Author Archives: EzekielFinlay

Donald Trump’s Employees Are Picketing His Nevada Hotel

by EzekielFinlay Posted on February 24, 2016

Mother Jones

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When Donald Trump emerged from his Las Vegas hotel Tuesday evening to visit caucus sites, an unfriendly sight greeted him: hundreds of his employees picketing to form a union.

“No contract, no peace,” hotel employees wearing red Culinary Union T-shirts chanted on the sidewalk outside Trump’s property.

A video posted by Mother Jones Magazine (@motherjonesmag) on Feb 23, 2016 at 6:53pm PST

Trump is, of course, staying just off the Vegas Strip at the Trump International Hotel, which he co-owns with Treasure Island owner Phil Ruffin. Trump’s property, open since 2008, is an outlier among the heavily unionized hotels and casinos in Vegas. Workers there have spent the past two years attempting to form a bargaining unit under the local Culinary Union, holding a vote in December during which a majority of employees said they wanted union representation. Management at the hotel objected, claiming it hadn’t been a fair election, but a local National Labor Relations Board official recently declared that Trump’s “objections be overruled in their entirety.”

Still, Trump’s management refuses to sit down and negotiate with the new bargaining unit.

Carmen Llarull, a 62-year-old housekeeper, was in the initial band of five workers who organized at the hotel. Early on, the five showed up at work wearing union badges. At the end of the day, Llarull said, management demanded they remove their badges. “We said no, this is my right to organize my co-workers,” she says. So management fired them—but just for one day, since the Culinary Union filed charges. “The next day, they call us to come back to work, telling us it was a mistake.”

“Now we want to sit with Mr. Trump,” she said. Trump threw a thumbs up to the crowd of protestoes as he drove by in his SUV, Llarull said, but no sign that he’s ready to strike a deal anytime soon.

Union protesters outside Trump’s Vegas hotel Patrick Caldwell/Mother Jones

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Donald Trump’s Employees Are Picketing His Nevada Hotel

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If This Terrifying Report Doesn’t Wake You Up to the Realities of What We’re Doing to This Planet, What Will?

by EzekielFinlay Posted on March 31, 2014

Mother Jones

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The impacts of climate change are likely to be “severe, pervasive, and irreversible,” the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said Sunday night in Yokohama, Japan, as the world’s leading climate experts released a new survey of how our planet is likely to change in the near future, and what we can do about it.

Here’s what you need to know:

  1. We’re already feeling the impacts of climate change. Glaciers are already shrinking, changing the courses of rivers and altering water supplies downstream. Species from grizzly bears to flowers have shifted their ranges and behavior. Wheat and maize yields may have dropped. But as climate impacts become more common and tangible, they’re being matched by an increasing global effort to learn how to live with them: The number of scientific studies on climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation more than doubled between 2005, before the previous IPCC report, and 2010. Scientists and policymakers are “learning through doing, and evaluating what you’ve done,” said report contributor Kirstin Dow, a climate policy researcher at the University of South Carolina. “That’s one of the most important lessons to come out of here.”
  2. Heat waves and wildfires are major threats in North America. Europe faces freshwater shortages, and Asia can expect more severe flooding from extreme storms. In North America, major threats include heat waves and wildfires, which can cause death and damage to ecosystems and property. The report names athletes and outdoor workers as particularly at risk from heat-related illnesses. As the graphic below shows, coastal flooding is also a key concern.

    James West/Climate Desk

  3. Globally, food sources will become unpredictable, even as population booms. Especially in poor countries, diminished crop production will likely lead to increased malnutrition, which already affects nearly 900 million people worldwide. Some of the world’s most important staples—maize, wheat, and rice—are at risk. The ocean will also be a less reliable source of food, with important fish resources in the tropics either moving north or going extinct, while ocean acidification eats away at shelled critters (like oysters) and coral. Shrinking supplies and rising prices will cause food insecurity, which can exacerbate preexisting social tensions and lead to conflict.
  4. Coastal communities will increasingly get hammered by flooding and erosion. Tides are already rising in the US and around the world. As polar ice continues to melt and warm water expands, sea level rise will expose major metropolitan areas, military installations, farming regions, small island nations, and other ocean-side places to increased damage from hurricanes and other extreme storms. Sea level rise brings with it risks of “death, injury, ill-health, or disrupted livelihoods,” the report says.
  5. We’ll see an increase in climate refugees and, possibly, climate-related violence. The report warns that both extreme weather events and longer-term changes in climate can lead to the displacement of vulnerable populations, especially in developing parts of the world. Climate change might also “indirectly increase” the risks of civil wars and international conflicts by exacerbating poverty and competition for resources.
  6. Climate change is expected to make people less healthy. According to the report, we can expect climate change to have a negative impact on health in many parts of the world, especially poorer countries. Why? Heat waves and fires will cause injury, disease and death. Decreased food production will mean more malnutrition. And food- and water-borne diseases will make more people sick.
  7. We don’t know how much adaptation is going to cost. The damage we’re doing to the planet means that human beings are going to have to adapt to the changing climate. But that costs money. Unfortunately, studies that estimate the global cost of climate adaptation “are characterized by shortcomings in data, methods, and coverage,” according to the IPCC. But from the “limited evidence” available, the report warns that there’s a “gap” between “global adaptation needs and the funds available.”
  8. There’s still time to reduce the impacts of global warming…if we cut our emissions. Here’s the good news: The IPCC says that the impacts of climate change—and the costs of adaptation—will be “reduced substantially” if we cut our emissions of greenhouse gases.

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If This Terrifying Report Doesn’t Wake You Up to the Realities of What We’re Doing to This Planet, What Will?

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