STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – Penn State coach James Franklin addressed reports about being linked to other head coaching jobs, saying Saturday that he loves the university and “I don’t see that changing any time soon.”
A report in the Orlando Sentinel this past week quoted sources saying that Franklin was a main target in Florida State’s search for a new head coach. Franklin also has been mentioned as a possible replacement at Southern California in the event head coach Clay Helton is fired.
“There is nobody that would want this not to be talked about more than me,” Franklin said after the Nittany Lions defeated Rutgers, 27-6, at Beaver Stadium. “I’m hoping this is going to be over very quickly. I love Penn State. I love our players. I don’t see that changing any time soon.
“It’s a little bit of the nature of college football, but I love Penn State. I love what we’re doing here. Hopefully all this conversation will be over very shortly.”
Franklin did not comment specifically on the Florida State report, which noted there is “mutual interest” between Franklin and the university’s administration. The Seminoles are seeking a replacement for Willie Taggert, who was fired Nov. 3.
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Backup quarterback Will Levis has a running style that shows a disregard for his own body when he takes on opposing linebackers as he did Saturday. But one play late in the first quarter surprised even him.
The 6-foot-3, 229-pound redshirt freshman hurdled Rutgers safety Christian Izien on a 14-yard run during Penn State’s first touchdown drive in the opening quarter, part of his 17-carry, 108-yard performance.
“I saw on film that he was going low on a lot of his tackles,” Levis said of Izien. “If I was going to run to the secondary, with the size I am, maybe he could go low on me, diving at my legs.
“It’s an effective tackle if you make contact, but I wasn’t going to let him make contact. It was kind of a heat-of-the-moment thing. I’d never done that before. I knew I had the athleticism to do it, so I just kind of went with it.”
Levis admitted he could “be smarter with my running style.”
“I need to learn, I guess, in the open field when it’s appropriate to slide and stuff like that, something I could get better on,” he said. “I could always get faster, too. I’m not too, too fast. There were a couple of runs where I could probably taken to the house if I was maybe a tenth of a second faster.”
Freiermuth staying
The Nittany Lions got some good news from the locker room when sophomore tight end Pat Freiermuth announced he will return for his junior season in 2020.
Freiermuth had confirmed that he would have been eligible for the 2020 NFL draft because of a postgraduate year he completed back home in Massachussetts.
Freiermuth is second on the team with in receptions (41), receiving yards (468), and touchdowns (seven). He caught just one pass for 4 yards against Rutgers.
Two for 100
Levis and Journey Brown (16 carries, 103 yards) became the first pair of 100-yard rushers in a game for Penn State since Saquon Barkley (195 yards) and Akeel Lynch (120) achieved the feat against Rutgers in 2015. The last time a Lions quarterback and a running back rushed for 100 yards took place in 2005 – running back Tony Hunt (151) and quarterback Michael Robinson) (125) against Wisconsin.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A new study finds that north Alabama could face serious challenges to find qualified workers to fill the many jobs that have flooded the region.
A labor market analysis was recently commissioned by north Alabama elected leaders.
Deloitte analyzed the situation and its findings signal a potential crisis in the future that will require an extraordinary effort to overcome, Al.com reported.
A national recruiting effort is needed to attract people to fill the jobs, said Darin Buelow, global location strategy leader for Deloitte.
In a recent presentation to area civic leaders, Buelow said the Huntsville area must fill about 25,000 new jobs by 2023.
However, it comes at a time when Alabama is experiencing a record-low unemployment rate of 2.8%. It's even lower in the Huntsville area at 2.1%.
"The only way to get some of those people is to get some of them to move here," Buelow said. "Sure, we can convert more of them that are in the economy now, maybe convert some of the non-workers and turn them into workers.
"But we need to also ramp up a moonshot effort to get people to be interested to move to this region," he added.
Launch 2035 hired Deloitte to study the labor market. Launch 2035 is regional business-led initiative that has facilitated closer working relationships with the area's elected leaders in Madison, Morgan and Limestone counties.
The study projected that 14,000 new jobs in the region will be created over the next three years, "translating to approximately 25,000 direct, indirect and induced new jobs," according to Deloitte's executive summary.
"That's going to exacerbate the supply and demand gap that the Huntsville area experiences now," Buelow said.
Mercedes-Benz, the best-selling premium automotive brand in the world, announced Friday that it will slash more than 10,000 jobs over the next two years.
Daimler Director of Labor Relations and member of the Board of Management Wilfried Porth announced that “the total number worldwide will be in the five-digits.” In a teleconference with the media, Porth stressed that the process of staff reductions had to be completed by the end of 2022.
The announcement of mass layoff comes two weeks after CEO Ola Källenius announced, to the applause of investors in London, that the company would implement an austerity program to reduce personnel costs by 1.4 billion euros. After two profit warnings in recent months, Källenius promised shareholders and investors that he would do everything necessary to increase their returns.
Mercedes-Benz, founded in 1928 in Stuttgart, employs 300,000 people worldwide and 180,000 in Germany. Baden-Württemberg, a state in southwest Germany, the centre of the German car industry, will be hit particularly hard by the measures. A significant number of car parts producers such as Bosch are dependent on auto manufacture. Overall, some 460,000 workers are employed in car-related industries in Baden-Württemberg alone.
Daimler corporate head office
The announcement is part of an onslaught on jobs in the German and international auto industry. This year alone, 570,000 jobs have been eliminated in India and China. On Tuesday, the German carmaker Audi, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, announced the elimination of 9,500 jobs over the next five years. On Wednesday, BMW announced cuts of more than 12 billion euros ($13.23 billion) by 2022, and on Thursday Bosch announced it will slash another 500 jobs in the city of Reutlingen.
Volkswagen has eliminated 30,000 jobs over the past three years. Ford is currently eliminating 12,000 jobs in Europe and 7,000 in North America. Nissan is cutting 12,500 jobs worldwide. General Motors is closing four plants in the US and Canada and slashing 8,000 jobs.
Growing numbers of workers all over the world are resisting these attacks. In Matamoros, Mexico, tens of thousands of highly exploited workers in the auto parts industry struck for several weeks against both the companies and the unions earlier this year. In the US, 48,000 GM autoworkers participated in the longest auto strike in 50 years. Strikes by autoworkers have also taken place in India, China, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, France, Britain and other countries.
But wherever these militant struggles break out, they immediately come into conflict with the trade union bureaucracy, which isolates them and sells them out. Germany’s IG Metall, the United Auto Workers in the United States and the other unions long ago ceased to be workers’ organisations that struggle for social improvements and reforms. Instead, they function as a labor police force in the plants, tasked with imposing management’s demands.
The automakers and trade unions justify the attack on jobs and wages by pointing to the global decline in sales and the restructuring of the global auto industry with the introduction of electric and autonomous vehicles. In a statement, Daimler declared, “The automotive industry is in the middle of the biggest transformation in its history. The development towards CO2-neutral mobility requires large investments.”
These drastic measures, which will devastate the lives of hundreds of thousands of workers and their families, have the full backing of the IG Metall union and works council, which collaborated with management in working out the details of the layoffs behind the backs of the workers. When Porth announced the Daimler job cuts, he boasted, “With the key points for streamlining the company now agreed with the works council, we can achieve this goal by the end of 2022.”
Porth refused to give further details on the agreement with IG Metall and the works council. How exactly the key points will be implemented will be worked out in the coming weeks, he said.
According to media reports, however, in addition to the streamlining measures, Daimler and the works council agreed to further personnel cost reductions. Among other things, there will be offers to employees to reduce their weekly work hours. Workers with 40 hours a week will be forced to work fewer hours with less compensation. The company will extend expiring employment contracts for temporary employees in administration only on a very restricted basis. Equally restrictive will be the 40-hour fixed-term contracts for permanent staff.
Two Daimler workers who spoke to the World Socialist Web Site said they learned of the cuts only through the media. Both reported that intense negotiations between management and IG Metall have been taking place since Källenius became CEO six months ago. The workers were convinced that the company chose Friday to announce the cuts in order to avoid worker unrest in the factories. IG Metall has called a works assembly for Monday in the Schillerhalle, one of the biggest facilities in Stuttgart.
WSWS Autoworker Newsletter campaigners at the Mercedez-Benz plant in Sindelfingen
Daimler is relying on the services of IG Metall to push through its plans. Last Friday, IG Metall organized a so-called day of action on the Schlossplatz in the centre of Stuttgart to dissipate the anger of workers, who are increasingly denouncing the union and its works councils. But even there the union bureaucrats were not able to hide the fact that they are functioning as co-conspirators with the company in planning and implementing the attacks.
IG Metall Regional Director Roman Zitzelsberger offered the collaboration of the union, declaring, “All employers must know: shaping the future is only possible together.” He continued, “Change is coming, and we must not bury our heads in the sand.”
Zitzelsberger, a member of the Daimler Advisory Board with an income of 213,700 euros last year, is currently the chief negotiator for IG Metall in talks with the employers’ organisation Industrieverband Südwestmetal on cost-cutting plans and staff reductions at 160 metal companies in Baden-Württemberg.
The vice-chairman of the General Works Council, Ergun Lümali, made clear that the union fully supports the mass layoffs and is concerned merely that the restructuring be implemented as effectively as possible: “We don’t just want to have a debate about people. The focus of personnel cost reduction must be on improving processes and work flows,” he said.
The mass layoffs at Daimler and the role of the trade unions in imposing these attacks once again underscores the need for workers to develop their own independent response to the jobs massacre in the international auto industry.
In a recent Perspective posted on the World Socialist Web Site, we wrote: “These developments make clear that workers need an internationalist perspective and a socialist programme to oppose the attacks on their jobs, working conditions, and wages. They confront not only globally operating automakers and their billionaire shareholders, but also the trade unions and works councils, which collaborate with management to draw up the cuts and help implement them. Without breaking from these corrupt, pro-company apparatuses and establishing independent rank-and-file committees to unite their struggles internationally, workers cannot defend a single job.”
The developments at Mercedes-Benz underscore in the sharpest way the correctness of this perspective. Everything now depends on the independent initiative and organization of the workers.
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The past decade has been a disaster for America’s newsrooms, as companies have been forced to slash 33,000 jobs in a still-unsolved struggle with declining revenue and advertising.
A review of federal jobs statistics by the Pew Research Center said that from 2008-2018, newspaper staffs were cut 47%.
“The greatest decline in newsroom employment has occurred at newspapers,” said Pew in a new FactTank posting.
Overall newsroom cuts, including digital and TV, reached 25% in the decade.
And while the economy has rebounded in recent years, newspapers took another hit in 2018. In fact, some newspapers suffered more than one round of layoffs.
“Layoffs have pummeled U.S. newspapers in recent years. Roughly a quarter of U.S. newspapers with an average Sunday circulation of 50,000 or more (27%) experienced layoffs in 2018,” said the analysis. It added, “the layoffs came on top of the roughly one-third (32%) of papers in the same circulation range that experienced layoffs in 2017.”
The gloomy newspaper numbers are the latest, showing the historic shift by news consumers away from paper and instead to digital and video.
Those platforms saw somewhat steady employment over the decade. One exception, of course, has been the explosion of digital. Employment in digital news has doubled, said Pew.
When the cast of Community got back together for a panel at Vulture’s Comedy Festival, they were asked about the possibility of a Community movie. After they cracked a joke about how cast member Donald Glover would only return for at least $20 million, Joel McHale, the show’s lead, joked about his availability.
“My Card Sharks schedule—I’ll check it to see,” McHale quipped. The audience laughed. “Part of ABC’s Summer of Fun, by the way.”
It’s a no-brainer why these old game shows are coming back. It seems every show from the past is getting a reboot and as Rob Weiner, the pop-culture librarian at Texas Tech, says, the game shows tap into Americans’ competitiveness.
“Game shows, generally speaking, have never lost their appeal,” he offers.
When Press Your Luck aired in the 1980s, Peter Tomarken hosted the show. Tomarken’s skill was hosting. And when Card Sharks aired in the late 1970s, Jim Perry, a host by trade, manned the ship. Pat Sajack, host of Wheel of Fortune, is a former radio DJ. But in recent years, hosts have taken a backseat and A- and B-list stars have signed on to host game shows. Alec Baldwin hosts Match Game; McHale hosts Card Sharks; and Elizabeth Banks hosts Press Your Luck. Adam Scott is set to host Don’t soon, and it was just announced that Will Arnett will emcee a LEGO-building competition.
Either these actors are in need of money or the stigma of movie and TV stars hosting a game show is gone. Mark Turner, partner of the alternative programming, digital media, licensing and branding division of Abrams Artists Agency, says not only is the stigma gone but the actors want these jobs.
“I think a lot of celebrities realize you are being authentic if you do a host-driven show that is on-brand for your movie career or TV acting career,” Turner says. “They’re not doing something that is off-brand.”
Alec Shankman, co-managing partner of the alternative programming, digital media, licensing and branding division of Abrams Artists Agency, agrees, adding that taking on a hosting gig doesn’t hurt their film and TV prospects.
“Frankly, if you go back 15, 16, 17 years, there was that fear—a concern—that thought that if you crossed over to hosting, it would negatively impact your acting career,” Shankman says. “But what we have seen is that because so many folks have dabbled in that space—high-profile celebrities and beyond—it hasn’t negatively impacted them and if anything, it made their careers better, stronger and more all-encompassing.”
“Considering that niche is already so small and the talent is being selected from A-list celebrities that are already established, in a way it is taking jobs from other hosts out there.”
No one has rounded out their career better than Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who got his start as a wrestler and has now successfully crossed over into films. According to Forbes, he was the second-highest-paid actor of 2019. Also something he did in 2019? Hosted a game show: The Titan Games. And ratings don’t seem to be an issue for these shows, enticing networks to keep signing up for them. McHale’s game show, Card Sharks, averaged 3.2 million viewers per episode during its first season, and when McHale’s NBC sitcom Community aired its fifth and final season on the network in 2014, it averaged 3 million viewers per episode. It’s clear game shows are working and fans enjoy them.
Rasha Goel, a media coach and Emmy-nominated TV host, says being a game-show host is about “relatability” and “connecting” to the audience and participants.
“Just because you’re an amazing actor, you might be an introverted individual,” Goel says.
Not only do game shows run the risk of potentially having a bad host if they hire an actor, Goel also says people who are trained hosts are losing out on jobs.
“That niche itself is so small and targeted,” Goel says. “Even though there’s this whole big game of folks, there’s very few people who are really good at game-show hosting, because that’s a talent; that’s a skill some people have. So considering that niche is already so small and the talent is being selected from A-list celebrities that are already established, in a way it is taking jobs from other hosts out there.”
While Goel understands “from a marketing and branding perspective” why the game shows are using A-listers, she believes up-and-coming game-show hosts will now have to broaden their horizons to secure jobs.
“I think we’re at a tricky time,” she says. “The market has changed so much for hosting because there used to be a time where you’re an actor or you’re a host, and now you have to be versatile and everybody is trying to find work wherever they can.”
There are few clearer examples of the strength of collective bargaining than the average pay of members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which the Los Angeles Times pegs at $171,000 plus free healthcare.
A story in the Times today, however, reports that actions by members of the ILWU's local placed both the local and the parent union at risk of bankruptcy.
The union's financial troubles stem from a dispute between the ILWU and ICTSI Oregon Inc., which operated the Port of Portland's container shipping dock on contract.
After ICTSI took over the facility, the ILWU wanted the company to force another union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, to forfeit two jobs plugging in refrigerated shipping containers while they were on the dock. A dispute over those two jobs simmered for years and, according to a federal lawsuit first reported on by The Oregonian, led to the loss of container shipping service for Portland and forced ICTSI to buy its way out of its contract with the port for $20 million.
As The Oregonian reported, a jury in U.S. District Court in Portland earlier this month found in ICTSI's favor in a federal lawsuit and told the ILWU to pay the company $94 million in damages.
Read explores the role of Leal Sundet, a longtime leader in the Portland ILWU local who rose to be the union's second ranking official on the West Coast.
"In some ways Sundet, 63, whom McEllrath assigned to pursue the jobs at Portland's Terminal 6, embodies the proudly militant approach of the union founded by the late Harry Bridges, a Marxist who won respect championing civil rights and equality," Read writes. "But Sundet's scorched-earth tactics stymied judges, confounded three Oregon governors, increased costs of trade and affected his reputation among fellow union members, who in 2015 voted him out of his $307,000-a-year post."
Now the ILWU faces the consequences of its tactics. Judge Michael Simon will hold a hearing Feb. 14 to determine whether the jury verdict show be upheld—which would mean near-certain bankruptcy for the union, which has just $20 million in assets—or reduced.
BERLIN — German automaker Daimler said Friday that it plans to cut at least 10,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2022. It plans not to fill some vacant posts and to offer severance packages in Germany to reduce administrative jobs.
The company had said Nov. 14 that it plans to slash costs by 1.4 billion euros ($1.54 billion) by cutting every tenth managerial position and through other measures, but didn’t give details.
A statement released Friday said Daimler had agreed with its employee council on principles to slim down the company structure and the two sides will work on implementation details over the coming weeks.
It said in the statement that the company, which employs about 300,000 people, aims to cut “thousands” of jobs worldwide over three years. Personnel chief Wilfried Porth specified that a low five-digit number of posts will go, news agency dpa reported.
“We will make the measures as socially responsible as possible,” Porth said.
Daimler said that, in addition to the job-cutting drive, there will be offers to employees to reduce weekly working time, while the company will extend only “very restrictively” expiring contracts for temporary administrative workers.
This year, the stunt hits a little close to home for the employees who write the Cards Against Humanity game cards. Beginning on Black Friday morning, the writers are competing against a computer to see who can write a more popular card pack.
"This year for Black Friday, we taught a computer how to write Cards Against Humanity cards," the company announced. "Now we put it to the test. Over the next 16 hours, our writers will battle this powerful card-writing algorithm to see who can write the most popular new pack of cards. If the writers win, they'll get a $5,000 holiday bonus. If the A.I. wins, we'll fire the writers."
For Black Friday, we taught a computer how to write Cards Against Humanity cards. Now we put it to the test. Over the next 16 hours, our writers will battle this powerful card-writing algorithm to see who can write the most popular new pack of cards. https://t.co/BOZ5cuuEJk
This might make more sense if you're familiar with Cards Against Humanity's rules. One player draws a fill-in-the-blank card, and the players all pick a card from their hands with a weird/goofy/dirty word or phrase, and the first player picks the best fit. So the jumbled phrases that sometimes come from an AI ("illegal dentistry") kind of work when inserted into a CAH deck. (They also work in Taylor Swift songs.)
Four hours into the competition, the writers held a slight lead. One card written by the computer reads, "Kim Kardashian, but with spider legs," and one from the humans reads, "Being terrified of a single bee."
The game company is posting regular updates on social media. In an updated posted around 12:15 p.m. PT, things were looking good for the humans. "With 12 hours left to go, the writers retain a slight lead and are now eating tacos," the company said in a tweet.
But as a tweet to the company points out, computers might have the advantage when it comes to food breaks. "The machine doesn't waste time eating tacos!!!!" one Twitter user said.
In typical Cards Against Humanity fashion, the company has written a pretty hilarious FAQ explaining the questions you might have about the stunt. There's even an Andrew Yang joke, if you scroll all the way down.
"What does this have to do with Black Friday?" one question asks. And the answer? "This whole thing is an elaborate stunt to get attention and make money while overworking our employees. Isn't that what Black Friday is all about?"
Another asks, "Are you really going to fire the writers if they lose today?" And the answer? "No, we're not monsters! We'll wait until after the holidays."
Both packs can be ordered for $5 each, whether you're supporting humanity by buying the writers' pack, or preparing to welcome our new AI overlords by buying the one created by the computer.
Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S will cut hundreds of jobs to cut costs as the shipping giant prepares for significantly higher fuel costs next year and plans to invest more heavily in inland logistics services.
“We have announced internally the need to save cost in our head office functions and that it will also lead to reductions both in and outside Denmark,” a Maersk spokesman said. “We do not yet know the exact extent or how many are affected, but this is something we are currently discussing.”
People with knowledge of the matter said around 200 jobs will be cut at the company’s headquarters in Copenhagen and at Hamburg Süd, the German container operator that Maersk bought in 2017.
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The cuts come as Maersk is seeking to expand its business, which is largely focused on ocean container transport, to do more end-to-end logistics, particularly inland supply services such as warehousing and customs clearance.
“Maersk needs to build up our non-ocean services and this will affect ocean services,” one person familiar with the plan said.
This person said there are overlaps in jobs at the information technology department following the merger with Hamburg Süd, which originally saw its workforce cut by 200 people to around 900 after Maersk’s takeover.
Maersk Chief Executive Søren Skou said this month that he plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in expanding inland logistics services next year.
Maersk, the world’s biggest container ship operator by capacity according to data analyst Alphaliner, employs around 75,000 people in more than 120 countries. It has around 70,000 customers in its core ocean transport business, including a broad range of U.S. companies such as car makers and retailers.
The parent company this month reported a net profit of $520 million in the third quarter, up 30% from $396 million a year earlier.
But the Maersk Line operation faces strong headwinds in shipping markets. Analysts have sharply reduced forecasts for growth this year in container markets as big retailers and manufacturers that ship goods internationally facing weakening global economic conditions and rising trade barriers.
Maersk and other ocean carriers also face an average increase of 25% in their fuel bills when vessels will have to start using cleaner fuels as part of a regulatory mandate to cut sulfur emissions.
OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific wants a court to invalidate an 1872 pact requiring it to keep a certain number of jobs in an East Texas town indefinitely.
The agreement with the town of Palestine, which has been amended several times over the decades, is a vestige of railroad history that was made by one of the railroads Union Pacific bought years ago. The lawsuit challenging the agreement was filed Wednesday in Texas.
The railroad argues the local agreement is invalid because railroads are regulated by the federal government, and this deal requiring jobs be maintained in Palestine improperly limits its options.
City Manager Leslie Cloer says she hasn't seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment on it directly, but she hopes Union Pacific will maintain its operations in Palestine.
"We would love to keep them here," Cloer said. "We have had a longstanding relationship with Union Pacific."
The agreement between the city and Union Pacific requires the Omaha, Nebraska-based railroad to keep 0.52% of its total jobs in Palestine, Cloer said.
Union Pacific today operates roughly 32,000 miles of track in 23 western states. In recent years, the railroad has been working to streamline its operations and improve efficiency. Union Pacific had an average of 36,659 employees as of its last earnings report, which is 13% lower than it had a year earlier.
Railroad spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza said the agreement is limiting Union Pacific's flexibility with its freight car repair shop in Palestine.
"Union Pacific is improving operations to meet customer needs. The agreement keeps us from implementing modern railroad practices in Palestine, Texas," Espinoza said.
The Palestine deal dates back to the days when the city was at the crossroads of the International Railroad and the Houston and Great Northern Railroad. Palestine grew with the railroads and steam locomotives and coaches were repaired there.
In 1872, the railroads promised to keep operations in Palestine forever. Those railroads later became part of the Missouri Pacific railroad that was bought by Union Pacific in 1997.
Union Pacific argues in its lawsuit that the railroad pact with Palestine should have been invalidated any number of times over the years, including when the Missouri Pacific merged with other railroads in the 1970s and when the federal Surface Transportation Board was given the power to regulate railroads.
The railroad says that past court rulings that dealt with this Palestine agreement were based on outdated standards.
BERLIN— DaimlerAGDMLRY -2.71% aims to slash thousands of jobs over the next three years and cut labor costs by $1.5 billion, the latest round of cost cuts in a sector squeezed between huge investment in new technologies and falling demand for cars.
The announcement Friday by the maker of Mercedes-Benz luxury cars caps weeks of negotiations with labor representatives. All major German auto makers and their suppliers are now shedding staff in the face of dwindling demand as economies slow in China, the U.S. and Europe after years of robust growth.
Daimler, BMWAGBMW -0.43% , AudiAGNSU 0.25% , Volkswagen AG and big suppliers such as ContinentalAGCTTAY -2.25% have announced tens of thousands of job cuts in recent months. Continental is closing several plants, including its factory in Newport News, VA.
The companies have blamed the slowing global economy, consumer angst over Brexit and the U.S.-China trade wars for their woes. But they primarily point to an expensive shift from internal combustion engines to electric cars as manufacturers come under increasing pressure to curb greenhouse-gas emissions.
Earlier this month, Daimler said it planned to cut 10% of its global management ranks, affecting more than 1,000 jobs. Daimler wouldn’t put a number on the more far-reaching job cuts to its global workforce, which stood at 298,683 employees at the end of 2018.
Under the plan, Daimler said it would try to avoid any forced layoffs of full-time staff. Instead, the company will trim the ranks of temporary workers and not replace workers who retire, taking advantage of the large number of baby boomers reaching retirement age. The company also said it planned to offer voluntary severance packages and be more restrictive in awarding 40-hour contracts to permanent employees.
“With the key points we now agreed with the works council to streamline the company, we can achieve these goals by the end of 2022. We will make the measures as socially responsible as possible,” said Wilfried Porth, Daimler’s board member in charge of human resources.
Under German labor laws, worker representatives have considerable influence over decisions that directly affect the staff. But many of the decisions that Daimler could take to reduce labor costs might not require labor approval.
The works council, which represents the workforce in most matters except wages, has agreed to the broad outline of the restructuring plan but hasn’t committed to any specific number of job cuts, a spokesperson said.
Michael Brecht, the head of Daimler’s works council, said management needed to come up with a clearer plan for mastering the shift to electric.
“The workforce needs a clear and comprehensible strategy for going forward,” said Mr. Brecht. “A reduction of capacities must not be borne on the shoulders of the workforce.”
Alabama’s two largest metros have added roughly the same number of jobs over the past five years, but not all jobs are created equal.
The Birmingham-Hoover metropolitan area added a total of 21,912 jobs between 2015 and 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than 3,200 of those jobs, or 14.6 percent, were classified as “food services and drinking places” jobs by the BLS.
Meanwhile, job growth in the Huntsville metro has been just as strong, if not stronger. The Huntsville metro has around 700,000 fewer people than Birmingham-Hoover, yet added nearly as many total jobs, with 21,154 new jobs between 2015 and 2019. And Huntsville is less dependent on food and drink service jobs than Birmingham, or really any other large metro in Alabama.
Only 1,200 of Huntsville’s new jobs, or less than 6 percent, are in the restaurant industry. But in Birmingham, nearly 15 percent of new jobs are in food services. The percentage is even higher in the state’s other two large metros.
“Ever since we came out of the recession back in 2009, most of the new jobs, not just in Alabama, have been jobs in leisure and hospitality sector,” said Ahmad Ijaz, an economist with the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama. “That’s one reason the recovery has been slow.
“Most of those are part time jobs with very little benefits attached to them.”
In Mobile, for instance, only 5,715 new jobs were created between 2015 and 2019, a 3.5 percent increase. 1,000 of those jobs, or 17.5 percent, were in food or drink.
Montgomery, the state’s fourth-largest metro, added 3,500 new jobs, a 2.3 percent increase. 19.2 percent of those new jobs were in food or drink.
Huntsville’s total job increase over five years is an exception in Alabama. The Rocket City’s success in bringing in new industry has been well publicized, but the metro area has increased its total job threshold by more than 10 percent since 2015.
“The jobs that are added in Huntsville are more high-skilled jobs, that add more to the GDP,” Ijaz said. “You can add enormous numbers of food jobs to an area but it does very little to the GDP.”
Meanwhile, the Birmingham Metro increased its overall number of jobs by 4.6 percent.
The two economies are trending in opposite directions in terms of dependence on the food service industry. In all, 8.2 percent of all jobs in the Birmingham area are in food and drink, compared to 7.7 percent in Huntsville. In 2015, they were virtually tied at 7.9 percent.
Still, some of Alabama’s other major metros are even more dependent on restaurant jobs for economic growth. In some cases, that’s because those areas aren’t seeing much job growth at all.
But this kind of growth in the food and drink sector, and more broadly in leisure and hospitality, isn’t unique to Alabama, Ijaz said.
Huntsville's economy is doing well. It's adding more lots of high-skilled jobs while the rest of the state is stuck with more part-time gigs. | graphic by Ramsey Archibald
Birmingham-Hoover is far larger than the other metros, encompassing seven counties. Restaurant job data for two of the less populous counties, Blount and Walker, were not available. But those counties added a combined 816 jobs during the same time frame.
But in some areas, regardless of changes in recent years, the local economy remains far more dependent on food service jobs. No other area of the state relies on the hospitality industry for more of their paychecks than Alabama’s tourism hub at the beach.
The fastest-growing county in Alabama, Baldwin, is hope to the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metro, and also home to sunny coastal resorts like Orange Beach and Gulf Shores.
During peak beach tourism season, more than 15 percent of all jobs in Baldwin County are in food service. In June and July 2018, the number rose to higher than 16 percent. That’s roughly double the rate of Alabama’s other large metros.
There were 47 restaurant jobs for every 1,000 people in Baldwin County in January of this year - that’s the highest mark for any metro or single county in the state.
Baldwin County, especially during the summer, has a job economy that's dominated by the food and drink industry. | graphic by Ramsey Archibald
Next on that list is Houston County, the home of Dothan, in far southeast Alabama. Houston County had 46 food and drink jobs per 1,000 people at the start of this year, according to BLS data.
Two college towns follow that. Tuscaloosa and Lee counties, the homes of Alabama and Auburn, respectively, have a lot of food jobs per capita. Food service jobs in college towns aren’t surprising, but both of these counties are also growing rapidly, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Lee is the second-fastest growing county in Alabama.
Madison County rounds out the top five with 43 restaurant jobs for every 1,000 residents.
All these new restaurant jobs are undoubtedly helping Alabama’s all-time low unemployment rate, but there are concerns, said Ijaz with CBER said.
“Everybody says this has been the slowest recovery, even though it has also been the longest recovery," he said. “One reason for that is that most of the jobs have been in the leisure and hospitality sector. These are mostly part time jobs with low or no benefits.”
But when it comes to the unemployment rate, Ijaz said these jobs don’t artificially decrease the number. After all, they are jobs.
A feud that could wind up bankrupting the powerful West Coast dockworkers union began like a scene from a B-grade gangster film, when two men met over a calamari lunch.
According to federal court testimony, Leal Sundet, a burly blond union leader, introduced himself in a Portland, Ore., restaurant to Elvis Ganda, a gray-haired port terminal executive, with the words: “I’m the guy that can f— you badly.”
At that time, in 2012, Sundet held the second-highest position in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which handles every shipping container that crosses West Coast ports. Sundet pressured Ganda to help the ILWU wrest control of the jobs of two dockside workers from a rival union, according to court testimony. The terminal manager told Sundet that he felt as if a gun were being held to his head.
The ILWU, whose 15,000 dockworkers make an average of $171,000 a year plus free healthcare, pursued the two jobs relentlessly for the next four years, staging slowdowns at the Port of Portland and flouting federal court orders. The resulting chaos caused international shipping lines to abandon Portland, ending Oregon-based cargo service for exporters as far inland as Idaho’s Snake River.
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Ultimately the longshore union prevailed in the jobs dispute, as it often does — a hollow victory, considering the terminal had been forced to close. But the menacing tactics backfired so dramatically that the ILWU may face bankruptcy, according to U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, who presided this month over a two-week Portland civil trial that led to a $94-million award to Ganda’s company, ICTSI Oregon Inc.
“The amount of damages found by the jury is quite high and may result in the bankruptcy of a union that traces its beginnings to at least 1933 and arguably into the 19th century,” Simon wrote after the ILWU and its Portland chapter were found liable for unlawful labor practices. He plans to hear arguments Feb. 14 on whether he should uphold or trim the award.
It might seem far-fetched that a dispute over two jobs could financially ruin a union so powerful that all West Coast ports shut down for days when its contract talks break down. But as automation reduces work, the ILWU has sought jobs through turf battles, quitting the AFL-CIO labor federation in 2013 and wrangling with the machinists and other unions.
Electricians tend refrigerated containers, or “reefers,” at the Port of Portland in 2012, after the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the two contested jobs belonged to their union and not to the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The dispute that some called “reefer madness” escalated into lawsuits culminating in a recent $94-million jury award that could push the ILWU into bankruptcy.
(Beth Nakamura / Oregonian)
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The Portland jobs tending refrigerated containers were coveted by San Francisco-based leaders of the old-style union, whose members still line up daily at hiring halls, many in the footsteps of fathers and grandfathers. Robert “Big Bob” McEllrath, who retired last year as union president, said he saw precedent in the two contested Portland “reefer” jobs held since 1974 by members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
“If I let those jobs go and demanded that they be set aside or whatever, it would bleed up and down the whole entire West Coast,” McEllrath said in a deposition.
In some ways Sundet, 63, whom McEllrath assigned to pursue the jobs at Portland’s Terminal 6, embodies the proudly militant approach of the union founded by the late Harry Bridges, a Marxist who won respect championing civil rights and equality. But Sundet’s scorched-earth tactics stymied judges, confounded three Oregon governors, increased costs of trade and affected his reputation among fellow union members, who in 2015 voted him out of his $307,000-a-year post.
Sundet, who did not return phone messages seeking comment, started as a dockworker in the 1980s. He faced skepticism, having come from the Pacific Maritime Assn., the longshore employers’ organization. But he worked his way up, gaining attention in 2004 when he addressed a Democratic National Committee panel in Portland concerning homeland security.
“The Republican Party views workers as little more than chattel necessary to enhance corporate profits,” Sundet said. He recommended boosting port security with multiple measures that would have also increased longshore work.
As a coast committeeman, Sundet served on the panel overseeing the West Coast collective bargaining agreement covering the 29 ports from San Diego to Bellingham, Wash. He stayed in touch with the Portland chapter, where he’d served as president.
According to facts presented to the jury by Judge Simon, Sundet told a Portland terminal manager in 2012 that he might as well tell shipping lines to depart, “because we’re going to send them packing.” Sundet guided the local chapter as members drove trucks and cranes slowly, took indirect routes around the container yard, parked vehicles to block in reefers and faked mechanical problems, the judge said.
Drivers wait by their trucks in 2012 as rigs back up for a mile outside the Port of Portland’s container terminal, where union dockworkers were staging a slowdown. The longshore union’s tactics in pursuit of two contested jobs led shipping lines to skip port calls, and ultimately to leave Portland for good.
(Brent Wojahn / Oregonian)
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Teamsters fumed as hundreds of trucks backed up outside the port. Container ships spent costly extra days in port, or skipped calls on Portland.
Legal gridlock also ensued. While the ILWU pressed ICTSI Oregon to give it the two jobs under terms of the union’s West Coast labor contract, company managers said the positions weren’t theirs to give. They said that according to their terminal lease, the jobs were controlled by the Port of Portland, which refused to break its contract with the electricians to reassign the work.
Either way, in 2014 the National Labor Relations Board called the ILWU’s conduct unlawful. Simon ruled the union had violated his latest injunction.
The next year, shipping lines Hanjin and Hapag-Lloyd decided to leave the port for good, leaving only Westwood, a smaller carrier. As Hanjin’s final vessel prepared to go, Mike Radak, a manager at the shipping line, begged employers to get the union to load the ship at a normal pace: “We did what the union wanted and we left; now they need to repay the favor.”
In 2017, ICTSI Oregon paid $20 million to exit its 25-year lease to operate the terminal, an expense included in the $135 million in damages the company sought from the union. Portland dockworkers displaced from the terminal regained much of their income through a “pay guarantee program” in the coast contract. Containers they would have handled went to other West Coast ports, where union members got the work.
In her closing argument, Amanda Gamblin, an attorney for ICTSI, mocked dockworkers who said they were devastated when the terminal closed. “It is like stabbing someone with a butter knife 1,000 times and then being devastated when she dies,” Gamblin said.
Susan Harriman, an attorney for the union, blamed the closure mainly on ICTSI, saying workers “were treated like donkeys and belittled and fired without cause.” She said that the company decided to make money on the lawsuit instead of making the terminal a success.
The jury took just 3 1/2 hours to return the verdict and $94-million award, with the ILWU liable for 55% of the damages and Portland Local 8 the other 45%. The union has about $20 million in assets, and Local 8 has $150,000, according to federal filings. Longshore workers at a recent caucus meeting in San Francisco reportedly preferred bankruptcy to assessing members.
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A union spokesman declined to be interviewed, or to discuss the practical effects of a bankruptcy, which could expose the fiercely independent, private organization to unaccustomed outside influence and scrutiny.
Cargo vessels at Terminal Island await longshore union workers skilled at operating cranes that load and unload shipping containers.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Sundet returned to the Portland chapter for work. On May 24, 2016, he joined a longshore “gang,” or work group, dispatched to load the last vessel sent by Westwood, which by then had also decided to give up on Portland.
Sundet entered a cab high above the 45,000-ton ship and began operating a crane. “Sundet was observed moving slowly and inefficiently,” ICTSI manager Jon Lusk wrote in a shift report. “At 13:30 he had loaded only six containers.”
As the departure deadline approached, the dock foreman told Sundet that a manager wanted to replace him with an experienced operator. “Tell him to go f— himself,” Sundet replied, and refused to leave the cab, according to Lusk’s report, which Sundet subsequently confirmed.
Out of time, the Westwood Columbia departed for Asia with 141 Portland containers aboard. Forty-seven containers remained stranded on the dock.
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Daimler said on Friday it will cut at least 10,000 jobs worldwide over the next three years, following others in the industry as they cut costs to invest in electric vehicles while grappling with weakening sales.
FILE PHOTO: The Daimler logo is seen before the Daimler annual shareholder meeting in Berlin, Germany, April 5, 2018. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke
It marks the third announcement on cost cuts this week by a major German car company as automakers seek to fund huge investments into cleaner and self-driving technologies while demand in China, their biggest market, is falling and a trade war between Washington and Beijing is curbing economic growth.
“The automotive industry is in the middle of the biggest transformation in its history,” Daimler said in a statement.
Daimler, the owner of Mercedes-Benz, revealed the 3% cut in its workforce after reaching an agreement on its plans with labor unions.
They have agreed on a variety of measures to cut costs and jobs, including expanding part-time retirement and a severance program to be offered in Germany. The company is also cutting 10% of worldwide management positions.
Staff reductions would be in the low five-digits, or at least 10,000 people, according to Wilfried Porth, a board member in charge of human resources. The company employed 304,680 staff at the end of the third quarter.
Plans laid out by Daimler in November showed the company aimed to cut staff costs by around 1.4 billion euros ($1.54 billion) by the end of 2022.
The announcement comes days after Volkswagen’s (VOWG_p.DE) luxury car unit Audi said it would cut up to 9,500 jobs or one in ten staff by 2025, freeing up billions of euros to fund its shift toward electric vehicle production.
Also this week, BMW said that its management and labor had reached an agreement on measures to reduce bonus and other pay schemes for staff to cut costs.
Car suppliers Continental and Osram have also announced staff and cost cuts.
Daimler has repeatedly cut its profit outlook over recent months, partly to cover a regulatory crackdown on diesel emissions but also because of a slowing auto market.
Group operating profit will be “significantly lower” than a year ago, the company said last month.
Other measures to reduce staffing costs include offering shorter working weeks.
Agreements in place to prevent forced redundancies in Germany until 2029 will remain in place, Daimler said.
The workforce needs a clear strategy for the future, said Michael Brecht, chairman of Daimler’s works council. “A reduction in capacity must not be carried out on the backs of the employees,” he said.
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