(NEW YORK) — Johnson & Johnson announced Tuesday that the company has agreed to pay $8.9 billion over 25 years to settle “all current and future” claims that the company’s baby powder and other cosmetic talc products allegedly caused cancer.
The company announced in the securities filing that its subsidiary LTL Management, Inc. will be re-filing for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy to resolve the allegations. The filing is not an admission of wrongdoing and the company maintains its position that the talcum powder products are safe, according to the release.
Johnson & Johnson and its other affiliates did not file for bankruptcy protection and will continue to operate their businesses as usual, the release added.
“The Company continues to believe that these claims are specious and lack scientific merit,” Erik Haas, vice president of litigation at Johnson & Johnson, said in a statement, in part. “However, as the Bankruptcy Court recognized, resolving these cases in the tort system would take decades and impose significant costs on [the company] and the system, with most claimants never receiving any compensation.”
The announcement comes months after a federal appeals court ruled in January that the company could not use the bankruptcy court to resolve some 38,000 lawsuits that alleged the talc in its products caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, ABC News reported. At the time, the company said it planned on challenging the ruling.
Critics had urged the court to reject the legal maneuver, fearing it could prompt other big companies to avoid bringing mass tort lawsuits before juries.
In 2019, Johnson & Johnson recalled a shipment of baby powder when a sample tested positive for a trace amount of asbestos, according to an advisory from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Sales of the talc-based product ended in North America the following year.
The company announced last year that it would stop using talc in its baby powder worldwide in 2023 and that the ingredient would be replaced with cornstarch.
ABC News’ Aaron Katersky and Max Zahn contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A tech start-up CEO once considered a preeminent American entrepreneur has been arrested and charged with fraud for allegedly lying to J.P. Morgan Chase, the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
Charlie Javice, previously featured as a Forbes magazine “30 Under 30” honoree, was arrested Monday night in New Jersey for lying about the number of customers her company serviced with its student loan assistance program, according to DOJ.
“She lied directly to JPMC and fabricated data to support those lies — all in order to make over $45 million from the sale of her company,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “This arrest should warn entrepreneurs who lie to advance their businesses that their lies will catch up to them, and this Office will hold them accountable for putting their greed above the law.”
A spokesperson for Javice said she denies the allegations and her lawyer declined to comment.
The company, Frank, had been billed as a way to simplify the student loan application process. Javice is accused of fabricating data to make it appear as though the platform had millions more users in order to sell the company for $175 million.
She is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, one count of wire fraud affecting a financial institution and one count of bank fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. She also faces one count of securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Javice enlisted the help of a data scientist to create a fake database that was used to convince JP Morgan Chase the platform had more than 4.25 million users, according to charging documents. The tech CEO also allegedly purchased real data on 4.25 million college students that she tried to pass off as her user data.
Javice made an initial appearance in court on Tuesday, and she was released on a $2 million bond that restricts her to certain parts of New York and southern Florida.
ABC News’ Luke Barr and Lisa Sivertson contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — A crippled banking system, stubbornly high inflation, recession fears — the growing set of threats has tipped the U.S. into precarious economic territory but the leader of the nation’s largest bank is nonetheless optimistic about the financial outlook.
Resilient consumer spending and a strong job market have buoyed the economy, padding the savings of many households and buttressing them against a possible downturn, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said in an annual shareholder letter on Tuesday.
“When one talks about risk for too long, it begins to cloud your judgment,” Dimon said. “Looking ahead, the positives are huge.”
Consumer balance sheets are in “great shape,” Dimon added, noting that “unemployment is extremely low, and wages are going up, particularly at the low end.”
The unemployment rate stands at 3.6%, hovering near a 50-year low.
Meanwhile, Americans retain $1.2 trillion more “excess cash” in their checking accounts than they held before the pandemic, Dimon said, citing JPMorgan Chase data. Those savings have kept consumer spending relatively robust even as pandemic-era fiscal support fades further into the past.
Consumer spending accounts for roughly two-thirds of the U.S. economy.
Still, the bank’s measure of excess savings held by U.S. households has fallen nearly by half since November 2021, suggesting that Americans have drawn down their accounts to contend with high inflation.
Inflation has fallen significantly from a summer peak, though it remains more than triple the Fed’s target of 2%.
To fight high prices, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates last month for the ninth time in a year, making its policy the most aggressive since the 1980s.
The Fed’s borrowing cost increases aim to slash prices by slowing the economy and choking off demand, but the approach risks tipping the U.S. economy into a recession and putting millions out of work.
On top of these headwinds, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last month, the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history, thrust the financial system into distress.
Acknowledging economic uncertainty and persistently high inflation, Dimon described last year as one marked by “significant challenges.”
Addressing the recent banking distress, he added, “The current crisis is not yet over, and even when it is behind us, there will be repercussions from it for years to come.”
In the aftermath of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, some Democrats called for strengthening banking regulations that they say could have prevented the collapse. Such officials, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., have focused their ire on a 2018 measure that weakened banking oversight imposed by the previous Dodd-Frank Act.
Rejecting calls for stronger regulation, Dimon said additional protections would not have prevented the recent banking crisis.
“Regarding the current disruption in the U.S. banking system, most of the risks were hiding in plain sight,” he said, referring to long-term treasury and mortgage bonds that were known to risk a loss of value if the Fed rapidly raised interest rates.
“It is unlikely that any recent change in regulatory requirements would have made a difference in what followed,” he added.
Returning to a sunny tone taken up elsewhere in the letter, Dimon downplayed the threat posed by the current financial distress.
“Recent events are nothing like what occurred during the 2008 global financial crisis,” he said.
A group of big banks, including JPMorgan Chase, made money from the recent banking distress, since a flood of depositors opened new accounts at large lenders amid the uncertainty.
JPMorgan Chase received a huge wave of customers and deposits, amounting to hundreds of accounts and billions of dollars, a source familiar with the matter previously told ABC News.
In his letter, Dimon rebuked the notion that JPMorgan Chase, or any bank, emerged from the turmoil unscathed.
“Any crisis that damages Americans’ trust in their banks damages all banks – a fact that was known even before this crisis,” Dimon said.
“While it is true that this bank crisis ‘benefited’ larger banks due to the inflow of deposits they received from smaller institutions, the notion that this meltdown was good for them in any way is absurd,” he added.
Dr. Uma Valeti, founder and CEO of UPSIDE Foods, gives a tour of his Emeryville, Calif., facility to ABC News. — ABC News
(EMERYVILLE, Calif.) — A scientific quest to feed the world, protect animals and simultaneously cut down on greenhouse gas emissions is on the cusp of a major milestone in the U.S., advocates say.
In the last five months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared two American producers of lab-grown meat to bring their products to market, finding “no questions” about the companies’ claims the protein is safe for human consumption — though critics still have concerns about the industry’s financial viability relative to long-term output.
“That is a watershed moment because it’s never happened before in the history of humanity,” said Dr. Uma Valeti, founder and CEO of UPSIDE Foods, one of the approved producers.
Regulators from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are now deciding how to label cultivated meat for public sale and inspect facilities that produce it. The guidelines are expected sometime this year — a final hurdle before the products can hit store shelves.
Americans were estimated to consume roughly 75 billion pounds of red meat and chicken last year, according to USDA data. That’s nearly 225 pounds per American.
“I think of our cultivated meat as the one that can fill the delta between how much meat we eat now and how much we’re going to have to produce for the next 30 years,” Valeti said.
Cultivated, or cultured-cell, meat is grown in steel bioreactors from animal stem cells that are fed a mixture of vitamins, fats, sugars and oxygen. The process results in real meat tissue without having to raise or slaughter an animal.
Meat cultivating companies like UPSIDE and some environmentalists say the technique has the potential to dramatically curb greenhouse gas emissions from traditional animal farming, which also requires vast swaths of land and water as well as antibiotics for disease control.
ABC News was granted an inside look at the nation’s first and largest cultivated chicken facility, run by UPSIDE Foods in an office park outside San Francisco.
“It takes two weeks to grow the equal to one chicken, a thousand chickens or 100,000 chickens,” said Valeti, who is a cardiologist by training. What limits production is infrastructure.
UPSIDE says it can produce 50,000 pounds of cultivated chicken a year using current technology in its $50-million facility. Valeti said UPSIDE will need significant additional investment to scale up to 400,000 pounds a year — but that’s the goal.
“When we have the full force of humanity wanting to do something that is impossible, or perceived to be impossible, magical things can happen,” Valeti said.
As demand for meat products continues to soar globally, advocates and investors say cultivating meat has the potential to dramatically supplement and expand the world’s existing food supply.
Animal rights advocates say “no kill” meat is also a way to reduce suffering and alleviate concerns about unethical treatment of animal populations on large commercial farms.
The concept has drawn billions of dollars in investment. UPSIDE has attracted high-profile financing from Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Whole Foods founder John Mackey.
President Joe Biden has also thrown support behind the effort, signing an executive order in September directing the Department of Agriculture to support “cultivating alternative food sources.”
“Although the power of these technologies is most vivid at the moment in the context of human health, biotechnology and biomanufacturing can also be used to achieve our climate and energy goals,” the order states.
Animal agriculture is responsible for at least 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly equivalent — by some estimates — to the share of emissions produced by cars, trucks, trains, airplanes and ships combined.
Most of those earth-warming gasses come from cows, which produce methane, scientists say.
While UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat, the second FDA-approved cultivated meat company, produce chicken, dozens of other start-up companies are preparing to produce and sell cultivated beef, lamb, pork and seafood from animal cells.
Critics contend that cultivating meat is an enticing prospect but remains little more than a novelty.
“The data’s not there yet and the investment is known to be very expensive. How are you going to make an impact in the environment if you cannot scale this at a reasonable cost?” said Ricardo San Martin, director of the Alternative Meat Lab at the University of California at Berkeley.
“The narrative is very attractive. ‘I don’t need to kill chickens, and I can kind of just grow them in a vat and that’s it’ — right? But those vats are very expensive and [have] very sophisticated people running them,” said San Martin, who told ABC News research shows plant-based foods are most affordable and sustainable.
A study published in 2020 by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future concluded that cultivated meat produces roughly one-fifth of the greenhouse gas emissions of traditional beef but is still five to 21 times higher than plant proteins such as tofu or peas.
Bioreactors, like those used at UPSIDE Foods, are energy intensive, said researcher Raychel Santos.
There is also a debate over what to call a new competitor in the meat department. Trade groups representing American farmers and ranchers have been lobbying the USDA to clearly brand cultured-cell products as distinct from their own pasture-raised cuts.
“All I’m asking is that it be clearly identified because there’s going to be a difference when that consumer eats that product,” said Todd Wilkinson, president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “And my product doesn’t have to be genetically engineered.”
Wilkinson wants the USDA to require products from UPSIDE and GOOD to bear the markers “cultured meat” or “lab grown.”
“Something that just stands out and lets the consumer know what they’re eating,” he said.
UPSIDE’s Valeti concedes customer education will be a big hurdle to clear.
“People are buying meat right now despite how it’s made,” Valeti said of what he calls the paradox of meat. “What if we can make the process more kinder, caring, healthier, nutritious? I believe everybody will get behind it.”
He said he anticipates price-per-pound of UPSIDE chicken would start “slightly above organic,” with a goal of competing on par with conventional chicken in five to 15 years.
Once USDA labeling is approved, UPSIDE chicken is expected to land first on fine-dining menus in a handful of California restaurants.
“Our goal is to be able to be available at Michelin star restaurants or at the backyard barbecue,” Valeti said. “It’s going to take some time to get to a point where we can be everywhere.”
(NEW YORK) — Endeavor, the parent company of UFC, acquired World Wrestling Entertainment on Monday in a merger that values the WWE at $9.3 billion, forming a worldwide combat sports behemoth, the companies said in a joint announcement.
Ari Emanuel, the CEO of Endeavor, will remain the head of the newly formed company, which holds a total value of $21 billion, the announcement said. UFC is worth an estimated $12.1 billion, according to the announcement.
“This is a rare opportunity to create a global live sports and entertainment pureplay built for where the industry is headed,” Emanuel said in a statement.
Ultimately, Endeavor will retain a 51% controlling interest in the new company and WWE will hold the other 49% share.
Vince McMahon, the executive chairman of WWE, will continue in that role. The announcement comes a day after the WWE’s biggest event of the year, WrestleMania. The two-day event had more than 160,000 in attendance, the company announced and featured celebrities like rapper Snoop Dogg, NFL star George Kittle and former UFC competitor and current WWE star Brock Lesnar.
“Given the incredible work that Ari and Endeavor have done to grow the UFC brand – nearly doubling its revenue over the past seven years – and the immense success we’ve already had in partnering with their team on a number of ventures, I believe that this is without a doubt the best outcome for our shareholders and other stakeholders,” McMahon said in a statement.
UFC and WWE brought in a combined $2.4 billion in revenue during fiscal year 2022, marking 10% annual revenue growth since 2019, the announcement said.
Dana White, the president of UFC, will retain that position under the new company.
The new company will appoint a board of directors made up of six representatives from Endeavor and five from WWE.
“For decades, Vince and his team have demonstrated an incredible track record of innovation and shareholder value creation, and we are confident that Endeavor can deliver significant additional value for shareholders by bringing UFC and WWE together,” Emanuel said.
(NEW YORK) — A group of oil-producing nations imposed a significant cut in oil output with far-reaching consequences for U.S. gas prices, industry analysts told ABC News.
The alliance of countries known as OPEC+, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, agreed on Sunday to cut oil output by 1.2 million barrels per day starting in May, which amounts to removing roughly 1% of oil from the global market.
Regardless of the production cut, prices typically rise in the summer due to a spike in demand as car owners take road trips and families fly to vacation destinations.
The OPEC+ output decision, however, will send gas prices as much as 30 cents higher per gallon than they would have spiked otherwise, the analysts said.
“I certainly think there’s going to be upward pressure on prices as a result of these production cuts,” Patrick de Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told ABC News.
The announcement from OPEC+ met disapproval from the Biden administration.
“We don’t think that production cuts are advisable at this moment, given market uncertainty, and we’ve made that clear,” White House Spokesman John Kirby said on Monday.
The production cut coincides with an ongoing rise in gas prices. The national average price for a gallon of gas stands at $3.50, which marks a 2% increase over the past week and 3% spike over the past month, AAA data showed.
In California, the state with the highest gas prices, the average price per gallon is $4.83, according to AAA.
Average gas prices nationwide remain nearly 20% lower than where they stood a year ago.
Despite the anticipated rise in gas prices as a result of the OPEC+ production cut, analysts do not expect gas prices to reach the eye-popping levels on display last summer.
“People are waving their hands and feel like their hair is on fire: What does this mean for the U.S. consumer?” Peter McNally, a global sector leader for industrial materials and energy at Third Bridge, told ABC News about the production cut.
“Year over year, we’re still looking at lower prices,” he added.
McNally said he expects U.S. gas prices to rise between 20 and 30 cents in additional cost as a direct result of the production cut; while de Haan, of GasBuddy, said he anticipates a more modest increase of between 5 and 15 cents.
The OPEC+ production cut announced on Sunday follows a previous cut in October that saw the group of oil-producing countries slash output by 2 million barrels per day.
The latest production cut will prove more impactful because it coincides with heightened demand in the summer season, as opposed to the previous cut that took place during the annual drop in gas prices that occurs in the fall, McNally said.
To be sure, the exact price implications of the Sunday announcement remain murky, analysts said.
As the financial system teeters and the Federal Reserve raises interest rates, a possible global economic slowdown could weaken oil demand and limit the upward effect on gas prices, some analysts said.
In fact, indicators of a coming recession likely contributed to the recent decision from OPEC+, since the group wants to avoid a potential oversupply of oil that could accompany a downturn, Timothy Fitzgerald, a professor of business economics at Texas Tech University, told ABC News.
“They’re making what may effectively be a preemptive cut anticipating weaker economic conditions coming during the rest of this calendar year and trying to balance their production with what they perceive the demand will be,” Fitzgerald said.
However, potential decline in oil consumption from a recession could be more than offset by a bounce back in Chinese economic activity, McNally said, noting that the country consumed 200 million fewer barrels than expected last year amid coronavirus lockdowns.
“The big wildcard is China,” McNally said. “If China does finally come out of this COVID funk, it’ll use an awful lot of oil.”
(NEW YORK) — The Laundress is recalling hundreds of thousands of laundry products four months after issuing a separate recall of millions of laundry detergent and cleaning products.
On Friday, the company announced it was issuing a voluntary recall of about 800,000 of its fabric conditioners, which are billed as products that help “eliminate static and soften fabric,” according to a description on The Laundress website.
According to The Laundress, the products may contain ethylene oxide, a chemical impurity and a known carcinogen that both the company and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which posted a recall announcement for the products on March 31, say “can cause adverse health effects if there is significant and direct long-term exposure.”
“All fabric conditioners included in this recall notice were already covered by our previous market actions in December 2022,” the company added in a statement.
Carcinogens are substances that can cause cancer and exposure to ethylene oxide specifically can lead to headaches, diarrhea, vomiting, sleepiness, eye and skin burns and breathing difficulties, among other symptoms. Long-term exposure to ethylene oxide has been associated with cancer, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
According to the National Cancer Institute, “Lymphoma and leukemia are the cancers most frequently reported to be associated with occupational exposure to ethylene oxide,” and “stomach and breast cancers may also be associated with ethylene oxide exposure.”
The Laundress shared the March 31 recall notice across its various social media platforms and on its company website. In its latest announcement, the company expressed regret at the latest recall and said it was working to rectify its processes.
“We again deeply apologize for this situation and look forward to returning soon with a renewed commitment to the highest standards of product safety and quality,” The Laundress said in a statement.
The CPSC and The Laundress recommend that anyone with recalled fabric conditioners stop using the product immediately. Consumers are advised to contact The Laundress for a full refund and then close the container without emptying it and discard it in the trash. There have been no reports of injuries or incidents related to the fabric conditioner recall so far.
Recalled products retailed anywhere between $1 and $20 and were sold over the last decade between 2011 and November 2022, according to the CPSC. They were available both in major stores like Target and through online retailers including Amazon.com and The Laundress website in the U.S. and Canada.
The Laundress notes that consumers who previously requested a refund of Laundress fabric conditioners as part of their December 2022 recall need not file a new refund request. To contact The Laundress, consumers can email customerservice@thelaundress.com or call 800-681-1915 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET on weekdays.
A full list of The Laundress’ recalled products can be found at TheLaundressRecall.com.
(NEW YORK) — Starting April 1, Twitter users who don’t subscribe to Twitter Blue are going to have to say goodbye to their blue check marks.
Recent changes implemented under Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, mean anyone who subscribes to Twitter Blue gets a blue “check” icon next to their profile. But that wasn’t always the case.
Twitter’s check marks were originally intended to verify the authenticity of prominent accounts. “Blue Checks” appear next to the names of many high-profile celebrities, politicians, journalists, activists and organizations.
“This is a person that the powers that be at Twitter decided is important in some way,” Amanda Silberling, a senior culture reporter at TechCrunch, said about the original check mark status.
In addition to cutting down on scam accounts, Silberling told ABC Audio the checks came to convey a sense of legitimacy on the platform.
“I think in some ways it is a status symbol,” said Silberling. “I was very excited when I got my blue check … people are noticing what I’m doing as a journalist, that makes me feel good.”
Hear ABC Audio’s Mike Dobuski report:
Following a revamp of Twitter Blue last year, now any user who pays a monthly subscription fee automatically gets a check mark – regardless of the relevancy of the account. For months now, new Twitter Blue subscribers enjoyed verified status alongside the “legacy” blue check accounts. But starting in April, the company said any existing blue check accounts that don’t subscribe to Twitter Blue will have to pay up – or lose the check.
“Starting April 1, 2023, we’ll begin winding down our legacy verification program,” reads Twitter’s help page. It goes on to detail the process by which users can receive a blue check. Accounts must be older than 30 days, for example. They also “may not impersonate individuals, groups or organizations to mislead, confuse or deceive others, nor use a fake identity in a manner that disrupts the experience of others on Twitter.”
Musk said charging for verification is part of an attempt to cut down on automated spam accounts, known as “bots.” In a recent tweet, Musk wrote that “paid account social media will be the only social media that matters.”
At the same time, Twitter has rolled out additional gray and gold check marks, intended to verify government and business accounts. The official White House Twitter account, for example, currently displays a gray check mark. ABC News, meanwhile, has a gold check.
But Silberling says tying blue checks to payment still leaves the door open to impersonation and misinformation on the platform.
“The blue check is essentially just going to lose its meaning,” she said, adding that users now bear more responsibility in determining which accounts are real on the platform.
“It’s always a good thing if social media users are aware of what they’re reading, and is it true,” said Silberling. “But also part of the job of social media platforms is to make it more difficult for misinformation to circulate, and I don’t think that Twitter is doing a great job of that right now.”
(NEW YORK) — Encircled by camera-wielding supporters and journalists, Chris Smalls popped a bottle of champagne one year ago today to celebrate a watershed election that established the first-ever U.S. union at Amazon — but the celebratory times for the union wouldn’t last.
Smalls, a former warehouse worker at the company’s facility in Staten Island, New York, and the president of the Amazon Labor Union, or ALU, launched the campaign alongside his co-workers, raising money on GoFundMe as they sought improved pay, benefits and working conditions at the facility.
The independent union overcame well-resourced opposition from the company and helped propel a surge of labor organizing across the country, some experts said.
However, the ALU encountered difficulties almost immediately. In the months following the victory, labor campaigns were defeated overwhelmingly in elections at two other Amazon warehouses in New York.
Meanwhile, sharp divisions emerged within the ALU, according to interviews with four current and former workers at the Staten Island facility.
Amazon has also mounted an ongoing legal challenge against the results of the union election, leaving the labor organization far from signing a collective bargaining agreement that it hopes will deliver a base pay of $30 per hour and other improvements at the facility.
The New York Times first reported on the divisions within the ALU.
“No matter how it ends, this was a significant moment,” Joshua Freeman, a professor emeritus of labor history at Queens College at the City University of New York. “It contributed to a wave of union organization efforts all over the country.”
“Obviously, there have been a lot of bumps in the road since a year ago,” Freeman added.
In a statement to ABC News, Amazon Spokesperson Eileen Hards said the company respects workers’ right to unionize but it contests the results of the election last year at the Staten Island warehouse, also known as JFK8.
“Our employees have the choice of whether or not to join a union,” Hards said. “They always have.”
“We strongly disagree with the outcome, and as we showed throughout the JFK8 Objections Hearing with dozens of witnesses and hundreds of pages of documents, both the NLRB and the ALU improperly influenced the outcome of the election and we don’t believe it represents what the majority of our team wants,” she added.
“They appeal everything and we continue to fight that legal battle,” Smalls told ABC News about Amazon’s ongoing challenges to the union vote. “It’s been ruling in our favor and we don’t see it reversing the other way.”
The headline-grabbing union victory at Amazon last April accelerated an upsurge of labor organizing that took hold nationwide during the pandemic, as a tight job market and sky-high prices helped fuel activism among workers at high-profile companies like Starbucks and Apple.
Over a yearlong period ending in September, petitions for union representation jumped 53%, NLRB data showed. Moreover, last year labor unions reached their highest level of public support across the U.S. since 1965, a Gallup poll showed.
“Amazon workers took the brave step to unionize a year ago,” said Seth Goldstein, a partner at Julien, Mirer, Singla, & Goldstein who represents the ALU. “No one thought that was possible.”
After the union victory, however, Amazon filed objections with the National Labor Relations Board seeking to overturn the outcome, including allegations that NLRB officials showed a favorable bias toward the workers and that union leaders bribed colleagues in an effort to win their support.
“Amazon’s abuse of the legal process is simply a stalling tactic that is meant to delay our negotiations and cause workers to lose faith in the process,” the ALU said about the allegations in September.
So far, those legal challenges by Amazon have failed. In September, a hearing officer for the NLRB recommended that the vote should stand. A few months later, in January, the NLRB officially certified the ALU, putting Amazon under a legal obligation to bargain in good faith. Amazon appealed the ruling.
Goldstein said he is confident the ALU will ultimately overcome the legal challenge. However, the court battle has delayed the start of negotiations on a collective bargaining agreement between workers and management. And even after negotiations begin, the back-and-forth could stretch on for more than a year before a contract is signed, he added.
“We all knew that this would unfortunately get bogged down,” he said. “I’m not surprised — I’m saddened.”
Such delay is typical for a first union contract, but it can fray labor solidarity, some experts said. The average length of time before a new union signs its first contract is 409 days, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis in 2021.
“It’s hard to keep a group together if you’re not improving their lives in a concrete way,” said Freeman, of the City University of New York. “You can do it for a while but at some point people roll their eyes.”
While the ALU fights Amazon in court, the union also aims to put pressure on the company through organizing within the Staten Island facility and building support among workers at other warehouses as well as leaders within the wider labor movement, Goldstein said.
However, the visible presence of union support within the Staten Island warehouse has diminished significantly since the victory last year, according to three longtime workers at the facility.
“Right after the election, there were about a dozen people I saw on the first floor wearing ALU t-shirts and yellow ‘organizer’ vests,” Natalie Monarrez, a worker who considers herself pro-union and initially organized with the ALU but ultimately voted against unionization due to concerns regarding its leadership, told ABC News.
“In the past few months, I haven’t seen any ALU t-shirts or yellow vests,” she added.
Smalls, who has traveled nationwide over the past year to speaking engagements and meetings with Amazon workers at other warehouses, has received criticism from some union activists over a perceived lack of focus on organizing within the Staten Island facility, he said.
“Whenever I’m in town, I meet with workers. I can’t organize with them inside the building. I can’t hold their hands,” Smalls, who was terminated by Amazon in 2020, said. “The requirement of any union president is to travel and amplify the workers. That’s exactly what I do.”
Smalls was fired after being accused of violating COVID-19 safety protocols, but he has alleged retaliation. Amazon denied that retribution played a role in the firing and said Smalls had received “multiple warnings” for violating social distancing guidelines.
Another sharp divide within the union centers on the governance structure that underlies its decision-making and leadership.
An initial version of the union’s constitution, filed with the Department of Labor last June, ordered that the first union elections should take place 60 days after certification of the union, a step that precedes contract negotiations; or in 2024 if the union had yet to be certified by then, according to the document.
However, a new version of the constitution, filed in December, pushed an initial election back to 90 days after the union signs its first contract, the document said. The union may not sign a contract for more than a year, leaving officers, like Smalls, in their current positions without risk of an election challenge.
At a union meeting in December, Smalls offered attendees an ultimatum regarding the new version of the constitution. “If you can’t organize by this structure and this document, this ain’t for you,” he said. “This is the law from here on out.” Some members walked out of the meeting in protest.
When asked about the meeting, Smalls said: “No one is above the constitution, including me. They don’t want to follow the rules — there’s the door. They chose the door.”
Nicole Druda, who began working at the Staten Island facility in 2021, said she voted against unionization in part because she had become disenchanted by a union that represented her at a previous job. But she said she spoke to an ALU organizer in November and began supporting the union this year.
“I really want something that will benefit me as an employee,” she said. “And as somebody who wants to be more politically active, this could help workers in general across the country get more of a voice.”
Smalls said he expects the union to reach an agreement with Amazon on a first contract within the next year.
“I don’t want to do this forever,” he added. “I’ve been laser focused on this. The only thing I have is a contract in my vision — nothing more, nothing less. A contract for the workers so we can move on to the next thing.”
Jetson Electric Bikes recalls 42-Volt Rogue Self-Balancing Scooters/Hoverboards due to fire hazard. — CPSC
(WASHINGTON) — After two deaths, approximately 53,000 hoverboards are being recalled due to fire risks, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said Thursday.
The voluntary recall impacts certain Jetson Rogue self-balancing scooters — also known as hoverboards — which were sold at Target and on the company’s website.
CPSC said a 10-year-old girl and her 15-year-old sister died from an April 2022 fire in Hellertown, Pennsylvania. Local officials determined that a 42-volt Jetson Rogue was the point of origin of the fire, according to a news release from CPSC, which also said “the cause of the fire was undetermined.”
But the agency said the lithium-ion battery packs in the hoverboards can overheat, posing a fire hazard. CPSC also said it was aware of other reports of the recalled scooters “burning, sparking or melting, several of which involved reports of flames.”
CPSC advised consumers to “immediately” stop using and stop charging the recalled 42-volt version of the self-balancing scooters and contact Jetson for a full refund.
In a statement, Jetson said the voluntary recall was “out of an abundance of caution.”
“The safety and quality of all our products is our top priority,” the company said, “and our team is committed to ensuring our products meet all industry standards and regulatory requirements.”
