Business
State board approves protections for hot workplaces
Relief is on the horizon for California fast-food workers operating hot kitchen appliances, logistics workers in vast inland warehouses that lack cooling equipment and others laboring in hot indoor settings as a state agency Thursday approved new workplace protections against excessive heat.
A standards board at the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health voted unanimously to adopt safety measures that require employers to provide cooling areas and monitor workers for signs of heat illness when indoor workplaces temperatures reach or surpass 82 degrees.
If temperatures climb to 87 degrees, or workers are made to work near hot equipment, employers must take additional safety precautions by cooling the work site, allocating more breaks, rotating out workers or making other adjustments.
The new rules still must undergo a procedural legal review. If that review process is expedited the new rules could be in effect by late July or early August. Otherwise, they are likely to be in place by October.
Thursday’s vote marked the end of more than five years of delays in the effort to strengthen the state’s requirements for indoor working conditions. Most recently, a scheduled vote on the rules in March was cancelled after finance officials from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration raised last-minute concerns about the costs California prisons and other public entities would incur trying to adhere to the new rules.
In light of those concerns, the rules were amended to exclude state and local correctional facilities.
During a public comment period before the board voted, several people urged the board to pass the long-awaited measure.
Tim Shadix, legal director at Warehouse Worker, an advocacy group, said it “would be a tragedy,” if workers become sick from heat exposure this summer and hoped to see the rules in place “well before the end of summer.”
AnaStacia Nicol Wright, a policy manager at Worksafe, voiced concern about the decision to exclude correctional facilities, which employ tens of thousands of people in “archaic buildings with little protection from temperatures.”
Wright pressed the board should move swiftly to put pass separate protections for correctional staff and incarcerated workers.
California, in 2006, became the first state in the nation to implement heat standards for outdoor work, requiring employers to provide access to shade and water, and cool-down rests when workers need them. In high heat conditions, defined as temperatures of 95 degrees or higher, employers are required to remind workers of safe practices, encourage breaks and drinking water, and observe them for signs or symptoms of heat illness.
In 2016, the California Legislature turned its attention to indoor conditions, directing the Cal/OSHA to develop an indoor heat standard by 2019. The agency drafted a proposal mirroring the state regulations that protect outdoor workers, but the rule-making process moved slowly, blowing past the 2019 deadline.
Thursday’s vote came against the backdrop of recent shake-ups on the board that approved the rules.
Earlier this month, the Newsom administration removed worker safety expert Laura Stock and demoted David Thomas from his position as chair of the board after they criticized the 11th-hour decision to delay the vote in March.
Head of the California Labor Federation Lorena Gonzalez criticized the move, saying neither she nor other labor leaders had been consulted in advance.
“Obviously, we are disappointed. We think it’s a big loss for the board,” Gonzalez said. “We hope it’s not retribution for standing up for workers on heat standards.”
In recent years, as the state has experienced record-breaking heat waves, cooks, warehouse workers and delivery drivers have repeatedly raised concerns about high temperatures.
Victor Ramirez, who has worked in various warehouses in the Inland Empire over the past two decades, most recently at a facility in Fontana operated by Menasha Packaging, said many of the warehouses he’s worked in did not have air conditioning or fans. In recent years, fans and air conditioning have become more common, but they “aren’t very effective and those warehouses still feel hot,” he said.
“We need this rule in place right now. Workers need protections, they need training so they know the dangers of the job and working in heat,” Ramirez said. “It’s a basic right to work in a safe environment.”
The Justice Department accuses Visa of unfairly stifling competition in debit cards, claiming the company has maintained a monopoly by imposing or threatening to impose higher fees on merchants that also use other payment networks.
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President Biden’s top antitrust enforcers have promised to sue monopolies and block big mergers — a cornerstone of the administration’s economic agenda to restore competition to the economy.
Below are 15 major cases brought by the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission since late 2020 (including cases against Google and Meta initially filed during the Trump administration just before Mr. Biden took office).
The government has won several but not all the cases. And with only a few months remaining for the current administration, the number of suits is climbing, as regulators go after dominant companies in tech, pharmaceuticals, finance and even groceries.
In a lawsuit, the D.O.J. said that more than 60 percent of debit transactions in the United States run on Visa’s network, allowing it to charge over $7 billion in fees each year for processing those transactions. Government lawyers argued that Visa penalizes its customers when they try to use competing services and that it has built a monopoly around payment processing.
The Justice Department accuses Visa of unfairly stifling competition in debit cards, claiming the company has maintained a monopoly by imposing or threatening to impose higher fees on merchants that also use other payment networks.
Read more › The F.T.C. accused three big prescription drug middlemen, known as pharmacy benefits managers, of artificially raising prices for insulin drugs and making it harder for individuals to obtain cheaper options. The legal action targeted CVS Health’s Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx and subsidiaries they’ve created to handle drug negotiations. The three companies collectively control 80 percent of prescriptions in the United States.
The F.T.C. files an administrative complaint, which is not yet public, that seeks to prohibit pharmacy benefit managers from steering patients to drugs that make them more money.
Read more › The F.T.C. sued to block Kroger’s $24.6 billion acquisiton of Albertsons, which, if allowed to proceed, would be the biggest supermarket merger in U.S. history. The companies said the merger would bolster their leverage with suppliers; the government contended that it would drive up prices for shoppers and suppress worker wages.
The hearing, a mini-trial, lasts just over three weeks. The judge in the case has yet to issue a decision.
The trial begins in Oregon, where both grocery companies have a significant presence. The case enters the spotlight as high food prices become a critical focus in the presidential race.
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The F.T.C. and eight states, plus the District of Columbia, sue to block Kroger from acquiring rival supermarket chain Albertsons. They say the deal would most likely result in higher prices for groceries and weakened bargaining power for unionized workers.
Read more › The D.O.J. alleged Google harmed competition over the technology used to place advertising on web sites. The department and eight states said Google acquired rivals through anticompetitive mergers and bullied publishers and advertisers into using the company’s ad technology.
The trial is expected to take about a month. The government has asked for a breakup of the company, requiring Google to sell off some assets.
Read more › The Justice Department and a group of eight states accuse Google of abusing a monopoly over the technology that powers online advertising.
Read more › The D.O.J. and a group of states sued Google, saying its role in about 90 percent of all internet searches made it a monopoly. The lawsuit, which was filed in the final days of the Trump administration, alleged Google uses exclusive contracts with phone makers like Apple and other companies to feature Google search on their devices, making it harder for consumers to use rival search engines like Bing or DuckDuckGo.
In a 277-page ruling, a federal judge calls Google a monopolist and says it has acted illegally to maintain that monopoly. A trial to determine remedies is set to begin in 2025.
Read more › The chief executive of Google’s parent company, Sundar Pichai, counters the government’s narrative in testimony that describes Google’s deals with other tech companies as having been in the best interest of consumers.
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As a trial begins, Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft, becomes the government’s highest-profile witness in the case when he testifies that even his company has found it difficult to compete with Google’s search products.
Read more › The Justice Department accuses Google of maintaining its monopoly over search and search advertising, crowding out competition through exclusive business contracts.
Read more › An F.T.C. lawsuit sought to block Tapestry’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri, a blockbuster fashion tie-up to bring together Coach, Kate Spade, Michael Kors and Versace. The suit was a rare move by the agency to block a fashion deal, given that the industry does not suffer from a lack of competition.
A hearing, which effectively serves as a mini-trial, begins over whether the government should put a halt to the deal while the F.T.C. can mount a case against the merger.
The F.T.C. sues to block a merger of two fashion companies, Tapestry and Capri Holdings, that would bring together brands like Coach, Michael Kors and Kate Spade. The agency says the deal could force millions of consumers to pay more for “accessible luxury” accessories — less expensive goods sold by high-end firms — because the combined company would no longer have the incentive to compete on price.
Read more › An antitrust lawsuit filed by the D.O.J. and several states against RealPage, a real estate software company, said its technology enabled landlords to collude to raise rents across the country. It was the first major civil antitrust lawsuit to centrally feature the role of an algorithm in pricing manipulation, D.O.J. officials said.
In its complaint, the Justice Department accuses RealPage of enabling a price-fixing conspiracy that artificially raised rents for millions of people.
Read more › The D.O.J. accused Apple of using a monopoly in the smartphone market to stifle competition and inflate prices for consumers. In its suit, the department said Apple blocked companies from offering apps that competed with Apple versions, including Messages and Wallet.
Apple files a motion to dismiss the case, saying its business decisions didn’t violate antitrust laws. It has argued that those decisions make the iPhone a better experience.
The Justice Department and 16 states, plus the District of Columbia, file a challenge to the reach and influence of Apple, arguing that the company has used anticompetitive tactics to keep customers reliant on their iPhones.
Read more › Live Nation Entertainment, the concert giant that owns Ticketmaster, stands accused of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live entertainment industry. The D.O.J. said Ticketmaster provided exclusive ticketing contracts with concert venues, which helped Live Nation shore up its dominance, depriving consumers of better prices and options.
The Justice Department, joined by 29 states and the District of Columbia, accuses Live Nation of leveraging its sprawling empire to dominate the live music industry by locking venues into exclusive ticketing contracts, pressuring artists to use its services and threatening its rivals with financial retribution.
Read more › A merger between JetBlue and Spirit, which would have created the fifth-largest airline in the United States, was blocked by a federal judge after a D.O.J. challenge. Government lawyers argued that smaller, low-cost airlines like Spirit helped reduce fares and that allowing the company to be acquired by JetBlue, which tends to charge higher prices than Spirit, would have hurt consumers.
JetBlue and Spirit announce that they will not seek to overturn a court ruling that blocked their planned $3.8 billion merger.
Read more › In a 109-page ruling siding with the government, the judge in the case says the merger would “likely incentivize JetBlue further to abandon its roots as a maverick, low-cost carrier.”
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The Justice Department files a lawsuit seeking to stop JetBlue Airways from buying Spirit Airlines, arguing that the $3.8 billion deal would reduce competition.
Read more › A lawsuit filed by the F.T.C. and 17 states against Amazon accused the retail behemoth of squeezing merchants and favoring its own competing brands and services over third-party sellers. A trial date is set for 2026.
Amazon asks the court to dismiss the suit, arguing that the F.T.C. failed to identify the harm consumers were experiencing. It says the agency confused “common retail practices” with monopolistic behavior.
The F.T.C. and 17 states sue Amazon, contending its online store and merchant services illegally stifle competition. The lawsuit that raises the possibility of altering the company’s structure.
Read more › The F.T.C. sued to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which, if allowed to proceed, would be the largest consumer tech acquisition since AOL bought Time Warner more than two decades ago. The case follows scrutiny of the deal by regulators in Europe. Microsoft makes the consoles and platforms on which Activision’s games are played, and the merger of two companies that don’t directly compete is known as a vertical merger. Cases against vertical mergers have traditionally been difficult to win.
Microsoft says it has closed its deal with Activision Blizzard, signaling that the tech industry’s giants are still free to use their cash hoards to get even bigger.
Read more › In a 53-page decision, a judge says the F.T.C. has failed to show the merger would result in a substantial reduction in competition that would harm consumers.
Read more › The F.T.C. seeks a preliminary injunction to bar Microsoft from completing the deal before the F.T.C. has the chance to argue the case in its internal court. Microsoft argues a delay would essentially be killing the deal anyway.
Read more › In its suit, the F.T.C. says Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard would harm consumers because Microsoft could use Activision’s blockbuster games like Call of Duty to lure gamers from rivals.
Read more › The Justice Department sought to block a proposed merger between the largest publisher in the United States and a key rival.
In an order, a judge says that the government has demonstrated that the merger might “substantially” harm competition in the market for U.S. publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books.
Read more › The D.O.J. sued to block UnitedHealth Group’s $13 billion acquisition of health technology company Change Healthcare, arguing that a deal would give UnitedHealth sensitive data that it could wield against its competitors in the insurance business.
After a trial over the summer, a judge says in a 58-page memo that UnitedHealth’s incentives to protect customer data as it grows its businesses outweigh motivations to misuse the information.
In a lawsuit, the Justice Department argues UnitedHealth Group’s deal to acquire Change Healthcare, a health technology company, would give the giant insurer access to sensitive data that it could wield against its competitors.
Read more ›
new video loaded: The U.S. Is Mining for Uranium
September 23, 2024
Miners at Pinyon Plain uranium mine, Arizona.
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new video loaded: Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rates for the First Time in Four Years
transcript
transcript
Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rates for the First Time in Four Years
Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said that the central bank would take future interest rate cuts “meeting by meeting” after lowering rates by a half percentage point, an unusually large move.
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Today, the Federal Open Market Committee decided to reduce the degree of policy restraint by lowering our policy interest rate by a half percentage point. Our patient approach over the past year has paid dividends. Inflation is now much closer to our objective, and we have gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent. We’re going to take it meeting by meeting. As I mentioned, there’s no sense that the committee feels it’s in a rush to do this. We made a good, strong start to this, and that’s really, frankly, a sign of our confidence — confidence that inflation is coming down.
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