1/14/23 FULL PARTNER ROUNDUP: FTC, Nursing Strike, Uber Strike, Kroger Lawsuit, Obesity Crisis and MORE!

Breakingpoints dot com. Hi, I'm Matt Stoler, author of monopoly focused newsletter Big and an anti trust policy analyst. I have a great segment for you today on this Big breakdown. So this one's about something that anti trust enforcers just did to help you get a higher paycheck or make it easier for you to get a new and better job. Also, what I've noticed is that a lot of you like

to get involved in politics in a meaningful way. So I actually have an action that you can take, and I'll have instructions in this video on how to do so to strengthen the law and help your liberty. Okay, so let's start at the beginning, because one has to do with the workplace from slavery and indentured servitude to minimum wages and unionization. The relationship between work and control have always been core questions in American history and frankly

all human history. But I live here in America, so that's what I'm going to talk about, all right. So today we're in a modern society, and one way we ask these same questions about work and control is by talking about employment contracts, the agreements between workers and their employers. Now we've come a long way, generally. You don't see the kinds of abuses that used to be common in American history anymore. And I'm not just talking about slavery

and segregation and all that stuff. For example, in nineteen oh seven, more than three thousand workers died in coal mine accidents, and that was pretty normal. Railroads, it was a total mess. In the nineteen twenties, the brother of the Secretary of the Treasury was caught saying that you couldn't run a coal mine without machine guns. So things have gotten a lot better today, but that doesn't mean

that they are perfect. Today, forty million Americans are bound to something called a non compete agreement, which is a provision of an employment contract that stops people from leaving their job and going to work for someone else. It's a pretty good chance that some of you watching this video, many of you actually are bound by a non compete contract. It's a lot of people are bound by these things, and it's a weird restriction that is relatively new. I mean,

it's called a non compete. How is that even legal? Right? Non compete? Non Competes are not totally new. They've actually been around for centuries, but traditionally they've been pretty rare. In the twentieth century, non competes applied to high level executives, the proverbial CEO with access to Coca Cola's secret recipe.

But over the last twenty years this has changed. Let's take a listen to the chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Leeda Kan, who is the enforcer that took the action that I'm talking about on this video with regards to non competes. These clauses may have stole arded in the boardroom, but today what we see is that they've proliferated across sectors and across income levels. So we're talking about nurses, we're talking about fast food workers, janitors, but also physicians

and engineers. And we've now seen that in the aggregate these clauses can really restrict competition, both in labor markets but also in product markets. And so our economists calculated that collectively American workers are earning around three hundred billion dollars less because of these non competes and that on the whole innovation and entrepreneurship are suffering. Okay, so what happened? Why did these things become more common? Well, the reason that it was the lack of usage back in the

day was simple. Employment contracts themselves were rare. Contracts were expensive to produce and not really worth it. Today, putting forward employment contracts is as simple as copying and pasting text from a model contract found online there our computers. At the same time, stricter arbitration laws made written employment

contracts more attractive to employers. So today, as Cher con noted, these agreements are now in almost every industry finance, medicine, printing, floor installation, title and escrowork software, NASA contracting, computer antivirus research, video game production, et cetera, etc. Thirty percent of hairstylists work under a non compete, as do forty five percent of family physicians. Okay, now there are some limits. The

first geographical Let's take a look at a map. These contracts are already unenforceable or restricted in many states like California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington, and a lot of non competes are never enforced and barely noticed by the employer or employee. They're boilerplate in

the contract and no one pays attention. But that's not always the case, and being bound by a non compete can be awful, especially if you live in a certain place and you have a very unique skill set. These contracts are written under the assumption that an employee and employer are bargaining in a relatively equal position over the terms of work, but it's usually the case that the employer has a lot more power. Sometimes employees don't even know they're signing or aren't in a position to refuse.

You agree to a job and then on your first day you get a big packet of stuff to sign and in there as a non compete. You can't say no at that point. Now, in some states where non competes are legally unenforceable, employers still use them. They threaten

employees who don't know any better. So, one former employment lawyer told the FTC in a comment, employers routinely use the burden of litigation to intimidate employees or seek revenge for the employees' perceive personal disloyalty, rather than to protect any legitimate employer interest. It's not all employers who do this, it's just some of them. But it's still really bad for people who have to deal with that. A lot of people are stuck at jobs where they're sexually harassed.

Doctors are constantly complaining that they're forced to work in a bad practice but cannot move because their family is rooted in a particular area. Economists increasingly agree that non competes are bad. For instance, you know this is Florian editor, who's an economistic Yeah, but there's a ton of economic research at this point showing that how bad it is. One study, for example, showed that when Hawaii stopped enforcing non compete clauses for high tech workers, earnings of new

hires increased by about four percent. But there's lots of studies like that showing kind of across the board. It's not just wages. Non competes also prevent would be entrepreneurs from starting companies or recruiting different talents. So we hear from a lot of small businesses, I can't hire people because the people I would hire are have non competes. And we have a historical example of how useful these

bands on non competes can be. So California has not allowed the enforcement of non competes since the nineteenth century, and that is one of the key reasons historians think for the fostering of Silicon Valley Without that state span on non competes. For instance, top semiconductor engineers could never have left their original employment at the legendary company Shockley Semiconductor to formed fair Child Semiconductor or Intel. Now there

is a real argument for non competes. It goes like this, if you're a business, why would you train someone if they can just leave your firm and take that's special knowledge in customer's worth customer list with them. And this is not an outlandish point. However, these kinds of possibilities are better covered with non solicitation agreements that prevent you from stealing customers or trade secrets law that prevent you

from telling secret stuff to anyone but your existing employer. Now, other practices like paying employees more over time or treating them better, can stop people from leaving to go to competitors, or reduce them from leaving to go to competitors or setting up shop on their own. As for the idea that non competes would reduce investment in knowledge based industries because companies wouldn't want to train people anymore, well that's

just empirically not true. California exists, Silicon Valley is in California because we doesn't allow non competes, and so that kind of undercuts that claim. Also, and this is kind of like a special thing that I think is pretty amusing. Non competes are banned among lawyers because they are considered unethical in the legal profession, and lawyers that's a healthy knowledge based industry. Imagine that lawyers writing special rules exemptions

for themselves but not for everyone else. Two weeks ago, the government acted This is a picture of the Federal Trade Commission, the regulator that is supposed to police markets and ensure fair competition. I love this building. Now, the FTC just said that non compete contracts will soon be illegal. Under their proposed rule, all non competes would be unenforceable. Existing non competes must be canceled, and employers have to

tell employees those agreements are null. Moreover, attempts to get around this rule by using non disclosure agreements or other similar kind of agreements and that make it basically make it impossible for people to leave are also banned. So this is a huge deal and politically, the reaction to this rulemaking was overwhelmingly positive. People across industries noted how helpful this change will be, and it's not just a pro worker initiative. A lot of business people were very

happy about this change. I'm going to pick a random standard industry. There's lots of chatter across industries, but here's shipping. This is Steve Cox, who is the president of Steam Logistics, talking about what it will mean for his industry. I think is unbelievable for our industry, for our young people

in the industry to retain talent. In logistics specifically, we see a lot of twenty two year old kids signing things that they don't know they're signing, and a couple years later, they want to go after a better opportunity, more money, and to improve themselves, and they can't do that, frankly, and then they have to spend a couple of years out of the industry and they're gone. They're in another industry making a living there, and we never get them back.

So talent wise, we'd love to keep and retain people in logistics. So I love it. I absolutely love it. Really, what this rule is doing is it's getting out a philosophical question about how you're supposed to do business, whether business is about controlling people or whether business is about having the liberty to trade and make better products and services. And politically it resonated widely. The President and the Vice and chimed in, so did a bunch of senators from

both parties, a lot of business people, workers, doctors. But then, of course there were opponents too. The big business lobbyists at the US Chamber of Commerce were hostile, and the Wall Street Journal called it Lena Kahn's non compete favor to big labor. And they will no doubt litigate in the courts to try to get judges, conservative judges in their estimation, to strike down the rule. For variety of procedural reasons and the promanopoly representative at the Federal Trade Commission,

who's a Republican commissioner, Christine Wilson. I'm not saying all Republicans believe this, but Christine Wilson does. She opposed the rule and laid out the basic legal arguments that are going to be used against it. Essentially, the FTC doesn't have this authority to write a rule like this, a regulatory overreach. And also she said, the quote unquote scientific data isn't conclusive about the effects of non competes, all sort of procedural stuff that's refusing to take the arguments

on the merits about whether non competes are good or not. Essentially, what she said is a long dia tribe that was, how dare you change something? Is Christine Wilson, Chamber of Commerce,

Wall Street Journal editorial page. They're not in charge, Lena Khan is, so what happens now, Well, at this point, it's just a proposed rule, and when an agency accident proposes a rule, there's a window of time, in this case sixty days where anyone from the public can tell the government what they think, and the government has to take their feedback into account before finalizing the rule. So you should do that. You should tell the government what

you think a lot of corporate lobbyists are. And we've set up a site that can help you do that. It's called ban Noncompetes dot com, and that should make it easier. We'll just show you how to do it, but you can also go to the government site and regulation dot gov and do it there. You do it anonymously if you want. Both links are in the description of this video. There's already about one thousand comments, even though the links just became live yesterday, and there's gonna

be a lot more. Tell the FTC what your experience is with non competes or just whatever you think about them, and they'll take your comment into account. They'll finalize the rule, and then one hundred and eighty days after the rule is finalized and voted on by the commissioners, it'll go into effect. And when the rule kicks in, it'll have impacts immediately because thousands of employment lawyers will be explaining

to their clients how to comply with the rule. Standardized contracts that include non compete sections by default will be edited to remove them, and business leaders will start to recognize that non competes are no longer lawful. As the rule kicks in, the fight will head to the courts, and that's a fight for another day. There's lots of other stuff that's going to happen as well that I can go into, but this is the beginning of a big fight about whether non competes are going to be

in our economy or not. Now it's important to take a step back and recognize what Chair Lena Kahan, along with fellow commissioners named Rebecca Kelly Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya, who voted for the proposed rule, just did. They took a blatantly unfair practice that affects tens of millions of people and they baned it. That is governing, that is

wielding power in service of the public. They also took the idea that in employers are allowed enormous control over their employees and contractors and said that's not how we do business in America. The government no longer allows it. The government's job our government. The job is to ensure liberty from coercion in all its forms. And for the first time in a very long time, the Federal Trade Commission acted like it. Thanks for watching this Big breakdown

on the Breaking Points channel. If you'd like to know more about big business and how our economy really works, you could sign up below for my market power focused newsletter Big in the description, Thanks and have a good one. Seven thousand nurses have been out on strike in New York over chronic massive understaffing that is putting the nurses themselves and also obviously the patients at risk. We do have some breaking news this morning that a tentative deal

has been struck. Of course, the nurses themselves will have to then vote to approve that deal, so we'll see whether they ultimately do that. But in the meantime we've been very un fortunate. Two of our partners here at Breaking Points have done phenomenal reporting on this story. Let's go ahead and start with the lever and put this report up on the screen. That's from Matthew Cunningham Cook,

fantastic reporter there. His headline is as nurses strike, hospital CEOs pocket millions And just to give you some of the details here, you know these hospitals that nurses were striking at, these are technically nonprofits, but they operate as if they are gigantic corporations, and as Matthew points out, their CEOs are making millions. So Mount Sinai CEO kind Of Davis made five point six million in twenty nineteen. Montefiori CEO Philip Ozua made seven point four million in

twenty twenty. They also provide first class airfare chauffeur limos. So the work. So the idea that these hospitals, which have been making huge profits in which by the way, we the taxpayership a lot of money to during COVID, that they could not provide additional salaries or staffing for these nervous nurses was always preposterous. At the same time, we had Jordan Sheridan Status KU, one of our other great partners, on the ground talking to the workers themselves.

Let's throw to Jordan, who can give you a preview of what he was able to learn. Hey, it's Jordan with Status kup news. Right now, there's over seven thousand nurses on strike in New York City at Montefiri Medical Center in the Bronx and Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. They're on strike for a lot of the same reasons. Nurses across the country have gone on strike in recent years. They are being flooded by double triple the amount of patients,

but no staffing increases. On Monday, we went out on the ground to Mount Sina Hospital in Manhattan, where we spoke with nurses who talked about a toxic environment in their hospital where they are in many cases out of beds and treating patients in the hallway. They also spoke about normally they might treat one to three patients on their floors, but in the most recent years have been treating seven to nine patients. They spoke about not being

able to go on break. They talked about having to apologize to their patients for the lack of quality care because they are overwhelmed and don't have the proper amount of staffing. Here is our reporting from Mount Seinni Hospital. Say staffing now, say staffing now, Say staffing now, Say scavvy now, say staffing now, say stavving now. Say that. Well.

I've been working here for about three and a half years, and every year, essentially I always say that I'd rather work during the pandemic than now, because we are severely understaffing one now than we were in the pandemic. And so much so that we're taking double, if not triple, the amount of patients that we're supposed to beginning and we were over over five hundred vacancies at this hospital alone, and that's just unacceptable to take caring of New York

City presidents. Yeah, so on my floor was supposed to have one to three, but we can go up to one to see one to seven, and it's it's just unbearable, and it's unfair for the patients, and it's unfair for us, and more importantly, it's just he's to catastrophic results. That's why union, you set town union, Union, Union, Why in the pot whales from the public guying of the steed New York and Northern crowd is staying there with you while you fight for what's right. After all, the high

ups of Monstown, who's talking about the patients? The patients, That's what they've been talking out for all these years. They've been saying the same thing. And what we have known is that the high leups you don't want to make the most basic concession, has been abusing the lot that these nations have for their patients for thought you long. So if you caught the part if you call them a hero, if you set tags to show them some money,

that's all they deserve it. They carry us through this pandemic and we're not over there wearing a tri deemic yet right now wearing a tri demic right now Mount Sina, you are people making lots of money off of health there in this hospital speak. Oh, we're saying a share of the debate with some of the people who make this place run, will make people feel better, who get

people healthy. Why do they have to be out of here right now in the middle of a tridemic that so many other hospitals who made sure that we didn't get here. I want the meeting and make sure when you tell the tale that it is a higher up some amount Sina that we're standing there right now not because of these nurses. These nurses helped us for many many years. They risked their lives for many many years. Well we didn't know what the hell was going along

with COVID. They were in there risking themsel out family pleading. But it can get one mask begging and please masks and not you have to make them stand in the street pull a contract in the plea of sign up. I work in the labor and delivering unit as well as the postpartum unit, and our staffing conditions fluctuate depending all the day. At some points we are completely full, patients don't have beds to go to UH and we're

running around, you know, in unsafe working conditions. And then there's other days where everything's okay and we have we can, we can give the care. So I think the biggest thing is that I understand the difference of save staffing versus not save staffing, because we are in those days where we cannot provide the care when we're stretched to our limits. We feel that we are doing our patients and the dissert miss and we have the days that are good. We know that we can provide that care.

We see the difference in our patients. We see the difference in what we can remind Hey SA no say saving O say saving O says God can't stop stop jack blot shop shop. I mean chronically understaffed every shift, we're protesting every assignment and there's no repercussions for management, no breaks, no breaks. Wis I am the nurse with

seven months experience and I'm already exhausted. We want safe stopping, and we just want to make the same wages and benefits that the other hospitals have, and this hospital does not have that compared to the other hospitals. The sacenario, that's why we're striking. Do we need safer conditions for patients so we can spend time with them, attend to lots of things happening at once. We're pulled in a

million directions, so we want safe nature cares. Somebody who selling me that California has the brain where they have to have the same amount of emotions your patients tack in New York City ES, I have no idea. I think that's why this is not being finalized because they don't want to agree to something that if they don't meet the grids they'll get unalized away. So I think that's why we're striking because the last contract they have this whole actually they had this whole thing and action,

but nothing to make it actually work. So they said, we'll have these grids, we'll meet these whatever. We had these ra sihows. But we fill out courts of assignments every week, and what happens to it? We fill out the paperwork and nothing happens. It goes nowhere and it's a lost pot. I would really just love for everyone to know that nurses really do. We become nurses because we love people. We care about people, especially labor and delivery. It's not about the money they offered us the money.

If it was about the money, we want to be out here, we'd be in there, we would be working. It's not about the money. We want to take care of our patients. We want to be able to give our patients the care that they deserve. And it's a twelve hour shift. It's not right that we worked for twelve hours shape. You can't sit down to eat, you can't go to the bathroom. It's just not right. Hey, it's short of what status Ku News make sure to

subscribe to our channel on YouTube. Recently, as part of our partnership with Breaking Points, we went out to cover a protest among hundreds of Uber drivers after the company successfully sued to block a wage increase, the first increase in wages in many years for Uber drivers. Let me give you a little bit of the backstory. This was

in New York City. Uber filed suit against the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission, seeking the halt a new rule that would raise driver pay from twenty nineteen rates by seven point four to two percent per minute and twenty three point nine three percent per mile. The company claimed the increase, set to take effect in late December, would have forced it to shell out an additional twenty one to twenty three million per month and raise rider shares

by ten percent amid the holiday season. Big picture, Uber's revenue is up seventy two percent in the third quarter of twenty twenty two compared to the prior year. So obviously, this is a company making plenty of money and could probably afford to increase its driver's wages. But we went

out to cover the protests. We heard really powerful stories from drivers, some of whom were driving thirteen to fourteen hours straight, many of whom were working extra jobs on top of Uber or a lyft, and we're struggling under the weight of inflation. Here is our on the ground reporting from the Uber strike. I'm a drive an advocate. The mayor knows who we are. We got a petition

to reform the tax in the Masine Commission. Many council members signed that petition, including Eric Adams, including Jermani Williams. We keep inviting them, we text them, we email them, and they're not out here. They don't show up. Somebody's got to ask those questions why they're not here. We're two weeks away from Christmas, and look at what Uber's doing taxing the Maousine Commission approve of minuscule, a minuscule raise for the drivers, and here comes Uber trying to

stop it. We didn't even get twenty five cents. It's around twenty three cents, twenty four cents. It's an additional night, it's an additional twenty two cents on the per mile and about five cents on the per minute. Didn't we didn't hit twenty five cents. And the reason they do this, the reason they do they be You can't blame them. They're smart, being proactive because this is gonna affect future raises. Understand So it could have been a nickel that we're

fighting over. They're Suber still would have sued, you know, because for them it translates into millions. For us, the only translate into pennies, a few dollars, but we need We gave the TLC a proposal in twenty twenty to give drivers two dollars and fifty cents a mile and fifty cents a minute. The problem with the driver in New York is that people think that we're like like a Kmark job, like a like a fifteen dollar an hour job, a minimum wage job. No, we're small business owners,

just like the bodega, the pizza shah, the bakery. We are small business owners. The only thing that our storefront is on a set of wheels, but many people come into our storefront and we're all over the city. We are sent you workers. I myself work throughout the pandemic. Instead of doing twenty five trips a day, I was doing three trips a day, and I still went to the hospital. Was not afraid to go to the hospital. I got COVID two times. And that's it's They would

not do that to any other working class people. They wouldn't do it. There's just so many immigrant workers in this business. That and there's a language barrier. It's so easy to get over one now, it's very easy. Do you feel like they're using and exploiting you guys? Oh, of course, of course. This is this is not the this is not boohoo. The Paul taxi driver oh boo hoo, we need more money. Has nothing to do with greed, has nothing to do with greed. This is New York City.

I'll tell you what. The Seattle Uber driver, the Seattle Uber driver is making more money right now than the New York driver, including if we get that raise. So the Seattle Uber driver is making a dollar thirty eight a mile and fifty nine cents a minute. The New York driver right now is getting one sixteen a mile and fifty two cents a minute. If we get the rais, the promile is gonna go to one thirty four and

the permit is gonna go to about fifty six. Now, why it's not the same across That's that's that's the that's the thing that we that. It boggles the mind. It boggles the mind. Anybody could anybody could do the math. It's it's it's mind bothering. We will get back and fight them because you got the power, we got the strength, we got the faith. So we unless we want them to see us. We're here to let them know we need respect and there's to give it to us. And

we will get that respect. We will at the end, we will. Ye, it's right because you are families. We should be able to spend time with our families, get vacations with our kids because you go out there every single day to make that happens. We want to take our kids to college, give then education they need in the near future. That's why de fine is for us for old drivers across the country. Right. So, Uber, we're

here in front of your office. Shame you. Let that we know that we're here to get what you need. That's what we deserve after new folks, this is almost our fourteen of this Uber strike. My name is jas Lane. I worked very hard with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance to get our Taxi Medallion don't forgiveness program one. But it's time our Uber drivers get the money that

they are owed and deserves. Frong not just because it's the holiday season, but the labor that our drivers provide is essential and necessary not only to keep the city functioning, but to keep mega corporations like Uber functioning and wealthy. We see time, time and time again, corporations like Uber boast about record profits every single year. But we know that record profits are just stolen wages from the working

class of our city. In our states, it is essential that Uber makes good on the promise and the work that the Taxi Workers Alliance has done to win this raise that the city has already approved too. Every hour that Uber does not approve these wages is another hour that these drivers spend in the cold and dangerous climates, sitting in rain, in snow, in traffic for hours just to feed their families, get their children to college, and

make an honest living. There's no reason why anyone should be driving or working any job for fifteen to twenty years and still be struggling to make the rent. There's no reason for that. So I have shut off my Uber at today. I will continue to keep it shut off until this raise is one. I'm proud to stand with the union members here today and ensure that we win the race for all and get our Uber drivers the money that they deserve for Hey, my name is

James Lee. Welcome to another segment of fifty one to forty nine on Breaking Points. It is my first video of twenty twenty three, and I want to take a few minutes to revisit a topic that I'm very passionate about, which is health and nutrition. To start, let's examine a

few data points. Rates of obesity in America have skyrocketed over the past fifty sixty years, up to a point now where over thirty percent of adults are considered obese and another thirty plus percent are overweight, meaning that all in all, more than two thirds of adults in the United States are either overweight or obese. Now, we all know obesity is linked to a bunch of different chronic illnesses, one of them being type two diabetes, so probably not surprising.

The rate of diabetes in the US has also sky rocketed over the past fifty to sixty years. The only to start diabetes extremely rare back in the fifties and sixties, but now we're talking about disturbing numbers like roughly ten percent or more of Americans today are diabetic and even more are considered pre diabetic. So is there something about nutrition the food that we are eating, that is severely impacting our health and causing us to be fatter and

sicker than we've ever been in history? This right here is a dead man who's about to change the world. Dennis Burkett was a world renowned scientist that liked to study pooh. He would study different types of Pooh. He would weigh it, he would measure it. He learned everything he could possibly learn about Pooh. He noticed that the people's poop in Europe and the United States was very, very different than the people's poop in Africa. The poop in the US and Europe often looked like this or

like this. It was lumpy and hard, whereast the people in Africa had poop that looked more like this, and it was a lot smoother and softer. The people in high income countries like the United States and Europe had a bunch of health problems that the people in Africa simply didn't have. After living in Africa and studying this phenomenon for more than twenty years, Burkett came up with a hypothesis as to why Western countries are getting so sick.

Burkett attributed these diseases to the small quantities of dietary fiber consumed in high income countries, due mainly to the overprocessing of natural foods. Burkett figured out that in high income countries we have severely fiber deficient diets. One of the first science and symptoms is constipation. Long term fiber deficient diet can lead to colon cancer, diverticulosis, appendicitis, varicose veins, diabetes, obesity, allergies,

breast cancer, prostate cancer, IBD, lots of problem. We sure have talked an awful lot about science over the past several years. This, however, is probably some of the most fascinating research I've come across, but for some reason it gets almost no coverage, and we have to wonder why. Nonetheless,

I did find this on the NIH website. Quote. Since Burkett's death in nineteen ninety three, his hypothesis has been verified and extended by large scale epidemiological studies which have reported that fiber deficiency increases the risk of colon, liver, and breast cancer and increases all cancer mortality and death from cardiovascular, infectious and respiratory diseases, diabetes, and all non

cardiovascular non cancer causes. So we know for sure that fiber intake has a huge impact on our overall health and well being. More proof this is from the Mayo Clinic. Benefits of a high fiber diet and normalizes bowel movements, helps maintain bowel health, lowers cholesterol levels, helps control blood sugar levels, aids in achieving healthy weight, helps you live longer. So, once again, if fiber has so many health benefits, why are we removing it from all of our favorite foods.

Everyone in the world is familiar with water white rice. Most people don't know is that rice actually looks like this. Around a grain of rice is something called brand. That's the fiber. The white part is called the endosperm. We only eat the endosperm. Now, let's look at wheat. Wheat looks like this. This is the wheat brand or fiber that we take off the wheat so that we can make products like this. Show me any carbohydrate in nature, and I will show you that God and Mother Nature

intended that carbohydrate to be covered in fiber. When you take fiber out of food, it makes it much much hard to fill up, so you eat and eat and eat and never get full and buy more of the product. Those are literally all my favorite foods. Rice for obvious reasons, but also corn bread, sugar for some reason, they're nothing at all like they appear in nature. We have been duped. It's profitable to sell food that is fatty and sugary

and salty and addictive. It's much less profitable to sell food that is wholesome that is high end fiber and is minimally processed. So whilst driving the abcity epidemic, it's corporate profits. Is it not extremely frustrating that so many solvable problems in our society stem from the fact that solving that problem would necessarily disrupt a very profitable financial scheme. Quote. Many of these ultra processed foods are almost prechewed for us.

They melt in your mouth immediately. There's no protein, there's no water, there's no fiber slowing them down. It's going to hit your taste buds and light up your reward and motivation centers of the brain immediately. Then there is a secondary hit of dopamine when it gets absorbed into the body. That doesn't even sound like they're talking about food anymore. It's like they're describing some kind of super drug that they genetically modified to hack our brains. Ultra

Processed foods have something else in common with nicotine. Some of the biggest producers of processed foods were from the nineteen eighties to the end of the two thousands, known as Big Tobacco. In nineteen eighty five, R. J. Reynolds acquired Nabisco for four point nine billion dollars, and Philip Morris acquired General Foods in a five point seventy five billion dollar deal that was then the largest takeover in

US history outside of the oil industry. Philip Morris added Kraft to its portfolio in nineteen eighty eight and rebranded itself as Altria in two thousand and three. By the time Big Tobacco began acquiring food companies, they had decades of experience studying and optimizing the speed with which their products delivered nicotine to the brain. They continued to harness

that science in their food products. This is really some story of American business ingenuity, using science, using the might of Big Tobacco to turn our foods into another addictive drug. What an engineering marvel. In twenty ten, Michelle Obama launched a campaign against child obesity. The First Lady lent her Sassy sachet to Move your Body, aiming to set healthier

standards for food served in school lunchrooms. We send our kids to school, we have a right to expect that they won't be eating the kind of fatty, salty, sugary food that we're trying to keep from them when they're

at home. Unfortunately, you know, Michelle Obama was on the right track right from the beginning, and then I think she got derailed by a mixture of bad advisors and by bringing in the food companies, and they were able to dilute her very powerful message down to something where you know, it's just her on television encouraging people to move that way rather than let's move together, you know, as a movement to be able to transform the food system.

The better became move more. Not to say moving more is not a good thing. But this example, I think perfectly encapsulates the Obama legacy, does it not. It seems to always start with perhaps the best of intentions, promising to stand up for people, to write what's wrong, But for some reason they just could not escape the temptation of corporate grift, which ultimately doomed any real chance of

them actually challenging entrenched power. But the FDA, as a lot of us already know, is in large part funded by the biopharmaceutical industry. Fifty four percent three point three billion comes from the federal government, but the other forty six percent two point eight billion dollars come from user industry fees. This is based on the latest available data that we have this thing about that incentive structure we

have in place. The FDA, who are supposed to advocate on behalf of consumers, is itself in large part funded by big pharma, and big Pharma's profit streams are necessarily predicated on the existence of sick patients. So wouldn't it be great if one third, half two thirds of Americans were quote unquote sick. CNBC analysts love Eli Lilly for its potential block by obesity drug and we do too. Diabetes. The US accounts for nearly half of global diabetes drug sales.

Could there be some sort of global conspiracy of food and pharmaceutical executives and regulators and dark rooms devising ways to make people sick? I cannot say. But what I can say is there's so much money to be made here, and in order to make this money, people must first be sick, be obese, be diabetic, whatever the case is. I do not think we can refute that there is a certain economic benefit of normalizing something like obesity. Companies.

They aren't promoting body positivity because they desire a more healthy society. They are doing it because it is very financially lucrative to do so, so lots of momentum across various industries and sectors, private and public to sit idly by and watch all the fiber be quietly removed from our diet. One final fact about fiber, just for a

point of comparison. According to Duke University's Global Health Institute, a hunter gather group the HATSA, for example, typically take in approximately one hundred grams of fiber per day, about five times more than an American adult usually gets. But hey, I think you should eat whatever you want to eat.

My point, my goal for today and for twenty twenty three is to just provide you with important information about what I think is really going on by following the money in the food industry, in the regulatory environment, in big pharma, wherever else, to empower you to make the best decision for you. And that is all from me today.

I hope this segment was helpful in terms of connecting the dots between something like the proliferation of low fiber foods with the underlying desire of big food to maximize profit at the expense of public health. If you did find this helpful, I would encourage you to check out my YouTube channel fifty one to forty nine with James Lee. Tons of video on there breakdowns on many different topics like this one. The link will be in the description below.

Of course, don't forget to subscribe to Breaking Points and thank you so much for your time today and see you in the next one. I'm Maximilian Alvarez. I'm the editor in chief of the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, and this is the Art of class War on Breaking Points. I want to start off this segment by wishing everyone out there a safe, RESTful,

and love filled holiday season. To borrow a phrase from the great Kurt Vonnegut, I hope each and every one of you is able to take some time back over the holidays to be with the people and do the things that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy. I also want to give viewers and listeners a warning up top that today's segment deals with the topics of bullying, harassment, and even suicide. If you are unable to continue with

this segment, a completely understand. If you are able, however, I want to ask you to help us spread the word because this story is important and more people need to know about it. A year and a half ago. On my podcast Working People, we published an interview with the family of Evan Seifried, which was, to this day,

the hardest interview that I've ever recorded. I spoke with Evan's mother Linda, his father Ken, and his brother Eric about his life, about the beautiful person and hard worker that he was, and I spoke to them about the tragic and unforgivable events that led to Evan's death. As anyone who knew him can attest, Evan was a loving son, brother and friend, and a dedicated worker for nineteen years

with a virtually spotless record. Evan worked at a local Kroger grocery store in Milford, Ohio, where he eventually became the dairy department manager. From October twenty twenty to March twenty twenty one, however, Evan suffered a torturous litany of bullying, harassment, and sabotage, according to a lawsuit filed against Kroger by

the Sifried family. As the lawsuit alleges it was this treatment which was the result of a conspiracy involving numerous actors, including management level supervisor Shannon Frazy and Joseph pigg at the Milford store that caused Evan to eventually suffer a

transient episodic break and take his own life. For the Sifried family, nothing can ever replace the loss of their son, Evan, and as always, I want to send them my love and solidarity, and I want to thank them for sharing their story with me so openly and bravely, even though

it was incredibly hard and painful to do so. While the Syfrieds fight to pick up the pieces, and while their lawsuit again Kroger is moving through the courts very slowly, a group of volunteers, family friends, and community members have come together to honor Evan's life, to hold Kroger accountable for his death, and to fight the scourge of workplace bullying, which affects millions of workers around the US and beyond.

Through my podcast Working People, through my work at the Real News, and even here on Breaking Points, I've done my best to cover the story of Evan's tragic death and to lift up the valiant struggle of the Cyhreeds and the Justice for Evan Coalition to make sure that Evan's name isn't forgotten and that no one has to go through what Evan and his loved ones have had to go through. And I'll be honest, it's been a

real struggle to get the story out there. But because the Ciphreeds and their supporters have refused to give up, because they have kept pushing over the U these two years,

that may be changing. While Kroger continues to say unforgivably silent, asserting that it can't comment on ongoing litigation, a recent cover article about Evan Seifreed for the Cincinnati Inquirer, which was syndicated across the country, including for USA Today, has given Evans family and the Justice for Evan Coalition a renewed sense of hope that they will secure the justice and accountability that they have been fighting so tirelessly for.

To talk about all of this, I'm honored to be joined today by Janna Murphy and Erica Erskine, the two founders and co organizers of the Justice for Evan Coalition. Jenna, Erica, thank you so much for joining us today on Breaking Points. Well, thank you so much, Max for having us And we

just appreciate your listener so much tuning in today. Well, it's a real honor to have you both on the call, and, you know, just to sort of make sure that the breaking points, viewers and listeners have all the essential information from the jump, I wanted to build on my introduction and ask if you guys could first tell folks a little more about yourselves and how you got involved in the Justice for Evan fight, and if you could, you know, help walk us through the events that led to Evan's

death and the long fight to hold Kroger, Shannon Frazy, and Joseph Pigg accountable. So, Jana, why don't we start with you Max. Back in the winter of twenty twenty one, the Syphre's were living a normal life here in Cincinnati, Ohio. Eric Seyfried is a close friend of mine and I

am a close friend of the Cipher family. On the night of March the ninth, after Eric and I had spoken briefly on the phone and everything was completely normal, and I woke up the next day too many messages from my friend as he was on his way from Portland, Oregon, to be with his mother and father after his little brother,

Evan Sifried, had taken his life. I'll jump to what family found out in the days following from Evan's coworkers at the Milfred Kroeger family was contacted by Evan's friends at Kroger, and so we have to tell you that Evan was murdered and they told him Ken Sifried and Evan Sifried about the relentless, fierce, horrible, unbelievable. It's un believable what Shannon Frasey and Joseph Pigg the campaign that they started against Evan. Evan was a diligent, loyal, nineteen

year Kroger employee. He was the dairy manager at the Milfrom Kroger, he had an impeccable record, and that record stayed completely impeccable, not only on paper, but also with Evan's loyalty to Kroger. And when Shannon Phrasy became his manager at that Kroger, everything went to hell literally, And your listeners and yours can see the entire thirty one page lawsuit on scripts dot com. And he highly encouraged them to read the lassuit because due to our I said,

went here the time. We don't have a lot of time to talk about all the details. So in my mind, all the details and running I'm trying to narrate it as much as possible. Months after this bullying campaign started with Shannon some female employees. Evan was a whistleblower, and female employees knew that PEO could help them when they had been sexually harassed by Joseph think they had reported that it was done. They came to Evan as a

leader and asked for his help. He helped them file reports and Joseph Pig them verbally in person, threatened Evan that his information would be given out because Joseph Pig was a security manager at Kroger, and Evan's personal information indeed wastingent out and he was sent messages to his own He was a child promography to following to his phone to his dad to take to a lawyer. And as they were going downtown and they had an episodic break.

This is a man with no prior history of illness, and and he and he went to his parents' home after he took his life in his childhood room and Kenzie found him. And and then in the days following, when the Kroger employees came out and told the family would have happened, then the family called the lawsuit against Kroger.

Thank you so much, Jennifer walking us through that, and again for viewers and listeners, you can go check out the previous reporting that I've done, including more extended interviews with Janna with the cifreeds with Erica, where we give a lot more of that essential background to the campaign of terror that Evan's managers waged on him for months, isolating him, bullying him, sabotaging him. According to the lawsuit filed by the family, which, as Janna mentioned, you can

read the full text of online. And you know, it's just fair warning, it's horrifying stuff. You know. Again, Evan worked at this Milford, Ohio Kroger for nearly twenty years, had a spotless record, had become the dairy manager, and then when he got this new manager, you know, his life became a living hell. And he, you know, according to the lawsuit, was bullied and harassed and targeted viciously. Even while Evan was standing up for his co workers

who were filing sexual harassment complaints. You know, Evan himself was getting you know, bullied and harassed by management. He was not getting the help that he needed from his union or from Kroger h R. And so again you can go check out all the details there, and Erica, I wanted to bring you in as well and ask if you could sort of talk about how you got

involved in this campaign. And I guess what happened with the campaign after you know, the Cyphrieds learned about what their son had gone through before he took his own life, and you know, filed the lawsuit with Kroger. What happened then as far as you and Jana and Justice for Evan is concerned, well, our paths crossed Jane and myself after I read the very first article that really came out I think it was by the Washington Post back in July twenty twenty one, after the Zippers had filed

the lawsuit against Kroger. So that's how I came to be a part of Justice for Evan, and myself being a employee of Kroger for over twenty years, it just struck a nerve with me and I something just was telling me, like, you got to help these people, and because it's not just helping the family, but it's really helping the Kroger workers across the country overall in dealing with this nonsense of mistreatment, bullying, and organizational mobbying that

is running rampant through this company. So yeah, I mean it's just say I had some skill sets that I felt would be very, very useful, and that's how I came to be one of the co founders of Justice for Evan. And I mean, since then, the you know, the online campaign to build you know, the Justice for Evan Facebook page, and you know that has grown by leaps and bounds. I know that there have been demonstrations, you know, in cities around the country, while the Cifried's

lawsuit against Kroger is slowly moving through the courts. And I just sort of wanted to ask, in the midst of all of that, how are the Cyphrieds doing. How are you all, both and and the other members of the Justice for Evan coalition holding up throughout all of this? And you know, as as you mentioned Erica, like you know, the Washington Post did cover this initially, and you know, there have been a couple of stories here and there, but by and large, it's been you know, working people.

It's been great shows like the Retail Warzone, you know, that have have helped kind of keep this story alive. But then we got sort of a blockbuster moment. This past month, the Cincinnati Inquirer did a front page story on Evan's case and that was nationally syndicated. So what has that meant for you all the Cyphrieds and the justin Justice for Evan coalitions? So how are folks holding up? And what does the publication of this new story by the Inquirer mean for the fight for justice for Evan?

Thank you? Max also want to go back briefly and mentioned that Evan did go through all the proper channels when he reported, and he was completely ignored by the entire organization of Kroger, And I really want to reiterate that to listeners. Evan Seifried did exactly what he was

supposed to do. He always did, highly ethical, beautiful community and he was put under people who were his superiors, were not any of the caliber neror of a person that he was, nor any of the sciphered them all and the Cipher family, Eric Ken and Linda are suffering. Evan was a tremendous loss, not only to the world,

to this small, beautiful, wonderful family. They're just the nicest people, and any anybody who could possibly judge what happened to Evan by saying anything negative ever about him, then I really want to encourage listeners to stand up to those people and say read delossity. You know, look at what this this, look at what really truly happened. And the Ciphereds are suffering. I mean they Kroger has not said

boo to the Ciphered family. I mean this is this is unjust punishment to a family by the largest corporation in the Tri state area that they loved and supported for many many years, and that their son dedicated his work life too. And this corporation doesn't have enough heart in it to even say one thing to the family, not even to say we know that we're going through litigation. But it was a like we are sorry and we

know that we know we need to change. I mean, they know this happened, we know this happened, and they don't have the courage to even come to the family. This family's been waiting since the summer of twenty twenty one to hear there is something from Kroger, to hear anything, and there's been nothing. This family is suffering. You know, this is another Christmas, another Thanksgiving. That's when Ken and Linda are out in Oregon with They're a very close family.

They're getting ready to celebrate another Christmas without heaven. Amy, Evan's girlfriend is here in Cincinnati, getting ready to celebrate another Christmas without Evan. There's I mean, I use the

word celebrate extremely loosely. They're greeting. All these people are dreaming and the fact that the Cincinnati inquired and an amazing journalist named to Pax, who has spent so much time creating this beautiful, amazing article and peace and the research that that good human being did and the ethical standard that the Cincinnati Inquirer has shown is impeccable. It's amazing and and it would be so happy with the people that we have encountered through this entire journey since

we started Justice for Evan. And I encourage our listeners to get on the Justice for Evan Facebook page and look at the link tree that Erica has created and they can see all of the events set Justice for Evan and all of our supporters and all of the help from all of the good people, including you, Max

and your amazing team. All the people have done podcasts with us, all the people had come out for the protests, all the people who helped us get through the national protests March night and through the shareholder meeting last June, which was a monumental event because Ronnie mcwollan actually read a prepared statement. He knew that he was going to be forced to do that, he did it. That was huge for the failing And then when the Cincinnati Inquired

article came out two weeks ago. How that came out first was Ken Seifery did a long interview with the Cincinnati Inquire and I get very emotional because I know them behind the scenes and how hard that that was for him, and how important that it was for him not only to tell the chrismal story about what and Canada Linda went through that night and what they happened going through, but also to how important that it is for people to know what's going on at Kroger and

these corporate order workers they don't know what's going on at Kroger. They have no clue what's happening at the stores. And it is our mission to get that out there to the public. What's going on in the stores. This can never happen to another employee. Again, it's not going to happen on my watch, and it's not going to happen on Erica's watch. And by God, we're going to make sure that these employees are protected at Kroger. And there are many good people at Kroger, many many and

many good people who work on the floor. Eric dorks at Kroger, Amy works at Roger. I know lots of great people who work at Kroger. But the people who are at the top at Kroger, it has been shown to us, they really don't give a crap about what's happening with the people on the floors. They don't give a crap. And we know that those corporate workers, they don't even know that the employees weren't even getting paychecks.

And I would really like to come back and do another podcast at EMAX for Rapids to do a lot more education to your listeners on like that about the paycheck issue and so many other issues that are going on at Kroger, so that we can just continue to broaden our microphone, get our microphone louder, and so that because to to how we are doing it justice for Evan, we are getting angrier as more time goes on. We are not getting tired. And that's what And we've told

Koger this since the very beginning. If you think we're going away, do you see us going away? We were front page on the USA Today at three pm on Friday when that article came out as the lead story on USA Today with Evan's face looking down at his mother's cat, you know that beautiful face. At three pm, over seven thousand Americans we're reading that story. At the same time, after midnight that night, still over three hundred

Americans were still reading that story. And then it came out on the front page of the Sunday Cincinnati Enquirer and the Kentucky Inquirer of Evan's girlfriend Amy crying on the front page, and you open it up and there is the biggest article ever and the Inquirer the full two page centerfold pictures of Evan and that and an incredible piece that Alex Coolers did. So we're not getting tired.

Our fight is just starting. We're never going away. We are anxiously awaiting the day that Kroger is going to sit down at the table and admit this. And when they look at Ken Sipher, at their siphery and say we know we were accountable for Evan's death, and that's the only reason why he died. There's a victory. Well, and Erica, I guess by by way of closing us out, I think you know, Jenna, you know, did a brilliant job kind of laying out the importance of the publication

of that piece. As you mentioned, Jenna, folks can go to the Justice for Evan Facebook page if they want to keep up to date with this, see how the movement's growing, get updates on future demonstrations that are going to be held. You can also find them on Twitter. And and Erica, I know that as as you mentioned, you know some as someone who is an employee of the Kroger Corporation, which extends in so into so many

different areas. Right because Kroger's bought up like basically every other grocery store chain in this country, like King Soupers where workers were going on strike in Colorado earlier this year. I know that that's been a big part of this campaign's evolution as well, right, like connecting what Evan went through at the hands of Kroger management and everyone down the line from Kroger HR to all the way to

the CEO Rodney McMullen. Everyone failed, Evan, and you guys are doing important work to sort of connect that to be ongoing struggle struggles of Kroger employees around the country. So I wanted to just ask if you could say a little bit about that by and what folks can do to get involved in that effort by way of

closing us out. Yeah, I kind of kind of feel that we're, you know, more in the loop than you know Kroger Corporate and HR is half the time, because you know, it seems like they really do not have clue what goes on on a daily basis at the store level. That's where all the quote magic happens, as we say, and they just they just don't have a clue.

It's that they're just so detached from reality. And it's seemingly more so as like the years go on, and especially lately and you know, you mentioned the UH uh by buying up stores with you know, the recent merger with UH proposal with with Albertson's, and you know, with with the way things have been at Kroger for a while, but especially since the onset of the pandemic, they don't have any business acquiring any more stores, uh, and thousands

more employees whose lives they could potentially ruin if they don't get this stuff and check. So yeah, I do feel that, you know, we're not like me personally. I don't feel like I'm only doing my job, my full time job plus theirs, and really all at takes is they just need to open their eyes and their ears and realize that there's there's some things, there's a lot of things that need to be fixed, and we are

more than willing to. We're at the table, We've been sitting at the table, and the only way to create this change is to literally directly sit across from the table with people like Roddy McMullen and you know, some of the key the key players in the head office. But moving forward, we are our current projects is our Billboard campaign that we're currently crowdfunding for to continue to raise public awareness, and this time we're literally going to

raise public awareness right in downtown Cincinnati, right in Kroger's face. Literally. So it's just an extension of Alex Coolidge's article in The Inquirer, which has had us busy responding to messages. We've gotten emails with even more people employees, in particular coming out of the woodwork and saying, yeah, you know, I experienced similar things. I'm so sorry for, you know, the Ciphered's loss. If anything I can do to help, just please let me know. So we you know, we're

growing in numbers and it's not gonna stop. So it's Kroger just needs to surrender basically and just start start listening to their their employees because, as Jenna has reiterated many times, we're not going away, and we're not tired, and we'll do this until well till the end of time basically, so and I you know, it just this work never gets easier, but it does bring a to me a sense of reward knowing that I'm helping so many fellow co workers across the country who have had

nowhere to turn who have gone through the proper channels like Evan did, have been turned away, have been ignored, most of either quit or been terminated, and that can't continue to happen. You know, people need paychecks, people have to live, people have to eat, and it's very ironic that you know, in the grocery business, a lot of employees can even afford to eat because they don't even make a living wage. So there's there's a lot of things wrong with Kroger that needs to be fixed. But

I do believe they have it in them. I really do they have it in them. There are a lot of good people within the Kroger enterprise. There's a lot of good people, and those people need to start coming out of the woodwork also well. And you know, I can't thank you and Jenna for being two of those good people fighting as hard as you have for the Cyphrieds and four Kroger workers everywhere. It's really an honor

to be in this struggle with both of you. And I just wanted to underline something that both Erica and Jana said for viewers and listeners. When I interviewed Ken, you know, Evan's father, Linda Evans's mother, and Eric Evans's brother on that first episode of Working People, they explicitly pointed to Kroger's corporate policy as you know, the reason for their son's death. They said that once that Evan himself even told them that once Rodney McMullen took over

as CEO, things changed at Kroger. It was all about the bottom line relationships with management really changed. It was about how much you could increase store sales at the

cost of everything else. Ken you know, Cifried told me point blank it is because of this sort of relentless corporate policy that my son did not get the help that he was at asking for, that corporate didn't care about the treatment, and that he was receiving the complaints that they were hearing about that treatment because the store sales were up. So the family is directly is drawing a direct line between kind of Kroger's corporate policy and the hell that workers like Evan are having to endure

at locations across the country. And so again I can't think you both enough for being part of this struggle and doing everything that you can to fight to hold Kroger accountable and to make sure that workers like Evan never have to endure this kind of thing again. So for Breaking Points, this is Maximilian Alvarez signing off and Janna Murphy Erica Erskine to founders and co organizers of the Justice for Evan Coalition, thank you so much for

joining us today on Breaking Points. Thank you for watching this segment with Breaking Points, and be sure to subscribe to my news outlet the real news with links in the description. See you soon for the next edition of the Art of Class War. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Solidarity forever