Compare And Contrast: Merck NLRB Charge, At West Point: Resolved In 17 Elapsed Days… Vs. Amazon’s Endless Foot-Dragging — On The Now Inevitable.

October 16, 2022October 16, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

First, a caveat: these are not quite “apples to apples” comparisons, since USW Local 10-86 has been the recognized union at Merck’s West Point facility for decades upon decades — so both sides have a long and largely peaceful labor history to look back on — and much skin in the game, on both sides — to keep it that way. But it is fascinating that a charge of violating the super-seniority rules, brought by a union worker… was resolved, start to finish, between the company, the union — and the worker… in only 17 days.

There is a lesson here, for Amazon (one Merck has now learned — over decades, as we’ve reported): make peace quickly and quietly — for in the longer run, a small matter… can become a bonfire… if left unattended, or treated as not worthy of management attention. [Significantly, it is one of only two unionized facilities, in all of Merck’s US holdings. An additional lesson, there — for Mr. Bezos.] Note the dates, running from last to first:

…08/17/2022 Letter Approving Withdrawal Request

08/01/2022 Initial Letter to Employer in C Case

08/01/2022 Initial Letter to Charging Party

08/01/2022 Initial Letter to Charged Party

08/01/2022 Signed Charge… by Charging Party….

Yes — I am saying that Mr. Bezos, as still the largest single shareholder of Amazon (by far) should tell his board, and the executives… it is past time to make peace: to recognize JFK8’s right to be represented by Mr. Small’s labor union, called ALU. To bargain fairly, and accept the outcome of all elections the other facilities hold. By my count there are over 50 pending complaints at the NLRB now, about Amazon’s labor practices.

[I’ll note in passing that Apple just lost a second union vote, this time in Oklahoma City. But it is trying to make peace before more votes are held. Meanwhile Amazon faces at least four votes in the coming weeks, on top of all else.]

See also, the recent experiences at Google and Starbucks, as well. The object lesson, on this quiet Sunday morning, over hot coffee and buttery, warmed poticia?

To run this particular set of businesses (like having to trust your employees to make pure and perfect pharmaceutical inputs, for life saving medicines, as one cannot watch every employee 24/7), one of hard-working individual drivers… operating literally thousands of trucks — doing the heavy lifting — delivering all over a metro- area — with little real time “eyes on” supervision… one must come to rely on the good will of those employees, and trust their genuine desire to do the best job they can… and that comes… only by respecting them. Something that has been in very short supply at Amazon for at least six long years. Onward — live and learn — or get… unionized. [The ship has sailed on avoiding a union now, because Bezos didn’t take his workers seriously… for a decade.] Out.

नमस्ते

Hinderaker, A Moron’s Moron — On The Moron Tulsi Gabbard. Yawn.

October 16, 2022October 16, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Did his third grade grandson write the first seven or so paragraphs?

I think the sentence construction strongly suggests… it was just “subject verb” dictation of a dull evening’s notes (zero cogent insights)… or (equally likely) someone wrote it for him.

As just one example — he’s never mentioned Steve Bannon’s physical appearance once, in twenty long years (nor Karl Rove’s)… but just as with Kristi Noem (every time she’s appeared at his think tank benefits) — he spent three paragraphs on Gabbard’s physical appearance.

Actually… not that odd, for a doddering mediocre whyte guy, whose brain is still firmly planted in, and enamored of… the 1950s.

No, the only remotely interesting thing he had to say was phrased as a question… and because he doesn’t report any of the substance of Gabbard’s answer… the whole post is… drearily boring.

The question essentially was “How can she defend calling Democrats ‘war mongers’ — which is an especially puzzling (and ahistorical) charge, at least to all of us alive and growing up during the latter stages of the debacle in Vietnam?”

Since it is a provably false claim (at least insofar as the measuring stick is any comparison to the GOP)… I suspect her answer was just some MAGA isolationism talking points. [I suggest that, as I’m sure she’s ALREADY on the hunt for far right donor pots, thus the Minnesota appearance last night — for tapping when she eventually picks an elected office to run for, as a MAGA / GOP wanna-be.]

But if one compares Democratic platforms to say… the Pacifist- or Quaker- parties’ platforms (collectively less than one per cent of the US electorate!)… she might have a point.

In any event, I’ll close by noting that John broadly implied that any woman who wears glamorous fashions cannot be a “serious” politician.

Yep — that’s on brand for his think tank, his party… and… his life and wife.

Pretty pathetically last century, this guy.

Out.

The “Spider’s Web” Mystery (First Appeared / Visible To Earth, Some 5,000 Years Ago)… Wolf-Rayet 140: Solved, By NASA’s Next Gen Space ‘Scope Team…

October 15, 2022October 15, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Back in early September, we mentioned what we thought might be an enduring open question: what physics might be at work to create the strange, sort of rectangular wavelets, at right spinning off of Wolf-Rayet 140 (near Gaia).

It turns out that the mystery was solved in under a month, with the power of our new [name redacted] space telescope, out at L2.

Having a new, and very powerful tool… makes all the difference. It turns out that two stars (one very large, and massive; the other very small and now dying) are revolving tightly around each other, at about once every eight years, and as they draw closest in each orbital cycle the stellar winds compress into each other, creating something not unlike a set of rings, in a tree’s cross-section. Do watch the YouTube explainer at bottom, as the compression force creates a regular series of more opaque (carbon dust) bands, and those propagate out at a regular interval / steady speed, over time. So each ring represents about eight years’ time, on Earth.

It remains unclear, to me, at least — why the wave pattern isn’t more circular / elliptical. . . but instead seems to most-nearly resemble a “rectangular boxed” shape. I guess that is for future study / observations. It also turns out (via the video, at one minute and twenty seconds!) that because the duo’s orbits are so highly-elliptical, each of the close approaches causes a flattened curve to be propagated outward, in bands of carbon filled dust. . . thus explaining why it looks flat on two sides. Wild!

Here’s the latest, from this past week:

…A new image shows at least 17 dust rings created by a rare type of star and its companion locked in a celestial dance….

A new image from NASA’s [Redacted] Space Telescope reveals a remarkable cosmic sight: at least 17 concentric dust rings emanating from a pair of stars. Located just over 5,000 light-years from Earth, the duo is collectively known as Wolf-Rayet 140.

Each ring was created when the two stars came close together and their stellar winds (streams of gas they blow into space) met, compressing the gas and forming dust. The stars’ orbits bring them together about once every eight years; like the growth of rings of a tree’s trunk, the dust loops mark the passage of time.

“We’re looking at over a century of dust production from this system,” said Ryan Lau, an astronomer at NSF’s NOIRLab and lead author of a new study about the system, published today in the journal Nature Astronomy. “The image also illustrates just how sensitive this telescope is. Before, we were only able to see two dust rings, using ground-based telescopes. Now we see at least 17 of them….”

This truly is a phenomenal time to be alive, and able to witness the progress of all scientific endeavors — but especially interstellar space science:

नमस्ते

Trump Is Very “Near Dead” — In The 18 USC § 793(c) Indictment Proceedings, Now…

October 14, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

The government just moved, by brief, to have the Eleventh Circuit panel set aside essentially the entirety of silly Aileen Cannon’s trial court orders.

It makes a plain but muscular case that she (as we’ve long said) was acting under no authority in issuing it. Here are all 48 pages — and a bit:

…[Trump] cannot successfully invoke the privilege to prevent a review of Executive Branch documents by “the very Executive Branch in whose name the privilege is invoked.” Nixon v. GSA, 433 U.S. at 447-49. Even if Plaintiff could assert such a claim, it would be overcome here by the government’s “demonstrated, specific need” for evidence in a criminal investigation. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. at 713. The government’s need for the records bearing classification markings is especially compelling because those records are the very object of the government’s investigation of potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 793….

The records recovered by the government during the August 8 search that bear classification markings are the very records that Plaintiff was required to produce on June 3, and over which he raised no claim of executive privilege. Having failed to produce documents responsive to a lawful grand-jury subpoena, [Trump, the] Plaintiff, should not be rewarded with an opportunity to further delay the government’s investigation by interposing such privilege claims now. Cf. Ramirez v. Collier, 142 S. Ct. 1264, 1282 (2022) (“When a party seeking equitable relief ‘has violated conscience, or good faith, or other equitable principle, in his prior conduct, then the doors of the court will be shut against him.’” (quoting Keystone Driller Co. v. General Excavator Co., 290 U.S. 240, 245 (1933))) ….

No wonder the boys are yammering on and on, about (non-relevant, let alone compelling) U. of Minn. med school aspirational oaths. They need to turn the page on Tangerine’s coming national secrets stealing (multi-felonies) indictment.

How very droll.

From Tel Aviv: A Possible Ebola Variant (Sudan) Case Has Appeared In An Israeli Traveler — Flying Out Of East Africa…

October 14, 2022October 16, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Again, this Israeli national arriving at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv fell ill after visiting Uganda, but it is not yet confirmed that his is the Sudan Ebola virus, or even Ebola at all — just yet.

Even so, Israel will now screen incoming passengers from Uganda. Here’s the latest from The Jerusalem Post:

…An Israeli who had fallen ill after returning from Uganda amid the ongoing Ebola virus outbreak in East Africa was hospitalized in a quarantined section of Sheba Medical Center, KAN News reported on Friday.

Health Ministry officials are reportedly concerned he might have contracted Ebola during his stay in Uganda.

The first Ebola test taken by the patient yielded a negative result, according to the report. He is nevertheless set to remain in quarantine, as symptoms can begin to appear after 21 days….

This may soon be the policy for all middle eastern countries. Onward, awaiting a green light for the ring vaccine tests of the GSK / Sabin Institute’s vaccine candidate, in-country in Uganda, while smiling a sad smile, on a cool fall Friday evening….

नमस्ते

Not One — But TWO… Long-Form Would-Be “Exposés”, On A Local Med School’s Aspirational Ethics… Oath?!

October 14, 2022October 14, 2022 ~ condor ~ 1 Comment

There was a time when, way back in 2000-to-2004, the boys had some interesting — and frankly, important — things to write about. I disagreed with them vehemently on the way they spun then current events into some fear-filled cabal of unseen hands… but they did offer some valid perspectives.

No longer.

For at least the last 12 years, the boys have been slipping into… lunacy.

Exhibits A and B, this morning? Scott Johnson writes a pair of long form purported “take-downs” of what a medical school is assigning to its students… as a form of ethics policy.

This is absolutely not a weighty matter — and it is not even local Minnesota news, of any sort.

Yet here they are — just frothing with impotent rage, shaking their fists… through a screen door… and complaining about the kids walking on the old farts’ lawn, on their way home from school.

Geez, guys… let it go. The world out there — the wide, bright and beautifully vibrant one (that scares your old bones so much) — has moved beyond your 1950s whyte male patrician (stay at home trophy wife / model) dominated view of the world — and your crook of a leader’s, too.

A Third NY Amazon Facility Now Voting On Whether To Unionize: Albany, This Time… [Monthly Update.]

October 12, 2022October 12, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Voting began yesterday, and the NLRB regional officers will begin tallying those votes in one week, on the 18^th

Separately, 50 first shift workers on Staten Island at JFK8 have been suspended for refusing an order to go back to work, on the floor — after a fire broke out on the third shift. That has been grieved to the NLRB as well.

Yep — this is my monthly catch up post on stuff I saw about labor matters at Amazon: closer to my neck of the woods, on Prime Day, down in Joliet, many of the workers staged a one day brown out (after racist death threat signs were seen in the facility), prior to Prime Day. That Joliet facility is scheduled to vote on whether ALU Chicago will represent them, next month. But here is the latest, from Barrons — on Albany:

…Amazon workers at an upstate New York warehouse began voting Wednesday on whether to unionize in the latest labor battle following a surprise union win earlier this year at another Amazon site.

Amazon Labor Union (ALU), which won a unionization vote in April at the 8,000-employee JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island in New York City, is hoping to follow up that upset with another win at a much smaller Amazon facility near the state capital Albany.

Some 400 full-time hourly workers at the ALB1 site in Castelton-On-Hudson, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) north of Manhattan, will vote between Wednesday and Monday on whether to be represented by ALU.

The National Labor Relations Board, which is overseeing the election, plans to begin counting ballots on Tuesday, October 18….

Meanwhile, Bezos is preparing to launch… [mumbles something…] called Kuiper — named after the Kuiper Belt. [But he keeps switching rocket vendors… is he refusing to pay regular market rates (I am given to understand), just as he plainly treats his… hired labor pools?] Damn.

नमस्ते

Ebola / Sudan Variant: This Will Be The Beginnings Of Additional Collective Bargaining — By Nurses’ Unions, In US Provider Facilities… As It Ought To Be.

October 12, 2022October 12, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

On the heels of yesterday’s troubling news out of Karachi, the largest US nurses’ union is sending open letters to all major US health care provider facilities (through union leadership in each facility) — quite rightly elevating the profile of specific preparedness, for this precise possibility (even if fairly remote).

The US CDC and HHS have very detailed playbooks at the ready, for just this sort of possibility: a person with Sudan variant Ebola makes his or her way into the US, by plane (most likely). . . and is missed, at a screening. When the person gets sick, and likely transmits the virus to others, in a community — who / what / where, and when should come next?

That is a very valid point — over which the union should be able to open discussions with management, in all facilities subject to a collective bargaining agreement. And so, the union is quite right to ask that CDC start a very proactive outreach with management trainings, in advance of a live emergency. It is afterall, the nurses who will literally be putting their lives on the line:

…According to the World Health Organization, as of October 5, 2022, a total of 63 confirmed and probable cases have been reported, including 29 deaths during the current outbreak. Ten health care workers have been infected, and four have died from Ebola virus disease. While no known cases related to this outbreak have been reported in the United States, Ebola virus disease (also known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever) is a deadly disease with estimated case-fatality rates ranging from 41 percent to 100 percent, for which no vaccine or treatment is available for the prevention and treatment of Sudan ebolavirus. The fast-growing outbreak of Ebola cases combined with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic poses additional risks to patients and health care workers….

We assume you have a plan in place for the care of patients with Ebola virus in your facilities. Many of these plans will have an impact on the terms and conditions of employment for our members, therefore, please consider this to be our demand to bargain over these issues at your earliest availability….

We truly do not want to seem alarmist, but the high fatality rates seen when there was no vaccine… mean that extreme vigilance is needed. We all should lock arms and support this effort, here — and around the globe. Onward, smiling….

नमस्ते

Merck Exercises $250 Million Upfront Option — To Co-Develop And Market “Personalized” Melanoma Vaccine Candidate mRNA-4157 With Moderna

October 12, 2022October 12, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

It is an extraordinary time to be… alive — and witnessing the history of the life sciences’ relentless advances.

These two companies have been working together since 2015, and well before the collabo on the Covid-19 vaccine, on all sorts of mRNA based approaches, primarily in solid tumors / oncology. Now, the first and most likely candidate is ready for human trials. The hope here is that the candidate mRNA-4157 will help melanoma patients (using personalized markers) boost their own internal T-cell production, and use those to fight the cancerous cells. It will be tested in combination with Merck’s juggernaut Keytruda^®, as regular readers well-know — already shown to be highly effective in melanoma.

Indeed — the time of cancer’s dominance over human longevity… may already be drawn to a close, at least in certain fairly common cancers. Much yet to be done, of course, but Moderna’s stock popped nicely this morning on the news — and the promise of a whole new way of approaching the oncology wards. Here’s a bit, from Reuters reporting:

…Merck opted to jointly develop and potentially sell a personalized mRNA vaccine with Moderna Inc. for a $250 million upfront payment on Wednesday, sending the vaccine maker’s shares up over 8%.

Moderna’s experimental vaccine is being tested in combination with Merck’s blockbuster cancer immunotherapy, Keytruda, in a mid-stage trial to treat patients with melanoma. Data on the vaccine, mRNA-4157, is expected in the fourth quarter of this year….

In 2016, Merck and Moderna entered a strategic partnership to develop a personalized vaccine for treatment of various types of cancer. Merck in 2020 sold its equity investment in Moderna, benefiting from a surge in the vaccine-maker’s stock price that year….

Smiling, even on this rather drab morning, as a soft, cool rain… falls in a patter, on the now mostly golden leaves.

नमस्ते