Audi car corporation fined for fraud

This video from Australia says about itself:

Audi Chief Executive Rupert Stadler arrested over dieselgate scandal | Auto Expert John Cadogan

19 June 2018

Rupert Stadler, the boss of Audi, was arrested by German prosecutors on Monday.

Sunday June 10th was probably Professor Stadler’s last happy full day. Investigators invited themselves into his private residence a week ago Monday (imagine his delight – senior execs love that: We were driving past and saw your light on; just thought we’d drop in…) wherein they found interesting documentation relating to fraud and false advertising, allegedly.

The Financial Times says the information at Chateau Stadler helped them uncover another 20 suspects in the biggest public health scandal of the decade.

Big Rupie enjoyed that first date at his place so much that a week later he went back to their place to assist with enquiries, as tradition has it, and now it seems he’s moved in.

Audi has confirmed Gassy Rupert’s new domicile, while many news outlets say he’s been remanded in custody because they don’t trust him not to tamper with the evidence.

You’d think an advanced society like ze Chermans would have laws against perverting the course of justice…

Anyway, Isaac Newton said so famously about the mighty: such a long way to fall. From boardroom bigwig to polisher of Bubba’s big bratwurst behind bars in the Bavarian big house. Something of a literal and metaphoric comeuppance.

Or perhaps ze Chermans have a gilded cage for corporate high flyers whose moral compasses have led them off course? Hopefully a perspex one, where the guilty are force-fed clean diesel exhaust for the advancement of science, like the monkeys they are, until they are nought but dead men walking the not-so green mile.

But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Like all advanced societies, Germany enjoys the presumption of innocence. Four-ring Rupie is of course innocent until a court determines he’s a filthy, contemptible, bullshitting streak of emissions cheating excrement (if in fact such a determination is ever forthcoming).

Audi’s former head of engine development, Wolfgang Hatz, was arrested in Germany in September 2017 and apparently remains behind bars there. Audi’s PR team globally has fought like the self-entitled bitches they are to distance the brand’s name from the Volkswagen scandal. Such is Audi’s disproportionate contribution to Volkswagen’s overall financial wellbeing. They’ve even applied for the shitness protection program. It’s that serious.

The dieselgate scandal has already hoovered up about 25 billion Euros of the company’s seemingly inexhaustible funds (mostly in the USA). Rupert Stadler is currently the most senior executive yet detained in the scandal, which at its core demonstrates an organisation owned by shareholders and yet sociopathically committed to pumping up the profit at seemingly any cost.

Even if that cost is killing thousands of people worldwide, prematurely, by poisoning the very air we breathe. Because that’s what dieselgate is really all about. This crime matters.

And now a comment from you – more specifically one of you. In this case, a respected lawyer whom I won’t name in order to protect his privacy. This e-mail was unsolicited and is a response to Mr Stadler’s arrest. “I would obtain great satisfaction in seeing the dagger driven home on this point – there is a foundation principle in capitalist theory at stake: ‘it is inequitable to retain ill-gotten gains’ – the principle of ‘justice in acquisition’.

“What is the complaint? First, the conduct was planned; Second, a solution to very high emission standards was achieved by engaging in research and development of a program designed to disguise the fact that the vehicle did not achieve the emission standard;

“Third, VW sold cars for a profit in multiple markets knowing that the vehicles [breached emissions standards by a significant margin];

Fourth, VW lied to regulators when the issue was uncovered;

Fifth, it is defending claims for compensation. “But they get to keep the cash, less of course a few fines which, although not tax deductible (in Australia at least), were no doubt factored in when the risk was being considered by those at VW who are responsible.

“If I (meaning our lawyer correspondent) engaged in such conduct, I would be struck off, lose my right to practice. If you (mening me) engaged in such conduct, ACMA (the Shitsville Communications and Media Authority) would have a party on your grave.

“Long live ethics in business.”

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

800 million fine for fraudulent diesels of Audi

Car manufacturer Audi has been fined EUR 800 million by the German authorities for the sale of fraudulent diesel cars. The company, part of the Volkswagen Group, accepts the fine and therefore admits being guilty. Volkswagen had previously been fined 1 billion euros because of the fraud scandal.

In the case of Audi, it concerns cars with V6 and V8 diesel engines, of which the company has sold almost 5 million worldwide since 2004. They were more polluting than permitted. And in emission testing, Audi used fraudulent software to hide that.

Audi big cheese Rupert Stadler was arrested in June. The German justice department suspects him of involvement in the fraud scandal.

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Opel diesel pollution scandal in Germany

This video says about itself:

Opel reported to have manipulated diesel car exhaust emissions | DW | 14.07.2018

Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) has been testing Opel vehicles in recent months, according to a report to be published in a Sunday newspaper. According to the report, the KBA found indications that Opel has manipulated exhaust emissions in some diesel vehicles and that nitrogen oxide emissions were more than 10 times higher than permitted. Worldwide, about 60,000 cars are affected, including diesel versions of the Cascada, Insignia and Zafira models.

Read more here.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Diesel scandal in Germany now also leads to Opel

The authorities in Germany have raided car manufacturer Opel on suspicion of manipulating test results for diesel cars. Car manufacturers such as Volkswagen, Audi and Mercedes were previously involved in the scandal.

In the diesel cars of those manufacturers, fraudulent software was installed on a large scale. With the help of the software, the emission of harmful substances in tests seemed more favourable.

According to the German newspaper Bild, this is about 95,000 Opel diesel cars that meet the Euro-6 standard. These were the models Insignia, Zafira and Cascada from the construction years 2012, 2014 and 2017. The Opel sites in Kaiserslautern and Rüsselsheim were searched. …

Opel has been part of the French PSA group since last year, including the Peugeot, Citroën and DS brands.

UPDATE: the German government has ordered Opel to recall 100,000 cars.

Criminals steal Galapagos tortoises

This 12 October 2018 video is called Stolen Galapagos Turtles Could Be Sold For US$60,000 Each.

Amazon.com’s money to religious fanatics

This November 2016 video says about itself:

French company Lafarge sued for financing ISIS and complicity in war crimes in Syria

Together with eleven complainants who are former Syrian employees, Sherpa and ECCHR represented by maître Marie Dosé and maître Jean-Christophe Ménard, filed suit against cement-manufacturer Lafarge and its subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS) for its actions in Syria. By having business relations with the terrorist group ISIS in Syria, this company may have taken part in the financing of the group, being therefore complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

After French corporate money to ISIS … Dutch taxpayers’ money to jihadist terrorism in Syria … now it is the turn of Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world and Amazon.com boss.

From Newsweek in the USA:

Amazon Draws Fire for ‘Wildly Irresponsible’ Scheme Supporting Islamic Extremists

By Ewan Palmer On 10/9/18 at 5:49 AM

Amazon has enabled customers to donate to a hard-line Islamist charity whose founder supports child marriage, female genital mutilation and believes men should be allowed to hit their wives, an investigation by The Times of London has found.

According to the newspaper, the company agreed to host the Muslim Research and Development Fund (MRDF) as part of its charitable scheme Amazon Smile, which launched in the U.K. last November.

The program allows Amazon customers to donate 0.5 percent of the money they have spent on a product using the online store to a charity of their choice.

The Times revealed that MRDF is one of 6,000 charities to have joined the Amazon Smile program despite its founder Haitham al-Haddad’s extremist views.

These include describing homosexuality as a “crime against humanity”, stating that all Western women should wear the niqab and calling Christians and Jews the “enemies of Allah”, as well as warning Muslims not to integrate …

Haddad, originally from Saudi Arabia, has also been described as the “one of the most dangerous men in Britain” …

According to The Times, al-Haddad said “the younger the better” with regard to teenage girls getting married. “It’s not necessarily a problem, biologically, if a girl of 12 or 13 becomes pregnant”, he added.

He also believed “a man should not be questioned why he hit his wife”, and has stated, “Men should toil outside the house. Women should be devoted wives and mothers.”

In the wake of the catastrophic 2011 tsunami in Japan, Haddad said Allah allowed thousands to die to “punish the Japanese for their refusal to submit to him.”

Haddad also declared his support for stoning as a punishment for adultery and mandatory capital punishment for apostasy.

Injured Amazon workers get injustice

This video from the USA says about itself:

9 May 2018

Injured Amazon worker describes high-tech dystopia inside Texas warehouse.

Injured Amazon worker Shannon Allen spoke to the International Amazon Workers Voice about the conditions at the DFW-7 fulfillment center in Haslet, Texas. Shannon described brutal working conditions.

By John Marion and Evan Cohen in the USA:

Injured US Amazon workers face “workers compensation” regime rigged in favor of employers

10 October 2018

Barbara, a former Amazon worker in South Carolina, recently recounted a story to the International Amazon Workers´ Voice that has become all too common.

As a picker at Amazon, she often walked 15 miles a day in a warehouse where workers were pressured to make rate at the expense of safety. Amazon’s policy was to fire workers after three write-ups for not making rate. One day while racing to make rate, Barbara had to try to stop her cart abruptly to avoid a collision with another worker. As a result, she injured her foot and back.

Amcare, the company nursing station, was closed for the night shift. The following day the company sent Barbara to a doctor who gave her Tylenol and crutches. After being told she had no other choice, Barbara returned to work despite her injury, where she was assigned to packing and office work. Her supervisor told her to keep working despite the pain, and at one point she had to stand for five hours on her fractured foot.

Eventually she received a $4,000 settlement that required her to sign a statement stipulating that she could not work at Amazon, could not sue for additional damages, and could not draw unemployment.

After her workers compensation payments ended, Barbara was unable to find work elsewhere. She lost her home and car.

“It was devastating to lose my car and my home”, she told the IAWV . “My dad built my home. All because of this little accident.”

The carnage at America’s workplaces, and the scandalous mistreatment of workers after their injuries, goes completely unreported in the establishment media.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 4,500 American workers are killed on the job each year. Nearly 3 million serious injuries are officially recorded by employers, and the true number is likely much higher. Tens of thousands die every year because of past exposure to asbestos, benzene, and other toxic substances in the workplace.

America’s workers compensation regimes vary from state to state, with many originating from reforms enacted at the beginning of the 20th century. Under these regimes, workers are prohibited from filing lawsuits against their employers, but in return, they are nominally entitled to receive medical coverage and a percentage of their lost wages while they were out of work due to an injury. In theory, the medical benefits include doctor visits, hospital treatment, nursing care, medications, medical diagnostic tests, physical therapy, and durable medical equipment.

However, remedies once provided to workers compensation claimants have been substantially undermined over time by the employers and the insurance companies, whose lobbyists more and more have had the last word as to legislation that sets the procedural and substantive rules, aided and abetted by Democratic and Republican state governments.

Today, the reality faced by workers who enter this system includes false diagnoses by pro-company doctors, tendentious and Kafka-esque procedures that favor employers at every step, accusations that workers are malingering and faking their injuries, absurdly low compensation, and pressure to get back to work as soon as possible, often aggravating the original injuries.

According to the Social Security Administration, approximately 75 percent of workers compensation awards in the US pay only medical costs. In other words, some of the doctors may be reimbursed for the medical treatment that was provided, but the injured workers are not compensated at all. Even in disability cases where the worker receives some pay, it is usually only a fraction of the pre-injury wage.

A 2015 Pro Publica study found that since 2003, 33 states had passed laws reducing workers compensation benefits. In many states, workers have to choose a doctor from a list provided by the very employer whose unsafe practices in many cases were the cause of the injury.

Shannon Allen, an injured Amazon worker from Texas, reported that in the course of her long struggle to get medical treatment for her injuries, one doctor examined her and determined that she was seriously injured. But that diagnosis was rejected by another doctor who never examined her in person and never even reviewed her medical imaging.

This latter doctor based his opinion in part on the fact that he apparently could not read the handwriting on some of Shannon’s older medical records. “I find it unfortunate”, he wrote, “that the only medical records are these exceedingly poor handwritten notes from an emergency room.”

This latter doctor, who had never met Shannon and who was apparently unable to read her records, nevertheless opined that Shannon was not injured at all and only suffered from “mild degenerative changes” due to aging. This type of outrageous and degrading smear is not an uncommon experience for workers who are victims of industrial accidents.

The actual monetary sums that workers receive through workers compensation are plainly and grossly insufficient. An article on the website of the Littler law firm, giving its perspective on a 2005 Texas law signed by then-Governor Rick Perry, complained that before the law’s enactment the average per-claim total in Texas of $5,900 had been 76 percent above the US median.

US employers “now provide only a small percentage (about 20 percent) of the overall financial cost of workplace injuries and illnesses”, according to a June 2015 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) study. The average percentage of costs paid out-of-pocket by injured workers is 50 percent.

Many employers have policies that set procedural traps for workers to lose their benefits, such as mandating that workers report injuries within 24 hours. In 2014, US Steel suspended two workers for five days without pay because of such a policy.

OSHA’s report confirms that income inequality exacerbates the consequence of inadequate coverage, in part because other working members of a family often need to take time off to care for the injured person. Working two or three jobs to make ends meet causes fatigue and increases the risk of injury. Workplace injuries also damage self-confidence and cause stress within families.

Insurers, meanwhile, make billions from unused premiums on policies. According to statistics from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the total was more than $50 billion in 2017 for the 20 largest private insurers. According to the Social Security Administration, total covered payrolls in the United States were $7.2 trillion in 2015.

Conversely, the risk of fines for employers who engage in illegal practices is small. In Massachusetts, for example, only a little more than $1 million in fines was collected during 2017, despite the issuance of 1,900 stop work orders.

Common illegal practices by American employers include paying cash to workers off the books, using shell companies to buy one policy for multiple companies, misclassifying workers as consultants, and reporting dangerous jobs like roofing as office work. But as the experiences of many Amazon workers who have spoken to the IAWV demonstrates, even when the workers compensation system is functioning “legally” and “as intended”, the result is a terrible injustice for countless workers.

For example, while it is legal for employers to use staff provided by temp agencies, this practice is known to diminish the likelihood of workers compensation claims by workers. The reason is that workers are afraid they will not receive more assignments from the staffing agency if they file a claim. Companies that contract out to temp agencies also save money by cutting back on safety training. According to OSHA, the agency “has encountered many situations, including some in which temporary workers have been killed, in which employers have chosen to not provide required safety training to temporary workers.”

Sedgwick, Amazon’s claims administrator, had revenues of $1.74 billion in 2017. Workers from many different industries have gathered together on Facebook to denounce Sedgwick and share their experiences. Pepsi workers, pipefitters and hospital workers, FedEx and Amazon employees, and Hertz workers have all experienced similar outrages at the hands of this company.

According to a September 2018 Reuters report, the venture capital firm Carlyle Group LP is in talks to buy Sedgwick for $6 billion from a consortium led by KKR & Co. (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts). The KKR group paid $2.4 billion in 2014. In 2016, Moody’s salivated over Sedgwick’s “stable earnings.”

French workers demonstrate against right-wing Macron government

The sign on this photo says Workers of the University of Paris – IV on strike.

By Anthony Torres in France:

Workers and retirees rally against French government’s austerity policies

10 October 2018

Yesterday was the first demonstration after the end of summer vacation called by French trade and student unions against austerity policies, three months after the end of the French rail strike. Workers, retirees and youth marched on the streets amid a deep crisis of President Emmanuel Macron’s government, as criticisms of Macron grow in the police force and ministers are resigning in droves from the cabinet. …

In all, over 100 demonstrations took place across France, called by the … General Confederation of Labor (CGT), Workers Force (FO) and Solidarity unions, together with the Independent Democratic High School Students Federation, the National Union of High School Students, and the National Union of University Students. …

In Paris, where clashes erupted between police forces and a group of roughly 100 people in the protest march, leading to five arrests, the unions counted 50,000 protesters (21,000 according to police sources). There were between 3,000 and 5,000 marching in other cities, including Marseille, Lyon, Nantes and Le Havre.

WSWS reporters in Paris spoke to a retiree, Joyce, who lives in Brittany and came to Paris to express her opposition to Macron: “We have very low pensions, and they are not being increased. They are increasing the minimum old age salary, but low pensions that are under that threshold are not being increased. Many women had children and raised them at home, and then we found odd jobs and if then we had a workplace accident … well then, you don’t get a big pension. How are we supposed to live on that? Everything is taken away from us retirees, and for the workers it is the same thing. Even the rail workers, everything, all their social rights are being taken away.”

Joyce also denounced the French government’s wars in the Middle East and its plans for hundreds of billions of euros in military spending: “In Syria, what are we doing in that country, how is that any of our business? It’s not our business. I don’t agree with it at all.”

The sign on this photo says, translated, Not any more wars of intervention abroad at all, not any more hunting down of immigrant men and women at home.

Joyce pointed to the growing pressures on workers under Macron: “I come from a family where there are a lot of nurses. They are swamped at work, like my daughter in law. … They reduce the number of beds in the hospital, patients have to go to another hospital, and then elsewhere for tests, then you have to go 200 kilometers to do more tests.”

Joyce said Macron is only “the friend of the rich” and said the only way forward was to take the revolutionary road: “I think that in France there is far too much social inequality. Everyone should be able to live in a decent way, have enough to eat and have a roof over their heads. We don’t need to give it all to the people who are friends of Macron on the stock exchange. We have a government in any case that doesn’t care about us at all, so we go and protest but it will do no good. We can protest all we want, ultimately we will have do like in 1789, basically.”

Over 1,000 people demonstrated in Amiens, an industrial town and former French Communist Party bastion, hard-hit by deindustrialization, where hospital workers, teachers and local government workers made up the bulk of the marchers.

Philippe, a CGT rail worker, spoke to WSWS reporters in Amiens: … ”Macron needs removing, he won’t give concessions. That’s the lesson of the strike. It needs a concerted movement of the whole working class, a revolution.”

This sign says Railworkers on strike – Same Macron, same struggle.

In Marseille, WSWS reporters spoke to marchers among port workers, local government workers, the unemployed and teachers in vocational high schools.

Marc, a professor at Marseille’s Diderot High School, told the WSWS that he is “against Macron’s reforms that reinforce social inequality. We are struggling against the reform of vocational education, which will not allow us to train people to act as citizens and integrate them so they can take a real place in society. In fact, the government plans to cut the number of hours spent on general education, so they are just turned into raw material for exploitation, good for hiring but not for being critical.”

Marc pointed to the wave of ministers’ resignations from the government: “We see now that Macron’s politics is just old wine in new bottles. (Interior Minister Gérard) Collomb wants to take back the municipal seat he had. (Ecology Minister Nicolas) Hulot served as a left cover for the government which is not ecological at all, although that is the great issue today. The government was put in place by the powerful people who own the economy.”

Asked what conclusions he drew from the rail workers’ strike, Marc said he thought the strike was “legitimate.” He added, “Our comrades at the National Railways tried to change their methods of striking but finally they obtained none of their demands.”

Graciela, an unemployed worker, told WSWS reporters in Marseille she “contests the policy of our dear president. The laws he is ramming through pillage our rights and attack the poorest among us, while the politicians and the lobbies are getting fatter off our backs.”

Graciela also stressed that workers should look for new means of communicating and organizing their struggles: “The press is silent about us. We must work via social media so that we can bring everyone together.” …

Asked about Macron’s rail privatization and attack on rail workers’ wage levels, Graciela said Macron’s reform should be repealed and scrapped. She explained, “I want to believe that the people can go down into the streets to say stop these laws, we reject them. Everyone has to go out onto the streets.”

See also here.

Workers make Google stop war profiteering contract

This 27 April 2018 video from the USA says about itself:

Google‘s Secret Meeting With Pentagon Causes Staff To Revolt – The 10 Billion Dollar Reason Why

Welcome to: The Sci-Tech Sentinel Google Founder Met Secretly With Pentagon To Create ‘Jedi AI Cloud’ -Staffers Revolt

Hosted by Justus Knight

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Google is withdrawing from a big deal with the United States armed forces. The company’s new ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence (AI) do not match the project, writes parent company Alphabet.

With the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) deal, 10 billion dollars is involved. The Pentagon is looking for a company that creates and manages clouds to store huge amounts of data. The project will run for up to ten years.

Kill

In May, unrest arose among employees due to project Maven, in which video images made by drones were analyzed. The data that this yields is used to determine, eg, who should be killed during missions. Google stops according to US media at the end of next year with this project.

… Tech giants Amazon and Microsoft are still in the running for the tender of JEDI.