Day: October 8, 2018

American Airlines is telling employees to think twice before rebooking stranded customers on rival airlines, and regular economy-class passengers are the most likely to suffer when there are long delays or canceled flights.

A new policy at American directs airport agents not to rebook economy passengers on competing airlines — with no stated limit on how long they must wait for a seat on another American flight. A manager can make exceptions in a few cases, such as people flying to a wedding or funeral and those who would be stranded overnight with no hotel room.

Agents can still put economy passengers on American’s international partner airlines, but that won’t help customers flying within the U.S.

By contrast, American told agents in late September to help the airline’s best customers get to their destinations quickly, even if it means putting them on Delta or United.

Elite-level members of American’s frequent-flyer program and people who bought a first-class or business-class ticket can be booked on another airline if they face a delay of at least five hours — and even sooner for the highest level of elite customers.

The policy highlights the growing divide between airlines’ best customers and everyone else. It also shows how, for many travelers, flying on the biggest airlines is becoming more like taking a discount airline, with cramped planes, fewer perks and more extra fees.

Many of the largest and oldest airlines have agreements to put passengers on one another’s flights when there are long delays or cancellations. American, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines all have alliances with other global carriers and so-called interline agreements with each other. Airlines pay for such transfers, but at discounted fares.

Often, however, low-cost competitors including Southwest, JetBlue, Spirit and Frontier lack those deals. Their passengers are at greater risk of being stranded for a long time if the airline encounters a mechanical breakdown, a computer outage or bad weather.

Even though few travelers know about airline alliances and even fewer have heard of interline agreements, those rebooking options can make the big airlines much better than their smaller brethren when things go wrong.

Airlines have been putting displaced customers on other carriers for decades, but American, the world’s biggest airline, never had a written policy.

Some of American’s key airports including Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago O’Hare see frequent long delays and cancellations because of storms. In July, American and regional affiliate American Eagle canceled 5,422 flights, according to the most recent government figures. That was the second highest rate in the industry behind Frontier Airlines, and compared with 2,394 cancellations at United and United Express and 1,154 at Delta and Delta Connection. The lopsided numbers suggest that American could be spending more than Delta and United to accommodate stranded passengers.

American Airlines spokesman Ross Feinstein said managers will have authority to make exceptions on a case-by-case basis. He said Delta and United have similar rules.

American made its instructions to agents available to The Associated Press. Delta made a portion of its guidelines available, and they do not appear biased against transferring economy passengers to another carrier. Delta spokesman Morgan Durrant said agents are told to try to rebook customers on partner airlines, but they can send anyone, including economy passengers, to American or United.

United Airlines declined to provide its guidelines to the AP, but spokeswoman Maddie King described restrictions that were updated last year and seem similar to American’s. She said economy customers can be placed on a non-partner airline like American or Delta if they would otherwise be stranded overnight and the delay was United’s fault. She said if the passenger is going to a big event like a wedding, “our employees are always empowered to make the right decision for our customers.”

The new American policy was first reported by Gary Leff on his blog, View from the Wing. In an interview, he said the ability to be transferred to another airline has always been one of the big advantages of traveling on those large carriers instead of a budget airline. This will narrow that gap, he said.

“We are going to have to wait and see what it looks like in practice. It comes down to how individual employees take this new policy,” Leff said. As for customers who need help getting to their destination on time, “You’ve got to convince someone to do it for you,” he said.

None of the three leading U.S. airlines would say how often they pay to put a passenger on another carrier’s flight, so it is unclear how many people will be affected.

“It may be the kind of thing that customers don’t notice until they need it,” Leff said.
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The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded this year’s Nobel Prize for economics to Yale University’s William Nordhaus and New York University’s Paul Romer.

The Academy said Nordhaus and Romer “have designed methods for addressing some of our time’s most basic and pressing questions about how we create long-term sustained and sustainable economic growth.”

Nordhaus was awarded the prize “for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis”.  In the 1990s, he created a model describing how the economy and the climate affect each other on the global stage, according to the Academy.

Romer was recognized “for integrating technological innovations into long-run macroeconomic analysis.”  The Academy said Romer’s research is the first to model how market conditions and economic decisions affect creation of new technologies.

Nordhaus, who earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967, and Romer, who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1983 will split the the $1.01 million prize.

The economics prize is the last of the Nobel prizes to be awarded this year.  

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to  Nadia Murad, a Yazidi human rights activist and survivor of sexual slavery by Islamic State in Iraq, and Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist treating victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Last year’s Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to American Richarld Thaler for his research on how human irrationality affects economic theory.

 
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For the first time, researchers have been able to track the amount of Chinese investment in Australia.  From the purchase of large cattle properties to residential real estate, the scope of Chinese money has led to fraught discussions about the scale of foreign influence in Australia. The results of the research may have some surprises for some Australians who have been wary of China’s influence and the size of Chinese investments in their country.

The comprehensive new database shows how much Chinese investors are pouring into Australia. Between 2013 and 2017 the figure was more than $28 billion (U.S. dollars).Most of the money was spent on mining projects and real estate, although increasingly larger amounts are being invested by the Chinese in tourism in Australia.

Academics from the Australian National University say this is proof that Chinese investment is maturing and becoming more sophisticated.

Working with business representatives and the Australian government, researchers are for the first time charting the real value of Chinese investment.The flow of money from China has been politically sensitive, with concerns that valuable Australian farmland and real estate have become foreign-owned.

Professor Peter Drysdale, researcher at the Australian National University, says his work will help to foster a more accurate debate about China’s role.

“Getting an accurate picture of what is going on is half the battle in having a sensible public discussion,” said Drysdale. “Making it possible to have a better informed discussion about what Chinese investment actually does in Australia and what its effect is on the Australian economy.”

The database was compiled by painstaking analysis of thousands of transactions from sources such as the Foreign Investment Review Board and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The research highlighted that Chinese investment in Australia was at its highest in 2016, at $10.5 billion, but dropped to $6.2 billion in 2017.

While the report does not offer explanations for the sharp fall, bilateral business relations between Beijing and Canberra have been under increasing pressure because of diplomatic friction over alleged Chinese meddling in Australia’s domestic politics and the media.

Despite the tensions, China remains Australia’s most valuable trading partner.

 
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On a summer Saturday, the St. Paul Farmers Market buzzed with customers loading up on fresh fruits and vegetables or discussing the merits of buffalo meat.

“It feels like a family here, like a big family with all the growers, and feels like a big family with all the customers. And you see people over years and years and years and years,” said Jim Golden, director of the St. Paul Growers Association, which runs the market. “It works here.”

Mike Gerten, who brings the produce from his vegetable farm to the market, is virtually family. His ancestors were selling at the market in downtown St. Paul when it started more than 150 years ago, four years before Minnesota became a state.

“I was born into the truck gardening business,” said Gerten, whose family immigrated from Germany and Denmark. “I took over from my father, and we go back for at least four generations. We started when it started.”

The market in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, now has a valet car parking service. But the basics — farmers selling their goods and produce to cityfolk — are pretty much the same as in 1854.

At that time, a two-story brick building was constructed in the frontier town and became the Minnesota capitol’s first public market, offering produce in season, and dairy products and baked goods year round. 

The duration and success of the St. Paul market is notable because somewhere between 1854 and about 1980, Americans largely stopped going to farmers markets, preferring to shop in big supermarkets.

In the last 40 years, farmers markets have been rediscovered, growing nationwide from about 1,755 in 1999 to over 8,600 now, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

“I love that I get to talk with the people who are growing my food,” said shopper Alyssa Erding. “I feel really good knowing that I know where it came from, and it came from somewhere close and somewhere that I consider to be home.” 

Only produce grown within 80 kilometers of the market is offered for sale here and sold directly by the grower.

Immigrant fueled resurgence

In St. Paul, an influx of Hmong refugees in the 1970s and ’80s is credited with giving the market a second life. Immigrants from Vietnam, Thailand and Laos, the Hmong are from cultures where nearly everyone shops in open-air markets.

Hmong farmer Der Thao is second generation. Her father came from Laos, but she was born in a refugee camp in Thailand.

“We’ve been at the farmers market for over 30 years,” she said. “So, this is pretty much our second home here.” 

Hmong growers account for 50 percent of the market’s vendors now. (“The business is really good,” said Thao.)

Recently, other immigrant farmers have joined the market.

“Now, there is a Somalian family grower here,” Golden said. “There is a Russian family that just started this year. There’s a woman from India. It’s really the entire world.”

Susan Dahl is a farmer from Nepal who came to the market four years ago.

“I sell raw honey. We have hives,” she said. “I enjoy being in the market. Feels like home.”

Somali vendor Hibo Egeh joined the market last May.

“I make some different hot sauces. Some of them are from my country flavors and background. And the rest is something that I created for my family.”

The new vendors have attracted new buyers.

Ryan Rapazza purchased a Hibo hot sauce. “In addition to wanting to buy it because it’s an absolute excellent hot sauce, we come here to support local farmers and local vendors from the immigrant community,” he said.

The U.S. government has also contributed to the growth of farmers markets through a grant program. Since 2006, the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) has aimed “to increase domestic consumption of, and access to, locally and regionally produced agricultural products, and to develop new market opportunities for farm and ranch operations serving local markets.”

Funding for the program has not been included in the 2019 budget, which may test Americans’ enthusiasm for farmers markets.
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American labor unions are increasingly skeptical that President Donald Trump’s tariffs on products like imported Chinese steel will significantly increase manufacturing jobs, wages and conditions for workers.

At the Bull Moose Tube steel piping factory in the southern state of Georgia, 56 United Steel Workers (USW) union members have been locked out of their workplace for more than six weeks. Union members had rejected a new contract offer that included a modest pay raise, but also forced workers to pay significantly more for health insurance.

“I’m going backwards instead of forwards,” said steelworker David Horton, who has been off the job without pay since August 22. “What little bit of raises they’re offering us isn’t really a raise.” 

Locked out employees have set up a protest site outside the plant while the company has hired non-union workers during the labor dispute. 

A USW strike may seem illogical given the big boost the industry has had after Trump began imposing 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum beginning last March in what he called, a national security measure.

Since then, metal prices have increased by 30 percent and profits for American steel companies have soared.

Yet, Bull Moose Tube Workers dissatisfied with the company’s offer are on strike while union members at two other companies have also voted to strike: 15,000 workers at plants owned by ArcelorMittal and 16,000 at U.S. Steel.

Tariff effect

Union workers complain that, after years of voluntary belt-tightening, they are facing steep cuts in overall income and benefits while steel production continued to founder as it had since the 1970’s.

This isn’t what they had hoped would result from Trump’s tariffs. 

“I don’t think that President Trump intended to increase the value of steel and increase the steel production in the country for companies to use it like they’re using it on us,” said Joey Casey, the president of the United Steelworkers’ local chapter that is locked out of Bull Moose Tube. “I think it’s an abuse.” 

But U.S. steel companies may be hesitant to expand worker wages based on tariffs that business leaders view as temporary measures that will eventually be rescinded.

“In the long run the jobs that are created or saved are unsustainable. And eventually, if the tariffs go away, that industry is going to suffer very, very badly,” warned Ian Murry, a labor analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Major labor organizations are closely aligned with the Democratic Party, but they tepidly supported the Republican president’s tariffs – in the beginning. USW had asked that Canada be exempted from the tariffs because the union has more than 225,000 Canadian members. Tariffs went into effect on Canadian steel at the beginning of June.

Now, it’s harder to decipher just where the unions stand in regards to the tariffs. VOA contacted the leadership of a number of them, including USW, and none agreed to an interview.

“The labor movement, it’s a kind of fractured universe with a lot of different interests among it, but one theme that does prevail at least in the rhetoric of labor is the notion of solidarity,” said Leon Fink, a labor historian and editor of the journal “Labor: Studies in Working-Class History.”

Credit for ‘helping’

Union leaders say tariffs should be supplemented by other measures, such as ending corporate tax deductions for shifting jobs overseas, investing in infrastructure projects that could create vast numbers of new jobs, and providing training programs to make American workers more productive.

“We think that at times tariffs can be an appropriate tool to address the problem, but they do not constitute a comprehensive strategy in and of themselves,” said Josh Nassar, the United Auto Workers legislative director, during testimony in late September to the Senate Finance Committee about the impact of tariffs on the auto industry.

Labor unions remain adamantly opposed to most of the Trump administration’s economic agenda, from tax cuts for the rich to easing regulations protecting worker rights and safety.

“On all those points they withhold support and are deeply critical of the Trump agenda,” said Fink, the labor historian.

The labor movement also opposes Trump’s effort to ease environmental regulations and what they say are his administration’s restrictive anti-immigrant polices.

“Unions see immigrants as a strong source of future union members and of course the president is trying to dampen down immigration,” said labor analyst Murry.

Striking union members are increasingly skeptical about Trump’s tariffs too, since their fortunes are not rising along with the steel corporations. Still, many union members give the president credit for trying.

“It was nice to see the president step in and try to do something for the industry,” said Casey, leader of locked out union workers at the Bull Moose Tube plant.

Deborah Bloom in Trenton, Georgia, contributed to this report.
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