Dockworkers suspend their strike — for now
Update: 2024-10-04
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Dockworkers have suspended their strike until Jan. 15 in response to a new, higher wage offer from port operators. But what about their demands around automation? Plus, a judge blocks the Biden administration’s latest student debt relief plan, and the complicated work of tracking political donations by companies and business owners.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Hi, I'm Kai Rizdal, the host of How We Survive, it's a podcast for Marketplace.
00:00:05
In 1986, before I was a journalist, I was flying for the Navy.
00:00:09
"Mr.
00:00:10
Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
00:00:14
It was the cold wall, and my first appointments were intercepting Russian bombers.
00:00:18
Today, though, there's another threat out there.
00:00:21
Climate change.
00:00:22
This could be the warmest year on record.
00:00:24
Climate change is here.
00:00:25
Temperatures here are warming faster than anywhere on Earth.
00:00:29
And while the threat seems new, the Pentagon's been funding studies on climate change since the 1950s.
00:00:35
"I think we will put our troops and our forces at higher risk if we don't recognize the impact of climate change."
00:00:44
This season, we go to the front lines of the climate crisis to see how the military is preparing for the threat.
00:00:51
Listen to How We Survive, wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:56
Deports from Boston to Houston are back in business.
00:01:00
I'm David Brankachev.
00:01:01
Doc workers have suspended their strike after a new offer from shipping companies, a strike that had immobilized vast swaths of America's supply chains.
00:01:11
This is not a tentative contract deal at this stage.
00:01:13
It's a temporary agreement for cargo handlers to work ahead of a new deadline in January now.
00:01:19
Marketplace's Nova Sufo has more.
00:01:21
The two sides did not reveal details of the latest wage offer that ended a strike that had threatened to upend supply chains and raise shipping and consumer prices, but going into the strike, the head of the Doc workers union,
00:01:33
Harold Daggett, said they were demanding a $5 an hour pay increase for each of the next six years.
00:01:39
The port operator's previous offer was for a nearly 50% increase.
00:01:42
Their latest offer was apparently for more than that.
00:01:45
Left unresolved is the union's demand for no automation or semi-automation at East and Gulf Coast ports, Doc workers worry they'll lose jobs.
00:01:54
The two sides have until January 15 to resolve that and other issues, or the strike could resume.
00:02:00
I'm Nova Sufo from Marketplace.
00:02:02
Economic forecasters are expecting a steady jobs report later this morning covering September.
00:02:07
The betting is that hiring will be in line with August, and that the unemployment rate will hold steady, we shall see, right, a 30 eastern time for that.
00:02:16
Stock index futures are pointing up as NP futures are up a quarter of a percent ahead of the unemployment report.
00:02:24
After President Biden flagged that Israel was considering a strike on Iran's oil facilities, still at $74 a barrel, crude oil is not that high, it's down 14% from its 2024 peak.
00:02:38
The Biden administration's latest student loan forgiveness proposal is on hold.
00:02:42
It was blocked by a federal judge after a group of Republican attorneys general sued to stop it, Marketplace's Nancy Marshall Genserer has that update.
00:02:50
The Biden administration proposed this new student debt relief plan after the Supreme Court struck down its original proposal.
00:02:57
This new plan would forgive debt for people who now owe more than they did when they started repaying their student loans, borrowers who had been making student loan payments for at least 20 or 25 years,
00:03:08
people who were eligible for loan forgiveness but never applied, and borrowers who enrolled in career training that left them with a lot of debt in low-paying jobs.
00:03:18
Yesterday, a federal judge in Missouri blocked the new debt cancellation plan.
00:03:22
He said it would hurt a student loan servicer created by the state.
00:03:25
Missouri got the case after a Georgia judge decided that state didn't have standing to sue.
00:03:31
The Republican attorney's general who brought the lawsuit said the Biden administration was exceeding its authority and the loan forgiveness plan would hurt state tax revenue.
00:03:41
I'm Nancy Marshall Genserer, for Marketplace.
00:03:43
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00:04:12
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00:04:54
[Music]
00:04:57
It is the last few days of our fall fundraiser and we're making progress toward our goal of 2,500 Marketplace investors.
00:05:05
This is a different kind of goal for us, one that centers on your participation.
00:05:09
Whether it's your first ever donation, you're able to chip in again maybe or you're increasing a monthly gift, I'll tell you every gift really counts, so stand up as one of our vital Marketplace investors and do it by Friday if you can,
00:05:28
go to Marketplace.org/donate.
00:05:32
Now to our series, the selection season about political polarization in America, in particular how companies intensify or ease political divides by taking sides, taking stands and/or bringing us together.
00:05:44
Today, the almost archaeological painstaking process of teasing out which corporate money goes to Democrats and which to Republicans.
00:05:52
Sarah Breiner is Director of Research and Strategy at the Campaign Finance Tracking Organization, Open Secrets.
00:05:58
Sarah, welcome.
00:05:59
Happy to be here.
00:06:00
Thanks for having me.
00:06:01
Who's giving the most to one side or the other?
00:06:03
Do you have any companies that you've identified?
00:06:06
Typically, we actually see the biggest donors being individual billionaires, and top of the list this year so far is Timothy Mellon, who's basically an heir,
00:06:17
who is given tremendously to the Republican side of things, the cycle, and most of the top givers, the cycle are Republicans, but Michael Bloomberg, former aspirational presidential candidate,
00:06:30
is a top Democratic donor, the cycle.
00:06:33
These are people who aren't necessarily household names to normal folks, and they tend to be the top fundlers of money to both parties.
00:06:42
So they do it as individuals, but some companies you've identified are giving.
00:06:47
It's a bag of companies that, again, aren't necessarily the ones you think of.
00:06:52
So Uline Incorporated is near the top of the pack.
00:06:55
Uline is a packaging company, and they do give, but really it's hedge funds, venture capital, business unions, not necessarily, again, retail corporations that we know.
00:07:08
Remind us again, as a person who's done many stories about dark money, why is it so opaque?
00:07:13
Dark money is what we call donations to super PACs.
00:07:19
So a super PAC is a political committee that exists to support or oppose a specific candidate or group of candidates, and dark money these days typically takes the form of donations to those super PACs.
00:07:32
The super PAC has to disclose the donors, but if the donor has a name like one, two, three, four LLC, we don't know who that is.
00:07:42
So given the fact that dark money is legal in America, we really can't know fully who is behind the money that is flowing into politics in many situations.
00:07:56
It is legal in so far as a certain degree of nondisclosure is allowable.
00:08:02
It is becoming illegal in certain jurisdictions.
00:08:07
Arizona passed a ballot initiative very recently, saying that any donors to any group spending on advertisements in their state need to trace the money all the way down.
00:08:19
And Arizona is one of, you know, the first states to take this kind of action.
00:08:24
They're still implementing it, but nationally we might have a long way to go, but there is progress and is movement at the state level.
00:08:31
Sarah Breiner is director of research and strategy at the campaign finance watchdog open secrets.
00:08:36
Thank you so much.
00:08:37
Thank you so much for having me.
00:08:39
In the coming weeks in this office politics project here, how companies can keep their workforces from being jerks to each other at a time of heated political rhetoric.
00:08:48
All of our coverage is accumulating for your streaming convenience at Marketplace.org.
00:08:53
Our executive producer is Kelly Silvera, our digital producer is Dylan Miettenen.
00:08:57
Our engineers are JC Bold, John Brodington, and Jessen Duller.
00:09:02
In New York, I'm David Brunkachia, Marketplace Morning Report.
00:09:07
From APM, American Public Media.
00:09:09