North Carolina
One 2024 race hasn’t been certified: What to know about North Carolina Supreme Court fight
![One 2024 race hasn’t been certified: What to know about North Carolina Supreme Court fight One 2024 race hasn’t been certified: What to know about North Carolina Supreme Court fight](https://www.gannett-cdn.com/authoring/authoring-images/2024/11/18/NTFO/76405806007-20241118-114514.jpg?auto=webp&crop=2877,1618,x2,y173&format=pjpg&width=1200)
The Republican-dominated North Carolina Supreme Court has been blocking a Democratic judge from certifying her win as her opponent continues to appeal the election results.
Democratic incumbent Justice Allison Riggs defeated her opponent, state appeals court Judge Jefferson Griffin, by 734 votes in November’s election. But Griffin has yet to concede the loss.
Attorneys for Riggs and Griffin argued their cases before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, on Monday, with North Carolina news outlet The Assembly reporting that the four-judge panel appeared likely to send the case back to state court.
“What we are witnessing in North Carolina is nothing less than a blatant attempt to overturn a free and fair election,” Democratic State Rep. Deborah Boss said at a news conference on Monday.
Here’s what we know
Republican judge makes irregular appeal to deny election result
Griffin protested the election results to the State Board of Elections in December on grounds that the board’s rules for absentee and early voting violated state law, according to The Assembly.
Griffin is arguing that the registration records of more than 60,000 voters contained no driver’s license numbers or Social Security numbers, which they must provide when registering − according to Reuters.
“We filed these protests because we believe the winners of these elections should be determined by eligible voters and only eligible voters,” Griffin’s attorney, Craig Schauer, told the board at the time − according to the Charlotte News & Observer.
The board dismissed his protest along party lines, arguing that it would be unfair to change the rules after an election.
Griffin then appealed the decision to the North Carolina Supreme Court, skipping the normal process that would begin in Wake County court, according to The Assembly.
“The idea that someone could have been registered to vote, came to vote and then has their vote discarded is anathema to the democratic system and simply cannot be tolerated,” Board Chair Alan Hirsch − a Democrat − said at the time, according to the Observer.
Griffin’s campaign but immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.
Case thrown between courts
Following Griffin’s appeal to the state Supreme Court, the election board filed its own appeal in federal court, saying that the case was a matter of federal law. The board also argued that that Griffin’s request to nullify ballots would “retroactively disenfranchise” voters and “violate numerous federal civil rights laws.”
On Jan. 6, a federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump rejected the board’s appeal. The election board subsequently appealed to the higher federal court that heard arguments Monday.
The North Carolina Supreme Court blocked certification of the election by a 4-2 vote on Jan. 7, with Riggs recusing, five Republican justices granting a stay and one Republican judge along with the lone remaining Democrat voting against it.
“Permitting post-election litigation that seeks to rewrite our state’s election rules − and, as a result, remove the right to vote in an election from people who already lawfully voted under the existing rules − invites incredible mischief,” Justice Richard Dietz, the lone Republican dissenter, wrote. “It will lead to doubts about the finality of vote counts following an election, encourage novel legal challenges that greatly delay certification of the results, and fuel an already troubling decline in public faith in our elections.”
Justice Trey Allen wrote in a concurring opinion to the unsigned stay that the decision was to provide time for courts to hear the appeal.
“I write separately to stress that the Court’s order granting Judge Griffin’s motion for temporary stay should not be taken to mean that Judge Griffin will ultimately prevail on the merits,” Allen wrote.
On Jan. 22 the state Supreme Court − with Riggs recusing − unanimously dismissed a request for a ruling on the case by Griffin and sent it to Wake County court with the stay on certifying the results intact.
The Assembly reported that the judges on the 4th Circuit, comprised of appointees two Republican appointees − made by Trump and George H.W. Bush − and one Joe Biden appointee, were likely to send the case back to the state.
Griffin’s lawyer Will Thompson, said in court Monday that the case should be sent back to the state in the wake of the State Supreme Court’s decision, according to the Associated Press.
“My position would be the petition for writ of prohibition cannot come back to life because the state’s highest court has dismissed it on state law grounds,” Thompson told the court.
A hearing in Wake County court is scheduled for Feb. 7, according to The Assembly.
“It’s important to not lose sight of the fact that Justice Riggs’ victory is the last uncertified race in this country, as we stand here today, because of the stay of certification in this case,” Samuel Hartzell, Riggs’ attorney, told the court Monday, according to The Assembly.
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North Carolina
North Carolina finds best way to stop JJ Starling is to get Syracuse guard out of the game
North Carolina
Innovative UNC program uses students to fill health care gaps
![Innovative UNC program uses students to fill health care gaps Innovative UNC program uses students to fill health care gaps](https://i0.wp.com/www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Hill-Rom_hospital_bed.jpg?fit=2272%2C1704&ssl=1)
By Maya Hagan
UNC Media Hub
The consequences of improper health care training are not lost on Dr. Meg Zomorodi. It was her reality when she lost her mother to a medical error. Now the associate provost for Interprofessional Health Initiatives at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Zomorodi turned her reality into reformation.
She co-created and teaches Biology 119, Experiencing Health Professions: A Service-Learning Partnership for Pre-Health Students. This course, first offered in the 2024 fall semester, trains undergraduate college students to serve as hospital sitters who help keep patients safe.
“My mom died of a health care error where somebody didn’t respond in an appropriate way,” Zomorodi said. “So to have created something that kind of saves another person’s life indirectly is a cool full-circle moment for me.”
While the passing of her mother gave Zomorodi a passion for improving health care education, the pandemic propelled her into action.
Zomorodi co-developed the course in response to the nursing shortage brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a study by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, an estimated 100,000 nurses left the field during the COVID-19 pandemic and an additional 610,338 registered nurses plan to leave nursing by 2027.
This semester, 41 UNC students act as patient sitters, a role traditionally filled by nurses and certified nursing assistants, to help relieve some of the stress on hospital nursing staff. The job requires student sitters to work in lower-acuity roles, supervising patients who cannot independently care for themselves, such as older patients in cognitive decline.
“I would like to scale it up right now and offer this program beyond UNC,” Zomorodi said.
The first two weeks of class are designated for training students in areas including CPR certification, crisis prevention and intervention training and other clinical skills such as phlebotomy (drawing blood). During this time students are also taught safety protocols including completing environmental surveys before each shift which requires that they check for and remove any items that could cause bodily harm. They learn how to maintain constant observation of the patient while protecting patient dignity and having clear access to exits at all times.
“It is as much about keeping you safe as it is about keeping them safe,” Michele Ream, a registered nurse and clinical nurse educator who helps teach the course, said.
Michele Ream demonstrates proper procedure for interacting with certain patients during a hospital sitters shift. Photo courtesy of Joseph Macia
The course also requires students to complete 24 hours of observation with a trained sitter where they learn how to draw blood and finish checkoffs that determine if they are able to perform the role. Students also study conflict and critical incident stress debriefing among other training requirements.
After training, students gather every Monday with a health professions adviser and a faculty member from the School of Nursing. During these sessions, the class discusses communication challenges and conflicts they may have encountered as a sitter. They also cover how students can relate their experiences back to the competencies they need for professional schools.
“We teach them not only what to do and not do in a patient sitter role, but ways that you can be an empathetic presence because sometimes these patients are confused,” Zomorodi said. “So how do you calm them down? How do you engage them? How do you keep yourself safe?”
Zomorodi said students are required to wear red scrubs to help identify them along with wearing a whistle in case of an emergency. They are also taught to press the code blue button when necessary — a training procedure that in the past, has helped a student sitter save a patient’s life.
Safety protocols such as these help the program succeed. So far, the program has provided 15 out of the 26 students in last fall’s pilot program with jobs at the hospital, according to Zomorodi. However, some hospital employees still have concerns such as where student patient sitters are placed in the hospital if there are not clear boundaries.
![Woman with dark hair talks to students about duties of patient sitters.](https://i0.wp.com/mediahub.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/PHS-18.jpg?resize=1024%2C683)
Biology 119 student reviews training modules. Photo courtesy of Joseph Macia
“I do feel there definitely should be limits on which units they can help on and which places they are safe to be,” Raygan Hawkins, a UNC student and registered CNA working for UNC Hospitals, said.
Hawkins, whose job includes patient sitting, said she felt student patient sitters should remain in lower-acuity roles such as caring for older patients, which Zomorodi emphasized is one of student sitters’ responsibilities.
“I think it would be very helpful for [student] patient sitters to help nursing homes or maybe even inpatient surgical places where [patients] are bedridden but they are also completely competent and that way if they need help you can alert someone,” Hawkins said.
Justin Gettings, an assistant professor at UNC and doctor within the departments of Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine at UNC Hospitals, agrees with Hawkins’ perspective that sitters can be valuable in specific settings.
“I could see a sitter really being helpful with an elderly patient or a demented patient,” Gettings said. “Those patients are going to want to wander, they’re going to leave, they’re going to need someone that can be calm and reassuring.”
While student sitters can have a useful role, Gettings emphasized the importance of knowing one’s limitations when working in health care.
“Knowing your scope is so important in medicine, so knowing what I’m trained to do and what I feel comfortable doing is really a critical step in anyone’s training in the medical field,” Gettings said. “So as long as the sitter knows what they’re there to do and feels confident in sort of implementing the next steps that they would need to get more higher level help, then I think it’s a reasonable thing.”
Zomorodi said students are not allowed on the psychiatric floor nor are they allowed to serve as a patient sitter for other UNC students or faculty members. However, as Zomorodi considers expanding the program, health care workers such as Hawkins emphasize ensuring certain training requirements, such as training for crisis prevention and intervention, remain in place.
Crisis prevention and intervention training can look different depending on the role of the health care worker. However, the central focus is de-escalating situations in a non-violent manner, according to the Crisis Prevention Institute.
“I would never say I felt unprepared,” Mallory Tadlock, a current UNC student and former Biology 119 patient sitter, said. “I think the modules in the training we had to go through really helped me in the scenarios. So that really helped with my comfort level.”
The student patient sitters program has not only helped students with their comfort levels but also reaffirmed their confidence within the medical field in the future.
“I learned a lot about myself and what I wanted to pursue in the future [which is] really hard to know. So without having any experience, I found it such a great resource,” Tadlock said.
Zomorodi said she hopes to offer this program to rural communities where there is a significant number of students applying to the health professions. She wants to work with partners such as UNC Pembroke and UNC Wilmington.
Based on Tadlock and others’ feedback, implementation of this program at other hospitals could have a large impact on health care experiences for patients and students.
“The number one thing that we have heard from our nursing colleagues in the professional schools that students are applying to, or even our medical school colleagues, is if you can do patient sitting, you probably can do anything,” Zomorodi said.
UNC Media Hub is a cohort of students from various concentrations within UNC Chapel Hill’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media who collaborate to produce top-tier integrated media packages covering stories across North Carolina.
North Carolina
Amazon 'anti-union propaganda,' employee surveillance loom over labor vote at North Carolina warehouse
![Amazon 'anti-union propaganda,' employee surveillance loom over labor vote at North Carolina warehouse Amazon 'anti-union propaganda,' employee surveillance loom over labor vote at North Carolina warehouse](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/108078422-1734636411035-gettyimages-2190723485-l1116667_copy_y9t0axfh.jpeg?v=1734636467&w=1920&h=1080)
Workers picket in front of an Amazon Logistic Station on December 19, 2024 in Skokie Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
Italo Medelius-Marsano was a law student at North Carolina Central University in 2022, when he took a job at an Amazon warehouse near the city of Raleigh to earn some extra cash.
The past month has been unlike any other during his three-year tenure at the company. Now, when he shows up for his shift at the shipping dock, Medelius-Marsano says he’s met with flyers and mounted TVs urging him to “vote no,” as well as QR codes on workstations that lead to an anti-union website. During meetings, managers discourage unionization.
The facility in the suburb of Garner, North Carolina, employs roughly 4,700 workers and is the site of Amazon’s latest labor showdown. Workers at the site are voting this week on whether to join Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity (CAUSE), a grassroots union made up of current and former employees.
CAUSE organizers started the group in 2022 in an effort to boost wages and improve working conditions. Voting at the site, known as RDU1, wraps up on Saturday.
Workers at RDU1 and other facilities told CNBC that Amazon is increasingly using digital tools to deter employees from unionizing. That includes messaging through the company’s app and workstation computers. There’s also automated software and handheld package scanners used to track employee performance inside the warehouse, so the company knows when staffers are working or doing something else.
“You cannot get away from the anti-union propaganda or being surveilled, because when you walk into work they have cameras all over the building,” said Medelius-Marsano, who is an organizer with CAUSE. “You can’t get into work without scanning a badge or logging into a machine. That’s how they track you.”
CAUSE representatives have also made their pitch to RDU1 employees. The union has set up a “CAUSE HQ” tent across the street from the warehouse and disbursed leaflets in the facility’s break room.
Amazon, the nation’s second-largest private employer, has long sought to keep unions out of its ranks. The strategy succeeded in the U.S. until 2022, when workers at a Staten Island warehouse voted to join the Amazon Labor Union. Last month, workers at a Whole Foods store in Philadelphia voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
In December, Amazon delivery and warehouse workers at nine facilities went on strike, organized by the Teamsters, during the height of the holiday shopping season to push the company to the bargaining table. The strike ended on Christmas Eve.
Union elections at other Amazon warehouses in New York have finished in defeat in recent years, while the results of a union drive at an Alabama facility are being contested. Organizers have pointed to Amazon’s near-constant monitoring of employees as both a catalyst and a deterrent of union campaigns.
The NLRB has 343 open or settled unfair labor practice charges filed with the agency against Amazon, its subsidiaries and contracted delivery companies in the U.S., a spokesperson said.
Amazon has argued in legal filings that the NLRB, which issues complaints against companies or unions determined to have violated labor law, is unconstitutional. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s have also made similar claims that challenge the agency’s authority.
Amazon spokeswoman Eileen Hards said the company’s employees can choose whether or not to join a union.
“We believe that both decisions should be equally protected which is why we talk openly, candidly and respectfully about these topics, actively sharing facts with employees so they can use that information to make an informed decision,” Hards said in a statement.
Hards said the company doesn’t retaliate against employees for union activities, and called claims that its employee monitoring discourages them from unionizing “odd.”
“The site is operating, so employees are still expected to perform their usual work,” Hards said in a statement. “Further, the camera technology in our facilities isn’t to surveil employees — it’s to help guide the flow of goods through the facilities and ensure security and safety of both employees and inventory.”
Orin Starn, a CAUSE organizer who was fired by Amazon early last year for violating the company’s drug and alcohol policy, called Amazon’s employee tracking “algorithmic management of labor.” Starn is an anthropology professor at Duke University who began working undercover at RDU1 in 2023 to conduct research for a book on Amazon.
“Where 100 years ago in a factory you would’ve had a supervisor come around to tell you if you’re slacking off, now in a modern warehouse like Amazon, you’re tracked digitally through a scanner,” Starn said.
‘Just the algorithm’
John Logan, a professor and director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, told CNBC in an email that Amazon has “perfected the weaponization” of technology, workplace surveillance and algorithmic management during anti-union campaigns “more than any other company.”
While Amazon may be more sophisticated than others, “the use of data analytics is becoming far more common in anti-union campaigns across the country,” Logan said. He added that it’s “extremely common” for companies to try to improve working conditions or sweeten employee perks during a union drive.
Other academics are paying equally close attention to the issue. In a research paper published last week, Northwestern University PhD candidate Teke Wiggin explored Amazon’s use of algorithms and digital devices at the company’s BHM1 warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.
“The black box and lack of accountability that comes with algorithmic management makes it harder for a worker or activist to decide if they’re being retaliated against,” Wiggin said in an interview. “Maybe their schedule changes a little bit, work feels harder than it used to, the employer can say that has nothing to do with us, that’s just the algorithm. But we have no idea if the algorithm has changed.”
People protest in support of the unionizing efforts of the Alabama Amazon workers, in Los Angeles, California, March 22, 2021.
Lucy Nicholson | Reuters
Some Amazon employees see the situation differently. Storm Smith works at RDU1 as a process assistant, which involves monitoring worker productivity and safety. Amazon referred Smith to CNBC in the course of reporting this story.
Amazon’s workplace controls, like rate and time off task, are “part of the job,” Smith said. Staffers are “always welcome” to ask her what their rate is, she added.
“For my people, if I see your rate is not where it’s supposed to be, I’ll come up to you and say, ‘Hey, this is your rate, are you feeling alright? Is there anything I could get you to get your rate up? Like a snack, a drink, whatever,” Smith said.
Wiggin interviewed 42 BHM1 employees following the first election in 2021, and reviewed NLRB records of hearings. The facility employed more than 5,800 workers at the time of the union drive.
The NLRB last November ordered a third union vote to be held at BHM1 after finding Amazon improperly interfered in two previous elections. The company has denied wrongdoing.
Amazon staffers told Wiggin that during the union campaign, the company tweaked some performance expectations to “improve working conditions” and dissuade them from unionizing. One employee said these changes were partly why he voted against the union, according to the study.
Workers at an Amazon warehouse outside St. Louis, Missouri, filed an NLRB complaint in May. The employees accused Amazon of using “intrusive algorithms” that track when they’re working to discourage them from organizing, The Guardian reported. The employees withdrew their complaint on Tuesday.
Hards said Amazon doesn’t require employees to meet specific productivity speeds or targets.
Lawmakers zeroed in on how surveillance can impact organizing efforts in recent years. In 2022, the former NLRB general counsel issued a memo calling for the group to address corporate use of “omnipresent surveillance and other algorithmic-management tools” to disrupt organizing efforts. The following year, the Biden Administration put out a request for information on automated worker surveillance and management, noting that the systems can pose risks to employees, including “their rights to form or join a labor union.”
However, the Trump administration is attempting to purge the NLRB, with the president firing the chair of the organization on his first day in office last month. Trump has put Musk, a notorious opponent of unions, in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with the goal of cutting government costs and slashing regulations.
Fired by an app
One of the most direct ways Amazon is able to disseminate anti-union messages is through the AtoZ app, which is an essential tool in their daily work.
The app is used by warehouse workers to access pay stubs and tax forms, request schedule changes or vacation time, post on the “Voice of the Associate” message board, and communicate with human resources.
Jennifer Bates, a prominent union organizer at BHM1, learned Amazon fired her through AtoZ in 2023. She was later reinstated by Amazon “after a full review of her case,” and provided backpay, Hards said.
Jennifer Bates, an Amazon.com, Inc. fulfillment center employee, stands for a portrait at the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) office in Birmingham, Alabama on March 26, 2021.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which sought to represent BHM1 workers, has said the AtoZ app can access a user’s GPS, photos, camera, microphone and WiFi-connection information. The union also claims that “Amazon can sell the data collected to any third party companies and that data cannot be deleted.” The technology raises several concerns, including that it may suppress “the right to organize,” RWDSU said.
Hards said the RWDSU’s claims are inaccurate and denied that the company sells any data affiliated with AtoZ use. She said AtoZ users must give the app permission to access things like their GPS location.
At the Garner facility, the AtoZ app has been plastered with “anti-union propaganda” since the RDU1 election was announced last month, Medelius-Marsano said.
One AtoZ message suggested employees’ benefits could be at risk if they voted in a union, while another described CAUSE as an “outside party” that’s “claiming to be a union.”
RDU1 site leader Kristen Tettemer said in another message that a group like CAUSE “can get in the way of how we work together,” and that “once in, a union is very difficult to remove.” Smith said Amazon’s response to the union drive has been centered around “putting out the facts and telling you to do your research.”
Medelius-Marsano said it all amounts to an environment of intimidation.
“There’s no doubt about it,” Medelius-Marsano said. “If we lose, fear is going to be the reason.”
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