforts at the store came from a group of workers backed by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), a New York-based division of the United Food and Commercial Workers union that also represents workers at other grocery store chains.
The sale of Whole Food Market (WFM) to Amazon also came with a promise from the e-commerce giant to trim labor costs, placing an unknown number of jobs at stake. Workers at WFM see a union as their best option to protect their positions and negotiate for worker benefits.
Many in leadership are well aware of the fact that when John Mackey sold WFM to Jeff Bezos last year, that deal came with an agreement to trim hundreds of millions of dollars of labor from our stores. There will continue to be layoffs in 2019 and beyond as Amazon aims to aggressively trim our labor force before it expands with new technology and labor models…”
The demands outlined in the email to Whole Foods employees sound an awful lot like the platform of a progressive politician. These items include a $15 minimum wage, 401k matching, paid maternity leave, and lower health insurance deductibles. The email also mentions a previously available profit-sharing program for all employees, full or part-time, that reach 6,000 hours. Under Amazon leadership, that program is no longer available for all, and this unionizing effort is calling for its reinstatement.
Amazon and Workers
Amazon is not an unknown quantity. The tech company is notorious for their treatment of fulfillment center workers, with horror stories revolving around timed or non-existent bathroom breaks, unrealistic target numbers, and constant surveillance popping up on the internet regularly. Conditions are obviously different at Amazon headquarters and similar locations, but it’s likely that Amazon considers those who work at Whole Foods closer to a fulfillment center employee.
The company is also pushing for automation in its fulfillment centers and warehouses. Look no further than the Amazon Go store, a cashier-less grocery store that automatically bills your Amazon account for your purchases. Launched in January 2018, the concept allows the Seattle-based retail giant to drastically reduce the number of staff (and therefore costs) involved in running a physical store. There are a total of four stores open in the U.S. (three in Seattle and one in Chicago). Amazon is considering expanding that concept rapidly, with 50 more shops planned for other major metropolitan areas by 2019.
Automation
Amazon currently has over 100,000 robot “employees.” The company has not hidden their devotion to efficiency, and automation has made many aspects of the business smoother and more profitable, like ordering inventory and checking out customers.
That will likely make unionization attempts more difficult for Whole Foods. Amazon is in the process of eliminating traditional grocery store jobs. Where is the bargaining chip for employees of the grocery chain? Then again, they’re asking for a sustainable standard of living from their employer. If one of the world’s largest companies is unable to provide that for their employees, what hope do the rest of us have?
Glyphosate is the most commonly used herbicide in the world and, according to a recent study, it has been found in the urine of 93% of Americans tested. Genetically modified foods like corn, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets contain the highest concentrations of glyphosate, but there’s another source of glyphosate exposure that we should be concerned about. Articles about glyphosate and grains frequently refer to the herbicide as a desiccant. Desiccants are sprayed on crops right before harvest to kill them and dry them out, making the crop uniformly ready for harvest when the farmer needs them to sell the crop – no need to wait for mother nature. These non-GMO grains will likely have high levels of glyphosate sprayed on them. But organic grains have also tested positive for glyphosate.
Although most EPA -registered pesticides are prohibited in organic production, there can be inadvertent or indirect contact from neighboring conventional farms or shared handling facilities. As long as the operator hasn’t directly applied prohibited pesticides and has documented efforts to minimize exposure to them, the USDA organic regulations allow for residues of prohibited pesticides at or below 5 percent of the EPA tolerance.” – USDA
Non-organic and non-GMO wheat, barley, buckwheat, millet, and oats are frequently sprayed with glyphosate as a desiccant shortly before processing.
Wheat
A few years ago Tropical Traditions did some research on glyphosate levels in wheat. Commercially available conventional wheat products from Canada, Montana, and South Dakota all tested positive for glyphosate. These are not genetically modified crops. “The range was from 0.07 mg/kg to 0.09 mg/kg.” For a GMO crop, “the range is typically between 3.3 and 5.7 mg/kg.”
Glyphosate is not allowed to be sprayed on organic wheat, which Tropical Traditions also tested for glyphosate. They were contaminated, with a range “from 0.03 to 0.o6 mg/kg, just slightly lower than the conventional grains we tested.” Organic rye and organic millet tested clean at the time. But this was from December 2015. We’re guessing the situation has only gotten worse.
EWG tested more than a dozen brands of oat-based foods. Glyphosate was found to be present on most of the oat-based foods tested, including organic products. Another recent study of glyphosate an oat products found that 5 of 16 popular, organic oats or oat-based products contained glyphosate residue.
Barley, Buckwheat, Millet, Flax, Sorghum
Traditionally these crops dry out and are then ready for harvest. A combine harvester is used to harvest the grains. Farmers used to own these, but now farmers are much more often renting them.
When they come by with the combine, you have to be ready. There ain’t no ‘this is ready, need you to come back next week for that section.’ No. You’ve got to have your whole field ready. That’s why they spray. If it’s a real organic farm, like one that ain’t bullshitting, you need to own your own combine. But that’s getting more and more rare.” – Anonymous farmer
According to Tom Ehrhardt, co-owner of Minnesota-based Albert Lea Seeds, sourcing grains not desiccated with glyphosate prior to harvest is a challenge. “I have talked with millers of conventionally produced grain, and they all agree it’s very difficult to source oats, wheat, flax, and triticale, which have not been sprayed with glyphosate prior to harvest,” he says. “It’s a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell policy’ in the industry.” – Non-GMO Report
Along with wheat and oats, glyphosate is used to desiccate a wide range of other crops including lentils, peas, non-GMO soybeans, corn, flax, rye, triticale, buckwheat, millet, canola, sugar beets and potatoes. Sunflowers may also be treated pre-harvest with glyphosate, according to the National Sunflower Association.” – EcoWatch
Quinoa, amaranth, wild rice, sorghum, and spelt are also likely candidates for glyphosate desiccation, but we don’t see any testing be done on them. Regardless, contamination from drift is likely a problem for all grains, and pretty much all foods grown outside.
Like grains, beans pods aren’t all dried and ready at the same time, a serious inefficiency if you’re selling large quantities of beans like chickpeas, lentils, peas, and white beans. But the need for uniform drying at the same time has also made legumes a target for glyphosate desiccation. Monsanto (now Bayer) recommends using Roundup as a desiccant for lentils and dry beans, and the CFIA found that roughly 47% of beans, lentil, and pea products tested had glyphosate residues.
Nuts
Technically, peanuts should be in the legumes category. From an eating standpoint, they’re more like nuts. They’re also one of the most heavily herbicide/pesticide-treated crops, and a study of the popular Skippy brand natural peanut butter found that the product contained 11.7ppb (parts per billion) of glyphosate.
Almonds are another potential source of glyphosate exposure, especially once they’re processed into almond milk. A screening of glyphosate usage levels released in 2015 by the Environmental Protection Agency reported that 85% of almonds farmed in the U.S. were treated with glyphosate.
Canola seeds are harvested and crushed to create canola oil and canola meal. Canola crops are almost always genetically modified and contain high levels of glyphosate.
Sugar
This section could easily be titled sugar beets. After all, 95% of sugar beets grown in the U.S. are genetically modified to withstand Roundup. Glyphosate is used on both sugarbeets and sugarcane extensively. Sugarcane is hit with a double dose of the chemical, both as an herbicide and as a ripening method. Glyphosate is the only sugarcane ripener approved for use in the United States, so any sugarcane grown in the U.S. likely comes with glyphosate residue.
Wine
10 out of 10 wines tested positive for glyphosate
An anonymous supporter of advocacy group Moms Across America sent 10 wine samples to be tested for glyphosate. All of the samples tested positive for glyphosate — even organic wines, although their levels were significantly lower.” – Healthy Holsitc Living
What About Bob’s Red Mill?
On their website Bob’s Red Mill addressed the concerns on January 6, 2015:
The majority of our conventional wheat is grown close to home in the Pacific Northwest, where growing seasons are typically longer and the practice of desiccation is as such rarely used. We’ve been told desiccation is not a practice used by our individual farmers.”
Bob’s Red Mill is facing a federal class action, filed in San Francisco Friday, after the world’s most used weedkiller, glyphosate, was discovered in both its organic and non-organic oats.
There is no bubble strong enough to protect you from glyphosate in 2018. Even a diet consisting entirely of organic products will have considerable levels of glyphosate residue due to pesticide/herbicide drift. Not all of us are able to dedicate the time and money needed to extensively research every single thing we eat. Other options include growing all of your own food or getting really good at detoxing. We also recommend shopping at your local farmer’s markets and finding farmers that care as much about this issue as you do.
Genetically Modified Salmon Sold As Sushi In Canada, Coming to the U.S. Soon.
The Cornucopia Institute reports that GMO salmon is being sold as sushi and sashimi in Canada. AquaBounty Technologies is a Massachusetts-based biotechnology company that produces genetically modified fish called “AquAdvantage,” that they say is “The World’s Most Sustainable Salmon.”
AquaBounty is the first and only company selling genetically engineered salmon. Scientists inserted a growth-hormone gene from Chinook salmon and genetic regulatory elements from the ocean pout into Atlantic salmon.
Although AquaBounty, the makers of engineered fast-growing salmon, have refused to tell the public where their product is being sold, their CEO recently bragged to investors that it is being used in the Canadian buyer’s “high-end sashimi lines, not their frozen prepared foods.” Consumers must continue to be wary of the origin of their food: know your farmer!” – The Cornucopia Institute
Ron Stotish, AquaBounty’s CEO, told investors last Thursday that they have sold 4.5 tonnes of it in Canada so far this year, and that,
The people who bought our fish were very happy with it. They put it in their high-end sashimi lines, not their frozen prepared foods.”
In Canada, GM fish does not have to be labeled as such. Consequently, customers may not know if the salmon they ordered is genetically modified.
AquaAdvantage Salmon is engineered to grow at twice the rate of regular salmon while consuming up to 2 percent less feed than regular farmed salmon.
This is an untenable situation. The fact that, once again, the company has let slip a piece of information to investors — but is information Canadian consumers need and don’t have — exposes how much it is that Canadians need labelling.” – Lucy Sharratt of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network
The FDA has approved AquAdvantage salmon for human consumption, but wild salmon is big business for Alaska, so Senator Lisa Murkowski and other Alaskan officials in Congress got the FDA to block AquAdvantage imports until new GMO labeling regulations are in effect for food labels. Senator Lisa Murkowski introduced the amendment prohibiting the import of the GM eggs needed to produce AquaBounty’s salmon, and she co-sponsored legislation mandating the labeling of genetically engineered salmon.
Colbert Calls Out Big Pharma For New Plans To Profit On Opioid Addiction (Video)
Purdue Pharma, creators of Oxycontin, developed and patented a new drug earlier this year aimed to help those addicted to opioids to stop top taking them. This new drug is a fast-acting form of buprenorphine. It’s a mild opioid intended to ease withdrawal symptoms.
Previously, the drug was prescribed in tablet or as fast-dissolving strips. This new prescription is a “wafer” that dissolves in the mouth within a few seconds.
Many have blamed Purdue Pharma for the epidemic of opioid painkiller addictions and deaths. Many are expressing outrage that the Sacklers, the family that owns Purdue, has profited from opioid addictions, and now plans to profit from the antidote.
Recent Weather Coverage Shows Why Americans Don’t Trust Mainstream Media
As you may have seen, Mike Seidel, a Weather Channel reporter, is in the video below battling wind gusts, struggling to stay upright. He seems to be barely holding himself up. Then you see two people walk behind him in the background, having no trouble with the wind.
The video has gone viral and Mike Seidel is getting trolled relentlessly, and deservedly.
The weather channel is standing by their reporter. From TMZ:
The Weather Channel has an explanation … “It’s important to note that the 2 individuals in the background are walking on concrete, and Mike Seidel is trying to maintain his footing on wet grass, after reporting on-air until 1:00 AM ET this morning and is undoubtedly exhausted.”
The problem is, if it’s so hard to stand up on the grass (and it seems this may be true if his feet are sunk into the muddy ground as they appear to be) he should be able to easily see that the cameramen are having no problems being up on the concrete. If he was, in fact, exhausted and having such a hard time standing upright, why didn’t he just move?
Because this was more dramatic! There’s no other reasonable explanation.
This is how the 24-hour news cycle works. Adding drama is how they convince the public to back a war. This is what makes people think that things are so dangerous and kids shouldn’t be allowed outside by themselves. This is how they divide us politically, and how they keep so many of us frightened and voting against our best interests, and/or feeling apathetic and not voting at all.
And this is why people have lost faith in the news.
Gavin thinks this is from Hurricane Florence. He’s wrong. One would not be blamed for thinking this reporter is on his knees, but if you look at this post you’ll see he just picked a very deep spot to stand in. Anderson Cooper is seen in the video below defending himself after being trolled on Twitter. You be the judge.
We think he could have just as easily picked a spot the better represented the average depth of the flooding. If he wanted to show the extremes he could have then moved around to deeper and more shallow waters. We contend that the spot he picked was for dramatic effect.
Why did we post this? Because we believe that climate change is real and that it is a massive threat to humanity. And we believe that it’s news like this that sows discord, disbelief, and apathy in the public.
Bonus! Here’s more reason to hate the mainstream media:
Flu Shot Effectiveness Lessens After 28 Days
In exchange for a shot that most recently rendered a mere 1 in 10 who people who receive it protected, you get an increased risk of actually getting the flu and exposure to side effects like headaches, fever, sepsis, convulsions, asthma, other respiratory problems, and paralysis. While many of those side effects can lead to permanent issues, a new study from the Kaiser Permanente Northern California finds that the vaccine’s ability to protect you from the flu may not be so long-lasting. The risk of getting the flu rose by 16 percent twenty-eight days after getting the vaccine, and that risk continued to increase throughout the flu season.
Published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, the Kaiser Permanente study looked at 44,959 individuals who had tested positive for the flu from September 2010 to March 2017. Subjects had been given the inactivated flu vaccine. Those who had been tested 42 to 69 days after being vaccinated had 1.32 times the odds of testing positive for any variation of influenza than those tested within 14-41 days of receiving the shot. Patients tested more than 5 months after their shot had 2.06 the odds of testing positive for the flu.
The pressure to get the flu shot (or any vaccine) is intense. Many employers, especially in the healthcare field (go figure), require it, and advertisements and media proclaiming the importance of protecting yourself and the others around you from the flu are everywhere. If you’re in a situation where the flu shot becomes a must, it’s imperative you don’t treat it as actual protection from the flu. In fact, the first thing you need to do after getting the shot is getting the preservatives used in the vaccine out of your system.
The flu shot is not about the flu. If it was, they would have dropped it a long time ago. It seemed like every article released about the vaccine last year included a quote from a carefully selected expert, designed to communicate to you how important it is to get the flu shot…in spite of this article you finished reading about how ineffective it is. This latest study is no different. Researchers concluded that health care providers should carefully consider the timing of the shot during flu season.
But let’s face it. If anything, the manufacturers of the flu vaccine will cite this study as a reason to vaccinate people more than once during flu season. Twice the profit and twice the protection! What could go wrong…??
How Big Sugar, Glyphosate, and Climate Change Are Contributing to Florida’s Red Tide Disaster
Florida has declared a state of emergency. The latest outbreak of algae has been around for almost a year with no sign of reprieve. Marine life is dying, people are having trouble breathing, and the economy is being negatively impacted. Businesses from the most affected counties are reporting a loss of nearly $90 million. How is this happening and why is it so dangerous?
There are two separate issues. There is freshwater algae bloom in Lake Okeechobee, the state’s largest lake. It’s a recurring bloom, but this year the bloom came earlier in the year and it now covers 90% of the lake. This blue-green alga is actually a type of bacteria known as cyanobacteria. These bacteria proliferate rapidly in warm, slow-moving, nutrient-rich waters. It relies on sunlight to survive and normally it can’t be seen by the naked eye. But it’s so dense that it’s easy to see in Lake Okeechobee. The bacteria, at this potency, produce dangerous toxins that kill wildlife and can make humans very sick.
In the southwest coast of the Gulf of Mexico, there is also the red tide, a term generally used to describe many different kinds of harmful algal blooms. This phenomenon happens all over the world, but along the coast of Florida, the most plentiful culprit is said to be algae called Karenia brevis. Red tide occurs naturally. There’s evidence of this phenomenon from at least 500 years ago. In the last 50 years, the blooms have become more and more frequent, lasted longer, and the algae is in much higher concentrations.
This bloom is said to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of fish, 92 manatees, 300 sea turtles, and at least one whale shark. The odor from the algae and the dead sea creatures are reportedly still potent at least 10 miles away from the beach.
What’s causing both of these blooms today is a combination of environment and human activity.
The Farm Industry And Other Human Activities
The algae that cause Red Tide start growing dozens of miles offshore near the continental shelf. The blooms are not stimulated under normal conditions in open, well-circulating waters. But the conditions in the Gulf are not normal. Manmade chemical nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus-based fertilizers, glyphosate, and other herbicides and pesticides from farms are contaminating the Gulf. The fertilizers are feeding the algae, and the chemicals are shifting the balance to the kinds of algae that are damaging the ecosystem. These fertilizers would feed different types of algae and provide a balance that would not be a problem for marine life or for us, but the lack of current and the glyphosates are favoring the wrong type of algae. Also, a faster-moving current would draw those manmade chemical nutrients out into the ocean, but the slowing Gulf Stream current leaves those fertilizers closer to the coastline, bringing the algae to the shore.
Farm water runoff is also feeding the problem in Lake Okeechobee, and the lake’s ecosystem is also getting overwhelmed with runoff pollution from lawns (lawn fertilizer, weed killers) and septic systems from the surrounding communities. The lake provides the area with drinking water and it’s the source of agricultural irrigation for their $1.5 billion-a-year farming industry. Production includes sugar, vegetables, citrus fruits, and rice. More people are moving in and their agriculture business is growing.
Lake Okeechobee had already become a toxic petri dish for many strains of nasty microorganisms before Hurricane Irma caused flooding and which precipitated more pollution runoff into the lake, radically overwhelming the ecosystem.
For 6,000 years, water from Lake Okeechobee flowed through the Everglades and then out into the Florida Bay. The sugar industry needed more farmland so the excess water that drained into the Everglades was diverted into the east and west coasts.
The same fertilizer used to grow sugar cane and other crops feed algae in the lake and also runs off into the ocean on both sides of Florida.
Big Sugar says that they are not responsible for most of the nutrients in the lake, which is true. A government report traced 10 percent of the phosphorous in Lake Okeechobee back to sugar farms in 2011. But the problem is not so much their fertilizer usage as it is their use of the land in the Everglades. Environmentalists want the sugar industry to return the land to the state so that the water can flow through and naturally be filtered by the Everglades.
Wetlands are very good at taking up those nutrients, so you have nice clean water released out of the wetlands. The problem is now the northern third of the Everglades has been drained and turned into these sugar cane fields. That’s what forces engineers to release the water to the east and the west.” – Dr. Brand
It’s easier said than done. The everglade land is some of the most fertile soil in the United States. If sugar cane crops are grown elsewhere in the U.S. there would most likely be a significant increase in fertilizer usage. In addition, the federal sugar subsidy stops American companies from buying sugar from other countries.
Dr. Seneff says that the cyanobacteria causing the “algae” bloom in the lakes have the ability to break down glyphosate and use its phosphorus. This gives the cyanobacteria a competitive advantage against other species in a body of water contaminated with lots of glyphosates. In an interview she states:
There are a lot of sugar cane fields surrounding Lake Okeechobee in Central Florida, and they are being sprayed with glyphosate before harvest as a desiccant. There’s also lots of glyphosate being used on those well-manicured lawns of multi-million dollar homes.”
Blue-green algae are always present in the mix, but without glyphosate, they don’t grow to such huge concentrations compared to the competing flora.”
In that same interview, the interviewer says that officials claim that the blue-green algae have nothing to do with the red tide, and asks Dr. Seneff what she thinks of this.
No, I don’t believe this! Again, very straightforward. The blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) are able to convert free nitrogen from the air into nitrates. Thus, they cause an excess of nitrates in the water, in addition to those nitrates that come from excess run-off from nitrate-based fertilizers. The excess nitrates provide essential nutrients for the red algae (Karenia brevis), that then grow to large numbers offshore, causing the red tide.” – Dr. Stephanie Seneff, Mom’s Across Amarica Interview
Ecowatch also reported on this phenomenon in 2016.
“It turns out that many cyanobacteria present in Lake Erie have the genes allowing the uptake of phosphonates, and these cyanobacteria can grow using glyphosate and other phosphonates as a sole source of phosphorus,” George Bullerjahn of Bowling Green State University, Ecowatch inteview
According to a new study, an Atlantic Ocean current has slowed down, reaching a 1,000-year low. This reduces the movement of the water in the Gulf of Mexico. The Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico are becoming warmer and more stagnant. Warmer oceans also mean more torrential downpours with the potential for more frequent flooding and greater agriculture chemical runoff.
As the planet’s temperatures increase, many water systems become more hospitable to toxic algal blooms. The temperature of the ocean has increased by about 2 degrees since the year 1900. The temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is also climbing more rapidly, but it should be too warm for K. brevis, which thrives in water temperatures up to 83 degrees. The gulf can reach temperatures of 90ºF in warmer months like July and August. But new research shows that increased carbon dioxide allows the algae to grow and proliferate at higher temperatures. As anyone concerned with the state of our environment knows, we are massively increasing the levels of carbon dioxide in the air.
Conclusion
Experts say they have no idea when the toxic algae blooms will end. We also don’t yet know if this one will last longer than previous episodes. Many believe that the frequency of the red tide has increased, but historical records are not accurate enough to indicate for sure that the red tides are definitely more prevalent. This bloom Florida is dealing with now started in November of 2017. At the time of this article, it has lasted for a little more than ten months. From late 2004 to early 2006 there was a 17-month long red tide in southern Florida, and a few years previous there was one that lasted for 21 months.