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Union workers at The New Yorker, Pitchfork and Ars Technica said Friday they had voted to authorize a strike as tensions over contract negotiations with Condé Nast, the owner of the publications, continued to escalate.
In a joint statement, the unions for the three publications said the vote, which received 98 percent support from members, meant workers would be ready to walk off the job if talks over collective bargaining agreements continued to devolve. At The New Yorker, the unionized staff includes fact checkers and web producers but not staff writers, while most editors and writers at Pitchfork and Ars Technica are members.
The unions, which are affiliated with the NewsGuild of New York, which also represents employees at The New York Times, have been separately working toward first-time contracts with Condé Nast. In the case of The New Yorker Union, negotiations have dragged out for more than two years.
The core of their demands, the unions said, were fair contracts that included wage minimums in line with industry standards, clear paths for professional development, concrete commitments to diversity and inclusion, and work-life balance. They said in the statement that Condé Nast had “not negotiated in good faith.”
“Condé Nast has long profited off the exploitation of its workers, but that exploitation ends now,” the statement said.
A Condé Nast spokesman said management had already reached agreements on a range of issues with The New Yorker, Pitchfork and Ars Technica unions over the course of negotiations.
“On wages and economics, management has proposed giving raises to everyone in these bargaining units; increasing minimum salaries for entry-level employees by nearly 20 percent; and providing guaranteed annual raises for all members, among other enhancements,” the spokesman said in a statement.
He added: “All of this has been accomplished in just two rounds of bargaining, as we first received the unions’ economic proposals at the end of last year. We look forward to seeing this process through at the bargaining table.”
The labor disputes at Condé Nast have spilled into the public arena a number of times. In January, union members at The New Yorker, including fact checkers and web producers, stopped work for a day in protest over pay. Last year, two high-profile speakers at The New Yorker Festival — Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — pulled out of the event in solidarity with unionized workers.
The NewsGuild of New York said it would hold a rally for fair contracts on Saturday at Condé Nast’s offices in downtown Manhattan.
Facebook said on Friday that it would bring employees back into its California offices beginning in May, one of the first large tech companies to lay out a plan for workers to physically return to offices.
The social network said employees would begin working in its San Francisco Bay Area offices — including its headquarters in Menlo Park, as well as those in Fremont, Sunnyvale and downtown San Francisco — starting on May 10 and on a rolling basis thereafter. The offices would be at 10 percent capacity, the company said, as long as national health data continued to improve.
“The health and safety of our employees and neighbors in the community is our top priority and we’re taking a measured approach to reopening offices,” said Chloe Meyere, a Facebook spokeswoman. She said Facebook would require regular weekly testing for on-site workers, as well as physical distancing and mask wearing indoors.
The San Francisco Chronicle earlier reported on Facebook’s back-to-office plans.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has been a vocal proponent of remote work since the pandemic began. Last May, Mr. Zuckerberg said he would allow some employees to work from home permanently, though they would face salary reductions if they moved to different parts of the country.
For now, Facebook has given employees the option to work from home until July 2, after which any employee who was not hired as a full-time remote worker can continue to work from home until their office is operating at 50 percent capacity. The latest health data, Facebook said, suggested that it would be able to reopen its largest offices at 50 percent capacity after Sept. 7.
Those who were designated as full-time remote workers can continue to work remotely, the company said.
Other office reopenings will be on a case-by-case basis, as Facebook continues to study regional data provided by the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies.
“We will continue to work with experts to ensure our return to office plans prioritize everyone’s health and safety,” Ms. Meyere said.
Volkswagen said on Friday that it would seek financial compensation from its former chief executive and the former head of the Audi division, accusing them of failing to act after learning that diesel vehicles sold in the United States were fitted with illegal emissions-cheating software.
The decision by the German carmaker’s supervisory board marks a turnabout. Volkswagen had been reluctant to publicly accuse former top managers of complicity in the emissions fraud, which has cost Volkswagen tens of billions of euros in fines, settlements and legal fees.
At the same time, the supervisory board said it found “no breaches of duty” by other executives who were members of Volkswagen’s management board in September 2015, when the scandal came to light.
That group includes Herbert Diess, now the chief executive of Volkswagen, who had joined the company two months earlier from BMW. Hans Dieter Pötsch, now chairman of the supervisory board, was chief financial officer and a member of the Volkswagen management board at the time, a position he had held for more than a decade.
Volkswagen’s supervisory board said that in a statement on Friday that a law firm hired to review evidence in the case found that Martin Winterkorn, the former chief executive, failed “to comprehensively and promptly clarify the circumstances behind the use of unlawful software functions” after learning about the misconduct in July 2015.
Mr. Winterkorn, who resigned shortly after the emissions fraud became public, also failed to ensure that questions by U.S. authorities “were answered truthfully, completely and without delay,” the supervisory board said. Shareholders suffered damages as a result, the board said, although it did not say how much money the company will try to recover.
Mr. Winterkorn’s lawyers said in a statement Friday that he denied the accusations and had done everything possible “to avoid or minimize damage” to Volkswagen.
The Volkswagen board said it also concluded that Rupert Stadler, former chief executive of the Audi luxury car division, was negligent because he failed to investigate the use of illegal software in diesel vehicles sold in the European Union.
Mr. Winterkorn and Mr. Stadler face criminal charges in Germany that revolve around the same circumstances. Mr. Winterkorn’s trial was scheduled to begin in April, but judges in the case postponed it this week until September, citing the pandemic.
Mr. Stadler has been on trial in Munich since last year on charges that, even after the wrongdoing came to light, he allowed Audi to continue selling cars that were programmed to recognize when an official emissions test was underway and dial up emissions controls to make the car appear compliant. The cars were not capable of consistently meeting pollution standards.
Mr. Stadler’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the past, Mr. Stadler has denied wrongdoing.
Shipowners are beginning to reroute ships bound for the Suez Canal around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, a costly alternative to avoid the logjam of vessels caused by the giant container ship blocking the canal.
There are growing signs that the effort to dislodge the ship, Ever Given, may take many days if not weeks. Already, more than 100 vessels are stuck at either end awaiting clear passage.
When deciding whether to divert, a shipping company will weigh the likely cost of sitting for days outside the canal versus the added time of steaming around Africa and other potential risks.
“It is like choosing the queue at the post office; it is never the right decision,” said Alex Booth, head of research at Kpler, a firm that tracks petroleum shipping.
Already, seven giant carriers of liquefied natural gas appear to have decided to change course away from the canal, according to Kpler.
One of these ships, chartered by Royal Dutch Shell, had picked up a cargo of gas at Sabine Pass in Texas and was heading toward the canal when it made a sharp turn in the Atlantic Ocean toward Africa. Another, operated by Qatargas, a state energy company, loaded at Ras Laffan, the Qatar energy hub, and headed for Suez but then veered away toward the Cape of Good Hope before reaching the Red Sea.
Container ships are also changing their plans. HMM, a Korean shipping company, ordered one of its vessels that was headed to Asia from Britain via the canal to go around Africa instead, according to NOH Ji-hwan, a spokesman for the company.
Mr. Booth said that it would be unlikely for a ship that was already waiting at the canal to backtrack all the way around Africa. That would mean a nearly six-week journey to reach Amsterdam in the Netherlands compared with just 13 days from the canal.
If the call is made in the early part of a journey, though, it may make sense. For instance, Kpler estimates that a trip around the cape from the Saudi oil terminal Ras Tanura would require 39 days, versus 24 days by way of Suez.
Along with added costs, the longer journey may involve some heightened risk, including piracy off West Africa. Crews may also be unfamiliar with the waters around Africa’s southern tip where the convergence of warm and cool currents produces turbulent and unpredictable conditions. Early Portuguese navigators called this region “the cape of storms.”
Personal income and spending dipped last month as the effects of stimulus checks faded following a big jump in January, but both are expected to rebound as another round of federal payments arrived in March.
The government reported on Friday that personal income fell 7.1 percent in February from the previous month, while consumption dropped by 1 percent. Powered by $600 checks to most Americans from a December relief bill, income in January leapt by 10.1 percent, while consumption rose by 3.4 percent, a figure revised Friday from the originally reported 2.4 percent.
Despite the drop last month, a big pickup is expected in March with the arrival of $1,400 payments to most Americans from the $1.9 trillion relief package signed into law this month.
In the months ahead, most economists expect consumers to return in greater numbers to stores, restaurants and other gathering places as vaccination efforts gather speed and consumers put the stimulus money and lockdown-accumulated savings to work.
“In February, households were waiting for the bigger stimulus check coming in March and there will be a surge in consumer spending, particularly on services,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh.
All of the drop in spending last month was for goods, Mr. Faucher noted, as consumers pulled back on buying big-ticket items like automobiles and appliances. Services should benefit in the coming months, he added, as people have more opportunities to go out and life increasingly returns to normal more than one year after the pandemic hit.
“Consumer spending will be very strong for the remainder of this year and into 2022,” Mr. Faucher added. “There’s a lot of money saved up.”
In another sign of optimism, the University of Michigan reported Friday that its index of consumer sentiment rose to the highest level since the pandemic began.
Economists have improved their forecasts for U.S. economic growth, with Bank of America foreseeing a 7 percent increase this year in gross domestic product.
By: Ella Koeze·Data delayed at least 15 minutes·Source: FactSet
Stocks rose on Friday, along with government bond yields, amid a bout of optimism about the economic recovery.
The gains came a day after President Biden said he wanted the United States to administer 200 million vaccines by his 100th day in office, on April 30, a target the country is already on track to meet. The Federal Reserve vice chair, Richard Clarida, pushed back on concerns that the government’s spending plans would fuel higher sustained inflation.
In a victory for financial institutions, the central bank said that pandemic-era rules that restricted share buybacks and dividend payouts by banks would end midway through 2021 for most firms. On the economic front, gross domestic product data for the fourth quarter was also revised slightly higher on Thursday.
Stocks & Bonds
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The S&P 500 index rose about 0.8 percent, on track to end the week with a small gain. Bank stocks fared better than the broad market, with the KBW Bank index up about 1 percent.
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The Stoxx 600 Europe rose 0.9 percent, logging a fourth consecutive week of gains.
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The yield on 10-year Treasury notes rose to 1.67 percent.
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Shares of ViacomCBS plunged again on Friday, bringing the stock’s losses for the week to about 50 percent. The decline followed Viacom’s announcement that it plans to raise $3 billion by selling stock and put some of those funds toward building its streaming offering.
Economic data
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Personal income and spending in the United States dipped last month as the effects of stimulus checks faded following a big jump in January, but both are expected to rebound as another round of federal payments arrived in March.
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Retail sales in Britain rose 2.1 percent in February, rebounding from a slump of 8.2 percent the month before, when the country entered a third national lockdown.
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A survey of German business expectations rose to the highest level in nearly three years.
Oil
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Oil prices rose with futures of Brent crude, the global benchmark, climbing 1.7 percent to $63 a barrel.
The thrift-store start-up ThredUp on Friday will become the latest clothing resale website to become publicly traded, a move that seeks to take advantage of a growing interest in secondhand retailers among young shoppers.
The company sold 12 million shares for $14 each in its initial public offering, raising $168 million and valuing the business at $1.3 billion.
Founded in Oakland in 2009, ThredUp built its inventory by sending prepaid packages, or “clean out kits,” to sellers, who fill the bags with used clothes and accessories and mail them back.
The website joins Poshmark, which went public in January, and The RealReal, which went public in 2019, on the Nasdaq stock market.
The three companies are all leaders in secondhand shopping, but they take different approaches to resale. The RealReal consigns high-end brands exclusively. Poshmark allows sellers to directly list their items. ThredUp has formed partnerships with brands including Gap, Walmart and Macy’s, helping these large retailers incorporate resale into their stores and e-commerce platforms.
All three emphasize the environmental benefits of resale — but ThredUp more so than its competitors. The company refers to itself as a “force for good” and has criticized the fashion industry’s carbon footprint, including by writing open letters to luxury brands like Burberry that have burned their unsold inventory.
James Reinhart, the chief executive and a co-founder of ThredUp, said Thursday that the company was “ushering in a more circular future for fashion by helping new waves of consumers, brands and retailers take steps toward sustainability.”
With the retail analytics firm GlobalData, ThredUp also publishes a widely cited annual “Resale Report,” which tracks growth of the secondhand market. By the end of 2021, the market value of online resale is estimated to grow to $12 billion, up from $7 billion in 2019, according to the last year’s report.
Much of that growth has been attributed to Generation Z’s preference for online shopping and passion for sustainability. ThredUp’s revenue was $186 million in 2020 (up from $163.8 million in 2019). It posted a net loss of $47.9 million last year.
Still, the company was not immune to retail’s upheaval during the pandemic, as detailed in a March filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Average monthly orders have now returned to prepandemic levels, ThredUp said, but the company has not “seen sustained growth” in the time since.
The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday upheld a 2019 ruling that Tesla had illegally fired a worker involved in union organizing and that the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk, had illegally threatened workers with the loss of stock options if they unionized.
The board ruled that the worker, Richard Ortiz, must be reinstated with back pay, and that Mr. Musk must delete his tweet. The company must also post a notice committing not to violate labor law in the future and announcing that it will undertake the mandated remedies.
Mr. Ortiz had been visibly involved in union organizing, including distributing leaflets in the parking lot of the company’s plant in Fremont, Calif., before he was fired in October 2017. The company said it fired him because he had posted screenshots of employees’ profiles in an internal platform to Facebook. An administrative law judge ruled that it was in retaliation for his organizing efforts.
The judge also found that the company had illegally issued a warning to another employee for taking the screenshots and sending them to Mr. Ortiz, a ruling that the board upheld on Thursday as well.
In May 2018, Mr. Musk posted his tweet, which included the clause, “why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing?” Both the judge and the board deemed the post an unlawful attempt to coerce employees by threatening their compensation.
The board went further than the judge’s earlier ruling on some questions, finding that Tesla’s confidentiality agreement, which it required employees to sign, unlawfully prohibited them from speaking with the media about Tesla without authorization even if the material was public. The ruling on Thursday requires the company to amend its agreement.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
In today’s On Tech newsletter, Shira Ovide writes that people are buying digital items like a tweet and a meme for bonkers amounts of money. But we need to take a step back.