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Indonesia’s health-care employees scuffling with a ‘double burden’: NGO

Indonesia's health-care workers struggling with a 'double burden': NGO

A medical staff member checks on Covid-19 coronavirus patients at a hospital’s intensive care unit ward in Bogor on June 18, 2021, as Indonesia’s Covid-19 coronavirus infection rate soars.

Aditya Aji | AFP | Getty Images

Medical workers in Indonesia are grappling with the pressure of caring for Covid-19 patients while quickly vaccinating the country’s residents as infections increase, according to a global health and humanitarian relief organization.

“Health care workers in Indonesia are struggling with a double burden,” said Edhie Rahmat, executive director for Indonesia at Project HOPE, short for Health Opportunities for People Everywhere.

First, they have to take care of both Covid patients and patients with other diseases. Second, they are “under pressure to rapidly cover a high number of populations that need to be vaccinated,” he told CNBC in an email.

Total infections crossed the 2 million threshold on Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. More than 55,594 people have died of Covid-19 in Indonesia. Meanwhile, around 8.9% of Indonesia’s population has received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, and 4.6% of the country is fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data.

The longer the pandemic lasts and the higher the caseload builds, (it) will impact their workload and make them vulnerable to transmission and infection.

Edhie Rahmat

Executive director for Indonesia at Project HOPE

“The longer the pandemic lasts and the higher the caseload builds, will impact their workload and make them vulnerable to transmission and infection,” he said, noting that there are limited beds in intensive care units and a lack of good quality personal protective equipment in the country.

Nearly 980 health-care staff have died from Covid-19, according to data from LaporCovid-19.

Medical workers are also at risk of developing mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, Rahmat said.

“Most health care workers in Indonesia do not have the experience to deal with long-term crisis situations like this,” Project HOPE’s emergency response specialist for Southeast Asia, Yogi Mahendra, said in a statement.

Increase in cases

Indonesia’s coronavirus cases have spiked in recent weeks following the Eid holiday in May.

“Most Indonesians, regardless of their religion, enjoy this gathering and celebrate with lots of food, handshaking and talking,” said Rahmat.

Authorities announced tighter restrictions in 29 infection hot spots this week, in a bid to contain the spread of the virus, Reuters reported.

In these so-called “red zones,” religious activities at places of worship have been suspended, while restaurants, cafes and malls can only operate at 25% capacity, Reuters said.

The country’s most populous island, Java, has been hit hardest by the second wave, Rahmat said.

He also noted that some vaccinated health-care workers have come down with Covid-19, pointing to a report from an official in the district of Kudus, who said 350 such cases have been detected.

“We also received a report of a midwife dying in the district next to Kudus and two doctors died in the same period in different districts,” he said.

Even if medical workers have mild symptoms, they need to be isolated for 10 days and cannot work in the hospitals at a time when cases are “rocketing,” he added.

“This is a serious issue and may ruin the health system,” said Rahmat.

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Health

Taiwan Orders Some Tech Employees to Keep Indoors to Sort out an Outbreak

Taiwan Orders Some Tech Workers to Stay Indoors to Tackle an Outbreak

TAIPEI, Taiwan – Officials in a county in Taiwan face a storm of criticism after banning foreign workers from going outside to eradicate a cluster of coronavirus infections among workers at several technology manufacturers.

As part of the measures announced by authorities in the central Miaoli district last week, thousands of migrant workers, mostly from Vietnam and the Philippines, will be prevented from leaving their dormitories except to travel to and from their jobs in high-tech factories. Some workers expressed concerns that conditions in the cramped dormitories, where up to six people share a room, could further spread the virus.

Other workers who were in close contact with infected colleagues were confiscated in quarantine centers. In some of these facilities, activists said workers were served spoiled food or lack of running water.

The officials did not say how long the restrictions apply. At a press conference last week, Miaoli County Magistrate Hsu Yao-chang denied complaints from migrant workers.

“They tested positive and even died from the virus,” he said. “Why talk about human rights now?”

On Friday, Miaoli County reported 26 new infections, mostly among migrant workers, bringing the total number of confirmed cases related to the factories to more than 450, according to the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control. More than 300 packages were found at the hardest hit company, King Yuan Electronics, a semiconductor chip testing and packaging company.

Some workers said they understood the reasons for the restrictions, but argued that they were selecting foreign workers. Taiwanese workers, most of whom work as managers and supervisors in the factories, were allowed to come and go as they pleased, many foreign workers said.

“This is discrimination,” said John Ray Tallud, 29, a Filipino equipment engineer with King Yuan Electronics, in a telephone interview from his dormitory. “Local Taiwanese can go outside anytime.”

Throughout the pandemic, migrant workers were among the most vulnerable groups in the world. Singapore banned hundreds of thousands of low-paid foreign workers from leaving their dormitories for months after the major outbreaks last year. Rural laborers in the United States were considered indispensable and continued to work shoulder to shoulder in the fields, although many became infected.

Until recently, Taiwan was an exception – a covid-free island for most of the pandemic, with tight border controls making it difficult for companies to accept more migrant workers. As a result, union activists say the existing migrant workers – more than 700,000 workers, most from Southeast Asian countries – have gained bargaining power with their employers.

That changed with the recent outbreak. Advocates of migrant workers have criticized the Miaoli government for creating further fear and stigmatization of foreign workers. Many said the order exposed longstanding discrimination against workers who have become a vital, if largely invisible, pillar of the Taiwanese economy – especially its important high-tech industries.

“This is a clear case of injustice,” said Chang Cheng, founder of 4-Way Voice, a multilingual publication for migrant workers in Taiwan. “If we talk about Taiwan’s main industries, they couldn’t survive without these foreign workers.”

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Health

Choose Dismisses Houston Hospital Employees’ Lawsuit Over Vaccines

Judge Dismisses Houston Hospital Workers' Lawsuit Over Vaccines

A Texas federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Houston Methodist Hospital staff who challenged the hospital’s Covid vaccination requirement.

South Texas District Judge Lynn N. Hughes passed a ruling on Saturday that upheld the hospital’s new policy announced in April. The judge said the hospital’s decision to require vaccinations for its employees was in line with public policy.

And he denied the allegation made by Jennifer Bridges, a nurse and lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, that the vaccines available in the United States were experimental and dangerous.

“The hospital staff do not participate in a human trial,” wrote Judge Hughes. “Methodist is trying to save lives without giving them the Covid-19 virus. It’s a decision made to make employees, patients, and their families safer. “

The judge’s decision appeared to be one of the first to advocate employer-required vaccinations for workers. Several large hospital systems now require Covid vaccinations, including in Washington, DC and Maryland.

But many private employers and the federal government have not made vaccination compulsory as they are moving operations back to office environments. Earlier this year, the U.S. Equal Opportunities Commission issued a policy that allows employers to require vaccines for local workers.

In Houston, Ms. Bridges was among those who led a strike on Monday, the hospital’s deadline for receiving the vaccine. And on Tuesday the hospital suspended 178 employees who refused to get a coronavirus shot.

Ms. Bridges cited the lack of full Food and Drug Administration approval for vaccination as a justification for refusing vaccination. But the FDA, which has emergency clearances for three vaccines, says clinical trials and post-market studies show they are safe, as do the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The judge also found that Texas labor law only protects workers from dismissal if they refuse to commit a criminal offense.

“Bridges are free to choose whether to accept or reject a Covid-19 vaccine, but if she refuses, she just has to work elsewhere,” he said, also rejecting the argument that employees would be forced.

And the judge called the claim of the lawsuit that compulsory vaccination was comparable to medical experiments during the Holocaust “reprehensible”.

In a statement late Saturday, Dr. Marc Boom, CEO of Houston Methodist: “Our staff and doctors have made decisions for our patients that are always at the center of our actions.”

The Houston Methodist said it would initiate a process to fire employees who have been suspended if they are not vaccinated by June 21.

Jared Woodfill, the worker plaintiff’s attorney, also made a statement on Saturday, according to news reports, indicating that workers would appeal the verdict.

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Health

For Many Staff, Change in Masks Coverage Is a Nightmare

For Many Workers, Change in Mask Policy Is a Nightmare

“Retailers were asking and requiring you to wear masks,” said Willy Solis, a shopper for the delivery app Shipt in Denton, Texas, who works in stores like Target, Kroger and CVS. “A large majority of people were still doing the right thing and wearing them.”

Since the C.D.C. announcement, however, “it’s been a complete shift,” Mr. Solis said. Denton, like Yorktown, sits in a county that supported former President Donald J. Trump by a single-digit margin in the November election.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 97 percent of Democrats said in a March poll that they wore a mask “at least most of the time” when they might be in contact with people outside their homes, and a similar portion of Democrats said they believed masks limit the spread of coronavirus.

That compared with only 71 percent of Republicans who said they wore a mask outside the home at least most of the time, and just half said they thought masks were effective.

That suggests that a significant number of Republicans have worn masks only to comply with rules, not because they believed it was important, said Ashley Kirzinger, the Kaiser foundation’s associate director for public opinion and survey research. She cited polling showing that Republicans were also less likely to be vaccinated.

Matt Kennon, a room-service server at the Beau Rivage Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Miss., said that before the C.D.C. relaxed its recommendations, the resort’s policy was that all guests must wear masks in common areas unless they were eating, drinking or smoking, and that it was strictly enforced.

“There were several security checkpoints around the place where we’d have someone from security let them know, ‘Please put on a mask,’” said Mr. Kennon, a shop steward with his union, UNITE HERE. “There were stations with disposable masks for guests to wear in case they didn’t have one.”

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Business

The Luckiest Employees in America? Youngsters.

The Luckiest Workers in America? Teenagers.

Roller coaster riders and lemonade slingers at Kennywood Amusement Park, a summer staple in Pittsburgh, don’t have to buy their own uniforms this year. Those with a high school diploma also earn $ 13 as a starting wage – up from $ 9 last year – and new hires get free season passes for themselves and their families.

The high wages and perks for Kennywood’s seasonal workers, where nearly half of the workforce are under the age of 18, reflect what happens across the country as employers seek to hire waiters, receptionists, and other service workers to meet rising demand satisfy when the economy opens up again.

For American teenagers looking for work, this may be their best summer in years.

With businesses trying to get filled from barely occupied to full practically overnight, teenagers seem to win more than any other demographic. The proportion of 16-19 year olds in work has not been so high since 2008, before the spreading global financial crisis led to a decline in employment. Around 256,000 young people in this age group found employment in April – which makes up the vast majority of those newly hired – a significant change after young people suffered severe job losses at the start of the pandemic. Whether the trend can hold will be clearer when the job data for May is released on Friday.

It could have a downside. Some educators warn that jobs can be a distraction from school. And while employment itself can provide learning opportunities, the recent wave of recruitment has been led by white teenagers, raising concerns that minority youth may miss out on a hot summer job market.

“A rising tide doesn’t raise all boats,” said Alicia Sasser Modestino, an economist at Northeastern University who studies labor markets for young people. Still, “There could be some really good opportunities for teenagers that we haven’t seen in a long time – that’s good.”

For Hayley Bailley, a 17-year-old from Irwin, Pennsylvania, Kennywood’s summer hiring spurt meant an opportunity to earn more for the car she wants to buy. Ms. Bailley, a high school graduate, was excited to take a job running an antique roller coaster and snapping people into paddle boats when she believed she was paying $ 9. When she found out the park was raising the pay to $ 13 an hour, she was delighted.

“I love it,” she said. She doesn’t even mind walking backwards on the carousel to make sure everyone is driving safely, though it can be confusing. “After you see the little kids and they give you high fives, it doesn’t matter at all.”

It’s not just Kennywood who pays. According to Luke Pardue, an economist with the company, in a database compiled by payroll platform Gusto, small businesses have raised wages for youth in the service sector in recent months. Teens had taken a blow at the start of the pandemic but returned to their pre-coronavirus wage levels in March 2021 and spent the first half of May hurrying their wages beyond that.

“It’s great that business and small businesses have this pressure relief valve,” said Pardue. “From the perspective of gaining experience and also earning money, this is a positive development.”

For employers, young people can be a critical new source of labor at a time when demand is growing and vacancies are not filled.

Health concerns and childcare challenges seem to deter some older workers from finding work quickly. Extended unemployment insurance benefits can also give workers the financial cushion they need for better opportunities. These challenges are compounded by the fact that the United States issued far fewer work visas to immigrants during the pandemic due to travel and other restrictions. As a result, there is a lack of employees from abroad who normally fill temporary, agricultural and seasonal positions.

The recruitment crisis is felt across the country.

Cape Cod restaurants have long relied on seasonal workers to prepare lobster rolls and maintain bar and bus tables. However, it has become difficult to fill jobs with fewer overseas workers and rising property prices are keeping local seasonal workers out, said Will Moore, manager at Spankys Clam Shack and Seaside Saloon in Hyannis, Mass.

“I think everyone’s hoping that when the college kids get here and the high school kids graduate, band aids will come over the holes,” he said.

In business today

Updated

May 28, 2021 at 12:54 p.m. ET

With temperatures rising in Henderson, Kentucky, officials feared they would not have enough lifeguards to open their only public swimming pool for the summer.

By mid-May, they had around six applicants for the position, paying a starting salary of $ 8.50 an hour. The city requires a minimum of eight lifeguards a day to keep the entire pool safe. The limited interest reflected a perfect storm: the pool was not opened last year due to the pandemic, so lifeguards could not be hired as of 2020, and youth workers were welcomed by higher wages on local fast food and big box retail jobs lured.

The city government increased the starting salary to $ 10 an hour on May 25 and lowered the minimum age for applicants from 16 to 15 years. It seems to have worked: more teenagers applied and the city has started surveying candidates for the vacancies.

“It seems that a lot of entry-level retail salaries really increased between 2020 and 2021, and we just had to catch up if we were to be competitive and attract qualified applicants,” said Trace Stevens, City Park Director and Recreation.

Teens make more than just thicker paychecks when employers try to attract applicants. Kennywood employees receive seasonal parking passes for themselves and three family members – a bonus worth around $ 300. Applebee’s offered an “Apps for Apps” deal in which interviewed applicants received a free starter voucher. Restaurants and gas stations across the country are offering signing bonuses.

But the benefits and better pay may not reach everyone. White teens lost their jobs sharply at the start of the pandemic, and led the gains in 2021, although black teens added comparatively few and Hispanic teens actually lost jobs. This continues a long-term disparity with white teens working in much larger numbers, and the gap could worsen if the current trajectory continues.

Restricted access to transport is one factor that can deter minority youth from work, said Ms. Sasser Modestino. While places like Cape Cod and suburbs begin to boom, pedestrian traffic remains low in some urban centers on public transportation, which can put youth who live in cities at a disadvantage.

“We haven’t seen the demand yet,” said Joseph McLaughlin, director of research and evaluation at Boston Private Industry Council, who helps students with paid internships and helps others apply to private employers such as grocery stores.

Ms. Sasser Modestino’s research has shown that the long-term decline in youth work is partly due to a shift towards study preparation and internships, but that many young people still need and want jobs for economic reasons. But the types of jobs teenagers have traditionally held have dwindled – blockbuster gigs are a thing of the past – and older workers are increasingly filling them.

Teens who benefit now may not have a cheap job market in the long run, said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Center for Education and Labor at Georgetown University.

“There can certainly be a brief positive effect as young people can move into many occupations that adults have declined in for some reason,” he said. “It will only be temporary because we always take care of the adults first.”

Educators have raised another concern: that today’s numerous and successful teenage jobs could distract students from their studies.

When classes resumed last August at Torrington High School, which serves 330 students in a small Wyoming town, headmaster Chase Christensen found that about 10 of his senior students were not returning. They had taken full-time jobs, including night shifts in a nursing home and working in a gravel pit, and were reluctant to give up the money. Five have dropped out or not graduated from high school since then.

“They got used to paying a full-time worker,” Christensen said. “You get jobs that high schoolers don’t normally get.”

If better career prospects in the short term overtake teenagers’ plans for additional education or training, it could also create problems. Economic research consistently finds that those who manage to get additional training have better-paying careers.

Nonetheless, Ms. Sasser Modestino pointed out that much of the hiring is now for summer jobs, which are less likely to disrupt school. And there can be advantages. For people like Ms. Bailley, this represents an opportunity to save on textbooks and lessons. She wants to go to community college to qualify and then get an engineering degree.

“I’ve always been interested in robots, I love programming and coding,” she explained, saying that learning how roller coasters work fits with her academic interests.

Shaylah Bentley, 18, and a new season ticket at Kennywood, said the above-expected wage she earns will allow her to decorate her dormitory at Slippery Rock University. She is on the advance for the second year this year and is studying sports science.

“I wanted to save money on school and expenses,” she said. “And have something to do this summer.”

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Health

Nepal Covid Disaster Worsens as Employees Pay the Worth

Nepal Covid Crisis Worsens as Workers Pay the Price

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Ram Singh Karki escaped the first wave of India’s pandemic by boarding a crowded bus and crossing the border home to Nepal. Months later, as the rate of new infections fell, he returned to his job at a printing press in New Delhi, which had sustained his family for two decades and helped pay the school fees of his three children.

Then India was swept by a second wave, and Mr. Karki wasn’t as lucky.

He was infected last month. Hospitals in New Delhi were overwhelmed. When his oxygen level dropped, his manager arranged for an ambulance to take him back to the border. He crossed into Nepal, carrying with him just the clothes on his back — and the virus.

Nepal is now considering declaring a health emergency as the virus rampages virtually unchecked across the impoverished nation of 30 million people. Carried by returning migrant workers and others, a vicious second wave has stretched the country’s medical system beyond its meager limits.

Nepal has recorded half a million Covid cases and 6,000 deaths, numbers that experts believe deeply undercount the toll. Testing remains limited. One figure could indicate the true severity: For weeks now, about 40 percent of the tests conducted have been positive.

A government in disarray has compounded the trouble. K.P. Sharma Oli, Nepal’s embattled prime minister, has been pushing for an election in November after the country’s Parliament was dissolved last week, an event that could worsen the spread.

Earlier this week, Hridyesh Tripathi, Nepal’s minister for health and population, said the government was considering declaring a health emergency as infections rise.

But such a declaration could be caught up in politics. The move would allow officials to limit people’s movements — a level of control that opposition groups worry could be used to quell dissent.

In the meantime, officials in Kathmandu, the capital, have urged people to store food for at least a week and stay home.

The impact is rippling beyond those infected. Remittances from migrant workers have slowed. Tourism and the economy have been damaged.

“Millions of people continue to feel the increasing pressure not just with the direct health impact of Covid-19, but also with food, jobs, medical bills, kids out of school, payback loans, mental pressure, and much more,” said Ayshanie Medagangoda Labe, the resident representative of the United Nations Development Program in Nepal.

Nepal’s close relationship with India helped make it vulnerable. India has long been its most important trade and transit partner. The two nations share a deep cultural bond across a porous 1,100-mile border. Nepal’s devastation mirrors that of its big neighbor — from patients spilling out into hospital corridors and onto lawns, to long lines at oxygen refilling facilities, to a government unprepared for crisis.

Officials say laborers like Mr. Karki who were forced to come home by the second wave brought the virus with them. Villages along the border are some of the worst hit. Nepal’s health ministry said about 97 percent of the cases sent for genome sequencing show the B.1.617.2 variant found in India, which the World Health Organization has classified as a “variant of global concern.”

Nepal’s leaders were unprepared. During India’s first wave last year, when about one million Nepali migrant workers returned home, Nepal instituted testing and quarantine measures at border crossings.

But during this spring’s second wave, those measures were too little too late. By the time Nepal shut two thirds of its border crossings in early May, hundreds of thousands of laborers had made it back, trickling into their villages without proper testing or quarantine. Thousands continue to return daily.

The government’s attention had shifted elsewhere. In February, when the virus seemed to be in retreat, Mr. Oli held rallies of thousands of supporters in Kathmandu and other cities. Opposition parties held their own rallies. Last year, Mr. Oli said the health of the Nepali people would deter the disease.

The government’s defenders say the pandemic is a global problem and that officials are doing the best they can with few resources or vaccines.

Mr. Oli has called for international aid, though it won’t be enough to meet Nepal’s needs. China has donated 800,000 vaccine doses, 20,000 oxygen cylinders and 100 ventilators. The United States and Spain have sent planeloads of medical equipment, including oxygen concentrators, antigen tests, face masks and surgical gloves. The United States provided $15 million this month to scale up Nepal’s Covid testing. Nepali migrant workers in Gulf nations have arranged for oxygen cylinders to be sent home.

But Nepal can’t fight the pandemic without help from India. Already, an Indian vaccine manufacturer has told Nepal it can’t deliver a promised one million doses.

Nepal is also dependent India for half of its medical equipment needs, according to the Chemical and Medical Suppliers Association of Nepal, but the latter country is keeping just about everything for its own urgent domestic needs. Equipment from China, already costly, has become more difficult to obtain because of Chinese pandemic restrictions.

“For a month now, India has stopped the supply of medical equipment and medicine also, not just vaccines,” said Suresh Ghimirey, the association’s president.

In some provinces that experienced the return of many migrant laborers in India, hospitals have run out of beds. In Surkhet district, the main provincial hospital said that it couldn’t admit more patients. Small outlying villages are quietly mourning their dead. Testing has been slow.

“Except a few villagers, many are unable to come out and do daily agricultural work,” said Jhupa Ram Lamsal, ward chief of the village of Gauri, where nine people died of Covid over 10 days earlier this month. “The worrying thing is that even symptomatic people aren’t ready for Covid tests.”

Mr. Lamsal said he had recently reached Gauri, which is remote and lacks health facilities, along with a team of doctors to conduct antigen tests. Locals turned down health professionals’ plea for Covid tests, he said, arguing they would be dispirited if they found out they were positive.

“The situation is out of control,” Mr. Lamsal said. “We are hopeless, helpless.”

Mr. Kakri, the printing press worker, hailed from a village in the Bhimdatta Municipality, in Nepal’s western corner. The area of 110,000 people has officially recorded 3,600 infections, according to the health chief there, Narendra Joshi. But lack of measures at the border mean that the data may not fully measure the severity.

“More than 38,000 people have returned from one of the two border points in the district since the second wave started in India,” said Mr. Joshi, “It’s hard to manage them.”

Mr. Karki was a high school dropout who went to India to work as a laborer when he was still a teenager, his wife, Harena Devi Karki, said. On his visits home twice a year, he was the life of gatherings — cracking jokes, making fun. The $350 a month he sent home covered his family’s household costs as well as the private school fees of their two teenage daughters and a 12-year old son.

Even when the lockdown last year meant Mr. Karki was stuck at home for months with no earnings, he insisted the children continue with private school. He would repay the debts once the printing press opened again. He dreamed of seeing his eldest daughter — “she’s the most talented” — grow up to be a doctor.

“I couldn’t complete my studies,” Ms. Karki remembers her husband saying. “Let me eat less, but we should send them to a better school for their education.”

When Mr. Karki received her husband at the border around 2:30 a.m. on April 29, she said, he was frail and lacked the energy to even stand up. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died.

“‘Everything is OK. Go home,’” her husband told her, Ms. Karki said. “But he never came home.”

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Fears for Bangladesh Garment Employees as Security Settlement Nears an Finish

Fears for Bangladesh Garment Workers as Safety Agreement Nears an End

“The Europeans are trying to entice the North American retailers toward contributing more to collective safety monitoring by watering down accountability,” Ms. Hajagos-Clausen said. “At one level, of course we want more brands to sign up — after all, the same factories produce for both American and European and other international brands. But all that’s happening here is a reduction in the credibility of the overall program, making it impossible to use the agreement as a possible blueprint for global coverage at a dangerous time for garment workers everywhere.”

Faruque Hassan, the president of the garment manufacturers association, did not respond to requests for comment. And while some Western brands like Asos have said publicly that they would support a legally binding agreement, most were not willing to comment while negotiations were going on. H&M, the Swedish retailer that was instrumental in the creation of the original accord, is also a leader of the current talks and remains “committed” according to Payal Jain, H&M’s head of sustainability global production.

Ms. Jain said H&M “strongly supported” a structure involving trade unions, employer organizations and the government, as well as clear accountability for brands, and increased fire and building safety capacity within the country.

“We are confident we can come to good solutions,” she added.

Bangladeshi factory workers, already dealing with pay cuts and late wages, will be counting on it. Garment exports, which account for 80 percent of Bangladesh’s annual export revenue, fell 17 percent in 2020. The country’s apparel sector was devastated as brands closed shops during the pandemic and canceled orders worth as much as $3.5 billion, leaving many factory owners facing ruin. The industry has seen a recovery, but the future remains uncertain — particularly with continuing lockdowns and virus outbreaks.

Owners of small and medium-size factories have long said they have been squeezed by the investments needed to meet safety standards. Now, their finances are suffering further as many global brands continue to drive order prices down in a tough trading environment. Brands have also asked the factories to undertake costly new Covid 19-related safety measures.

According to Mr. Posner, while improvements have unequivocally been made for worker safety in Bangladesh, the work is far from over. While the accord and alliance reached roughly 2,500 factories, it is well known by the industry that there are more than double that number of facilities, including subcontractors. A significant proportion of factories in Bangladesh remain unsafe.

“As the world starts to open up again and demand picks up further, no one in this equation can afford to take their eye off the ball,” Mr. Posner said. “The legacy of the accord is at stake.”

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World News

Digital leash on staff could possibly be crossing a line

Digital leash on workers could be crossing a line

Internal surveillance camera

Krisanapong Detraphiphat | Getty Images

With many companies working from home during the pandemic, managers and employers have found it difficult to divert dispersed teams away from the office.

Some have turned to technology to help, but they may be down a dangerous path using tools like artificial intelligence and algorithms to track employees and their work throughout the day, or even facial recognition that can make sure someone is sitting at their desk.

A recent report by the Institute for the Future of Work, a UK research and development group, states that algorithmic systems typically used to monitor the performance of warehouse workers or delivery drivers have pervaded more and more industries.

Andrew Pakes, deputy general secretary of the UK-based union Prospect, told CNBC that these “digital leash” technologies have been an upward trend for some time and that remote working with Covid-19 is accelerating this.

“This was a topic we picked up on before Covid, but rocket amplifiers have grown over the past year as companies turned to technology,” Pakes said.

“On the one hand, technology was really important in keeping us safe and connected at home, but there is another side and that is the concern we see with it.”

Prospect has published some research on employee attitudes towards these technologies. The majority of respondents in a survey said they were uncomfortable with monitoring cameras or keystrokes.

This technology is attracting increasing attention from critics. Microsoft faced a backlash in Microsoft 365 against the “Productivity Score” that allowed managers to track an employee’s performance. Microsoft has since resorted to the features of the product and minimized the data collected from individuals.

PwC was criticized last year for developing a facial recognition tool for financial companies that monitors an employee and ensures that they are at their desks when they are supposed to be. A PwC spokesman told CNBC that the tool was a “conceptual prototype”.

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But that type of game hasn’t stopped others from tinkering with the technology. Fujitsu has developed an AI tool that can be used to determine how much someone is focused on an online meeting or course by analyzing the muscle movements in the face.

As more technologies like this emerge, employers need to be careful what they use.

privacy

Brian Honan, a cybersecurity advisor and former Europol advisor, said the introduction of AI-powered work tracking tools like facial recognition or keystroke monitoring poses a number of risks for businesses.

“Businesses have a duty of care to protect their business and they have a legitimate interest in making sure their business interests are considered, but they need to be weighed against individual rights in the workplace,” Honan said.

He suspects that many tools like keystroke monitoring or programs that take screenshots of a person’s desktop could be illegal under the EU’s extensive GDPR regulations. “If you think about all of the information these tools might gather while you work,” he said.

Honan added that the power of these tools is heavily weighted towards the employer and possibly extends too far into an employee’s personal space.

He said the case of camera surveillance with a person sitting at their desk can be particularly problematic in a work-from-home scenario. The camera could take pictures of the employee’s family or roommates, he said, and now their privacy has been violated.

Aside from the regulatory risks, he added, the use of these technologies does little to foster a positive culture in the workplace.

“Without exception, you tell your employees,” I don’t trust you to do your job for what I pay you to do, “he said.

regulation

Pakes said GDPR provides employers with a good framework when considering technologies to manage workers. However, in the age of hybrid and remote working, stricter rules specific to the workplace are required.

Prospect advocates a “right to segregation” law in the UK that will lay down a clear line as to when communication between an employee and his boss ends. Pakes said such regulations are necessary to protect workers from being overreach by employers through technology. The right to separate laws was passed in France and Ireland.

Regardless, the EU will have stricter rules on artificial intelligence that will restrict the use of AI in various industries. Any employer who deals with facial recognition must be wary of new obligations.

“Most of the labor laws in Europe over the last century were designed with physical harm and risk, health and safety in mind. They were not designed for this digital age of AI and for decisions about how to collect data in clouds or black boxes. We argue very strongly that data is the new health and safety, “said Pakes.

“We need to update our labor laws to make them fit for the way we use AI.”

Categories
Politics

Rural Areas Are In search of Staff. They Want Broadband to Get Them.

Rural Areas Are Looking for Workers. They Need Broadband to Get Them.

As a manufacturer of asphalt paving equipment, Weiler is exactly the kind of company that can benefit from the federal government increasing spending on roads and bridges. But when Patrick Weiler talks about infrastructure, the topic he first addresses has next to nothing to do with the core business of his company.

It is a broadband internet service.

Hamlet is located in Marion County, Iowa, a rural area southeast of Des Moines. Internet speeds are fine at the company’s 400,000-square-foot factory as Weiler paid to have a fiber optic cable run from the nearby freeway. But that doesn’t help the surrounding community, where broadband access can be spotty at best. This is a recruiting problem – already one of the greatest challenges for Weiler and many other rural employers.

“How do you get young people to return to these rural areas when they feel like they are returning to a timeframe of 20 years ago?” asked Mr. Weiler, the founder and managing director of the company.

Rural areas have complained for years that slow, unreliable, or simply unavailable internet access is limiting their economic growth. However, the pandemic has given these concerns renewed urgency, and at the same time President Biden’s infrastructure plan, which includes $ 100 billion to improve broadband access, has raised hopes that the problem could finally be addressed.

“It creates jobs that connect every American to high-speed Internet, including 35 percent of rural America that doesn’t yet have it,” Biden said of his plan in a speech to Congress last month. “This will help our children and our businesses thrive in the 21st century economy.”

Mr Biden received both criticism and praise for pushing for the scope of infrastructure to be expanded to include investments in childcare, health care and other priorities beyond the concrete-and-steel projects that the word normally evokes. However, ensuring Internet access is widespread. In a recent survey conducted by the online research platform SurveyMonkey for the New York Times, 78 percent of adults said they support broadband investments, including 62 percent of Republicans.

Companies have also consistently supported broadband investments. Major industry groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and the National Association of Manufacturers issued policy recommendations last year calling for federal spending to close the “digital divide”.

Quantifying this gap and its economic cost is difficult in part because there is no agreed definition of broadband. In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission updated its standards to a minimum download speed of 25 megabits per second. The Department of Agriculture drops its standard to 10 mps A non-partisan group of senators from rural states urged both agencies to raise their standards to 100 mps this year. Speed-based definitions don’t consider other issues like reliability and latency, a measure of how long it takes for a signal to travel between a computer and a remote server.

Regardless of the definition, analyzes time and again find that millions of Americans do not have access to reliable high-speed Internet access and that rural areas are particularly poorly served. A recent study by Broadband Now, an independent research group whose data is widely cited, found that 42 million Americans live in places where they cannot buy broadband Internet service, most of them in rural areas.

As defined by the FCC, most of Marion County has high-speed access to the Internet. However, residents report that service is slow and unreliable. And since only one provider serves a large part of the district, customers have little influence on asking for better service.

Marion County’s population of 33,000 has economic challenges common to rural areas: an aging workforce, anemic population growth, and a limited number of employers focused on a few industries. But it also has assets including proximity to Des Moines and a group of employers willing to train workers.

Local executives have plans to attract new businesses and a younger generation of workers – but those plans won’t work without better internet service, said Mark Raymie, chairman of the county board of supervisors.

“Our ability to diversify our economic base depends on modern infrastructure, and that includes broadband,” he said. “We can say, ‘Come and work here. ‘But if we don’t have modern amenities and modern infrastructure, this sales pitch falls flat. “

Mr. Weiler’s daughter, Megan Green, grew up in Marion County and then went to college to begin her career. When she moved home to work for her father’s company in 2017, it was like stepping back into an earlier technological era.

“Our cellular service is spottier, our wireless is more spirited and we definitely have only one choice,” said Ms. Green, 35. “It’s a generation thing. We depend on internet access. “

Ms. Green moved home for family reasons. However, it has been difficult to find others willing to do the same. Broadband is not the only factor – the lack of housing and childcare are also high – but it is an important factor. Recruiting is Weiler’s “No. A challenge, ”said Ms. Green, despite wages that start at around $ 20 an hour before overtime.

The experience of the past year has made the problem worse. When the pandemic hit last year, Weiler sent home all of the workers who didn’t have to be in the factory. But they quickly ran into a problem.

“I was shocked to know how many of our employees couldn’t work from home because they didn’t have reliable internet access,” said Ms. Green. “We’re talking seven minutes to download an email-type Internet connection.”

Other local businesses have had similar experiences. In June, the Greater Des Moines Partnership, a regional group of companies, commissioned a study to improve the digital infrastructure in the region. Given that the state and federal government are considering significant investments, the group hopes their study will give priority to funding, said Brian Crowe, director of the group’s economic development department.

For Marion County and other rural areas, the widespread experiment of working from home during the pandemic could represent an economic opportunity if infrastructure allows. Many companies have announced that they will allow employees to work remotely all or part of the time, which could give workers the opportunity to abandon city life and move to the countryside – or take jobs at companies like Weiler, while their spouses work from home.

“Suddenly you no longer have to move to the cities where these companies are located to work for leading companies,” said Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork, a platform for freelancers. “It will create opportunities.”

However, broadband experts say that without government assistance, rural areas cannot access reliable, high-speed internet services. If a place doesn’t have internet access in 2021, there is a reason: Generally too few prospects, too dispersed to serve efficiently.

“The private sector is just not prepared to solve this problem,” said Adie Tomer, a Brookings Institution researcher who has investigated the problem. He compared the challenge of rural electrification almost a century ago, when the federal government had to step in to ensure that even remote areas had access to electrical energy.

“That is exactly what we saw in the 1910s, 20s and 30s in terms of economic history,” he said. “It’s really about cities being left behind.”

Categories
Business

company criticized, retail staff say it makes them vaccine ‘police’

agency criticized, retail workers say it makes them vaccine 'police'

New York University and New School graduates are seen under Washington Square Arch in Washington Square Park in New York City on May 13, 2021.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Disney quickly announced that it plans to further increase capacity limits at its U.S. theme parks a few hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced relaxed mask guidelines for the U.S. on Thursday.

“”[It’s] Big news for us, especially if someone was in Florida in the middle of summer wearing a mask, “joked CEO Bob Chapek about two hours after the new recommendations were published with analysts about a profit call.

“Given the guidance today from the CDC and previous guidance we received from the Florida governor, we have already begun increasing our capacity,” he said.

According to the CDC, in most environments, whether outdoors or indoors, fully vaccinated individuals no longer need to wear a face mask or stay 6 feet away from others as per updated guidelines. It’s the first time the federal government has been encouraging people to stop wearing masks since the agency first called for face coverings more than a year ago. It marks a major turning point in the US Covid-19 pandemic and brings the country one step closer to normal. Public health experts also said the change is likely to encourage more Americans, especially those who are still reluctant to receive the shots, to get the vaccine.

However, the agency was sharply criticized for its quick turnaround. Just six weeks ago, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky facing “impending doom” as daily Covid-19 cases in the US rose again. And many health and business leaders say the new recommendations are too ambiguous. It will require key personnel to monitor police vaccination protocols and will be difficult to enforce.

Vaccination police

“Under current plans, in most cases it will be impossible to get this through,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease doctor at the University of California at San Francisco, told CNBC. “Companies, schools and event organizers may still have the option to request proof of vaccination prior to admission to certain communities or events. However, vaccination records or QR codes are not enforced at other everyday events, as is the case in other countries.”

There are some cases when fully vaccinated people still have to wear masks: traveling by plane, bus or train, as well as going to specific locations such as hospitals, nursing homes, prisons or facilities where they are needed, the agency said. The guidance of the CDC is also not mandatory. States, municipalities and corporations can decide whether or not to follow suit, adding to the confusion of many entrepreneurs and employees.

Some health and legal experts told CNBC that it would further complicate public health efforts to end the pandemic, adding that it was “almost impossible” to monitor the use of face masks because it was not known who was vaccinated is and who is not. More than half of the population still did not get the shots, they said, and risked more outbreaks from exposed, unvaccinated people.

During the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York on May 14, 2021, people ride a maskless tour bus in Times Square.

Carlo Allegri | Reuters

“While we all share a desire to return to normal mask-free conditions, today’s CDC guidance is confusing and does not take into account how this will affect key workers who are often exposed to those who are not vaccinated and who refuse to wear masks “said Marc Perrone, President of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, said in a statement. “Elementary workers are still being forced to play masked police for shoppers who are not vaccinated and refuse to follow local COVID safety measures. Should they become the vaccination police now?”

Creates ambiguity

Lisa LaBruno, senior executive vice president of retail stores and innovation for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, told CNBC that the new guidelines “create confusion for retailers because they don’t fully align with state and local orders.”

“These conflicting positions put retailers and their employees in incredibly difficult situations. We urge state and local governments to coordinate with the CDC as additional guidance is issued on the road to normalcy,” she said in a statement.

Beauty store chain Ulta Beauty said it has no plans to change its masking and social distancing requirements in its stores, despite actively evaluating “the impact of this updated guide on our guests and employees.” The health and safety of employees and customers have top priority.

“I hate to say it’s complicated, but it’s complicated,” said David French, lobbyist for the National Retail Federation. On the one hand, the CDC guidelines could provide more clarity, but they also make things more complex as companies don’t know who is vaccinated or not – and neither does customers.

Even with the milestone announcement, customers shouldn’t expect immediate changes in their grocery or mall, said Joel Bines, global co-head of retail practice for consulting firm AlixPartners. He said the guidelines are going to make little difference to retailers who don’t know people’s vaccination status – and most importantly, want to make sure their employees and customers don’t get sick.

“This is an extremely difficult management problem for any business that physically interacts with consumers,” he said. “There are no operating instructions for this.”

Law professor Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaboration Center on National and Global Health Law, said the new guidelines could have “serious unforeseen consequences”.

“The public will not be comfortable shopping, dining or going to church or the gym if they have no idea whether the exposed person standing next to them is vaccinated or not,” Gostin said.

46% of the US population vaccinated

As of Thursday, more than 154 million Americans, 46.6% of the US population, had received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, according to the CDC. Around 118 million Americans are fully vaccinated, according to the agency. The US government is working to convince more Americans to get vaccinated after the rate of fire has slowed in recent weeks.

Unlike some other countries, the US doesn’t have a system where people can prove they’ve been vaccinated. Even if there was, vaccinated people are unlikely to have their cards with them all the time, and not everyone will have digital evidence, said Dorit Reiss, a law professor at UC Hastings College of Law. Areas with high vaccination rates can likely lift mask restrictions entirely, she added.

“This is an exciting and powerful moment,” Walensky, the CDC director, told reporters at a Covid-19 briefing at the White House Thursday after announcing the new guidelines. “It could only happen because of the work of so many making sure that three safe and effective vaccines are given quickly.”

Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC

Source: CDC | Youtube

From an epidemiological perspective, the CDC guidance means “we are in a place where we are in the best pandemic place we have ever been as a country with ongoing declines in infections, hospitalizations and deaths,” Chin said -Hong.

“The symbolic meaning is even more tangible,” he added. “Masks were the symbol of fear and political division [and] Hopefully, if we take them off, at least for people who have been vaccinated, it will mean we will return to the life we ​​were aiming for before the pandemic. “

The Nevada Gaming Control Board, which sets the rules for casinos, immediately updated its rules so The Wynn Las Vegas can simplify its own mask guidelines. The company said that as of Friday, guests and employees who are fully vaccinated will not be required to wear masks in its hotels and casinos.

Bow to pressure

Gostin and others criticized the CDC’s abrupt change in policy, saying it was bowing to pressure from the public and governors to return to normal. “As a result, CDC is significantly changing its guidelines, moving from excessive caution to all caution,” he said, adding that doing so could undermine public confidence in the agency. “The public will be less likely to rely on CDC guidelines if they feel like the agency is being pushed around.”

On Friday, Walensky defended the timing of the new leadership. In the past two weeks, daily Covid cases have decreased by more than a third, and vaccinations are now widespread in most places in the United States. She added the guidelines “empower” people to make choices about their own health and urge them not to be vaccinated to people who do not run the risk of going out exposed.

If there are multiple people in an exposed room, the vaccinated will be protected from Covid, she said.

New scientific evidence shows people who are vaccinated are protected and have “very little risk of spreading Covid to other people,” even with some variants that appear to affect the vaccine’s effectiveness, she said on CBS This Morning.

– CNBC’s Nadine El-Bawab, Sarah Whitten, and Michael Wayland contributed to this article.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Dr. Peter Chin-Hong is an Infectious Disease Physician at the University of California at San Francisco.