Demonstrations, Protests and Riots

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Climate Protesters Get in Fed’s Face as Policy Clash Grows Louder

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Jerome H. Powell, the central bank’s chair, has been interrupted recently by a climate group that thinks disruption will win the day.A video of security officers wrestling a protester to the floor in the lobby of the Jackson Lake Lodge in Wyoming, outside the Federal Reserve’s most closely watched annual conference, clocked more than a million views.A protest that disrupted a speech by Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, at the Economic Club of New York this fall generated extensive coverage. And when the activists showed up again at Mr. Powell’s speech at the International Monetary Fund in early November, they seemed to get under his skin: The central bank’s usually staid leader was caught on a hot mic using a profanity as he told someone to close the door.All three upheavals were caused by the same group, Climate Defiance, which a now-30-year-old activist named Michael Greenberg founded in the spring. Mr. Greenberg had long worked in traditional climate advocacy, but he decided that something louder was needed to spur change at institutions like the Fed.“I realized there was a big need for disruptive direct action,” he explained in an interview. “It just gets so, so, so, so, so much more attention.”The small but noisy band of protesters dogging the Fed chair is also spotlighting a problem that the central bank has long grappled with: precisely what role it should play in the world’s transition to green energy.Climate-focused groups often argue that as a regulator of the nation’s largest banks, the Fed should play a major role in preparing the financial system for the damaging effects of climate change. Some want it to more overtly discourage bank lending to fossil fuel companies. Mr. Greenberg, for instance, said he would like the Fed to use regulation to make lending to oil and gas companies essentially cost-prohibitive.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    French Protesters Rally in Last Angry Push Before Pension Bill Vote

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    Many believe the legislation to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62 will pass Parliament, and they are looking beyond the vote to fight on.PARIS — Hundreds of thousands of French protesters on Wednesday swarmed cities across the country, and striking workers disrupted rail lines and closed schools to protest the government’s plan to raise the legal retirement age, in a final show of force before the contested bill comes to a vote on Thursday.The march — the eighth such national mobilization in two months — and strikes embodied the showdown between two apparently unyielding forces: President Emmanuel Macron, who has been unwavering in his resolve to overhaul pensions, and large crowds of protesters who have vowed to continue the fight even if the bill to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62 passes Parliament — which many believe it will.“Macron has not listened to us, and I’m no longer willing to listen to him,” said Patrick Agman, 59, who was marching in Paris on Wednesday. “I don’t see any other option than blocking the country now.”But it remains unclear what shape the protest movement will take from here, with plenty of room for it either to turn into the kind of unbridled social unrest that France has experienced before or to slowly die out.Even as throngs marched in cities from Le Havre in Normandy to Nice on the French Riviera on Wednesday, a joint committee of lawmakers from both houses of Parliament agreed on a joint version of the pension bill, sending it to a vote on Thursday.While it remained unclear if Mr. Macron had gathered enough support from outside his centrist political party to secure the vote, the prime minister could still use a special constitutional power to push the bill through without a ballot. It’s a tool the government used to pass a budget bill in the fall, but it risks exposing it to a no-confidence motion.Although many French people surveyed expect the bill to pass, opponents of the legislation signaled they intended to keep fighting.Laurent Cipriani/Associated PressIn a sense, the demonstrations on Wednesday were a last call to try to prevent the bill from becoming law. “It’s the last cry, to tell Parliament to not vote for this reform,” Laurent Berger, the head of the country’s largest union, the French Democratic Confederation of Labor, said at the march in Paris.Three-quarters of French people believe the bill will pass, according to a study released by the polling firm Ellabe on Wednesday. And many protesters were looking beyond the vote, convinced that a new wave of demonstrations could force the government to withdraw the law after it is passed.Some teachers said they had already given notice of another strike to their principals. Others said they had saved money in anticipation of future strike-related wage losses.“The goal is really to hold on as long as possible,” said Bénédicte Pelvet, 26, who was demonstrating while holding a cardboard box in which she was collecting money to support striking train workers.All along the march route in Paris, colorful signs, banners and graffiti echoed the determination to continue the fight regardless of the consequences. “Even if it’s with garbage, we’ll get out of this mess,” red graffiti on a wall read, a reference to the heaps of trash that have piled up throughout cities in France because garbage workers have gone on strike.Rémy Boulanger, 56, who has participated in all eight national demonstrations against the pension bill, said anger had grown among protesters toward a government that he said “has turned a deaf ear to our demands.”France relies on payroll taxes to fund the pension system. Mr. Macron has long argued that people must work longer to support retirees who are living longer. But his opponents say the plan will unfairly affect blue-collar workers, who have shorter life expectancies, and they point to other funding solutions, such as taxing the rich.A strike by garbage workers has led to a pileup of trash on French streets.Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAbout 70 percent of French people want the protests to continue, and four out of 10 say they should intensify, according to the Ellabe poll.Union leaders have hinted that the mobilization would not stop, but they have yet to reveal their plans. “It’s never too late to be in the street,” Philippe Martinez, the head of the far-left C.G.T union, said on Wednesday.France has a long history of street demonstrations as a means to win, or block, changes. Most recently, the Yellow Vest movement that was born in 2018 led to demonstrations that went on for months and forced the government to withdraw plans to raise fuel taxes. But the last time the French government bowed to demonstrators and withdrew a law that had already passed was in 2006, when a contested youth-jobs contract was repealed.“Redoing 2006 would be ideal,” Mr. Boulanger said. But he acknowledged that a sense of fatigue was spreading among protesters — Wednesday’s protests were smaller than those a week ago. He said he was instead looking to the next presidential election, more than four years away, to bring about change.Other protesters pointed to 1995, when strikes against another pension bill paralyzed France for weeks, forcing the government to abandon its plan to send the proposed law to a vote.Ms. Pelvet, another demonstrator, acknowledged that the unions’ vow to bring the country “to a standstill” last week had failed, with a fair number of trains and public services still operating.“Nobody wants to go home,” Ms. Pelvet said. “But the road ahead is not clear yet.”Catherine Porter More

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    Can the United Farm Workers of California Rise Again?

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    Veronica Mota marched under the sweltering sun, hoisting a cloth banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe above her head for miles.“Sí, se puede,” she chanted in unison with dozens of other farmworkers, who waved U.S. and Mexican flags as they walked along two-lane roads lined by dense orange groves in the Central Valley of California.The banner, flags and rallying cry — “Yes, we can” — echoed back more than half a century to when Cesar Chavez, a co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, led agricultural workers on a pilgrimage along a similar route to meet lawmakers in Sacramento.“We are a legacy of Cesar Chavez,” said Ms. Mota, 47, who, when blisters began to form on her feet during the 24-day trek in August, gathered strength by thinking of how the march in the 1960s led to groundbreaking farmworker reforms and propelled the U.F.W. to national prominence.“We can achieve what we want,” Ms. Mota said.What the farmworkers wanted last summer was for Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign into law a bill that they argued would make it easier and less intimidating for workers to vote in union elections — a key step, they believed, in rebuilding the size and influence of a now far less prolific U.F.W. But changing a rule is not the same as changing the game. The question now is whether the U.F.W. can show it has not irretrievably lost its organizing touch and can regain the ability to mobilize public opinion on its behalf as it did under Mr. Chavez.The union is a shadow of what it was decades ago. Membership hovers around 5,500 farmworkers, less than 2 percent of the state’s agricultural work force, compared with 60,000 in the 1970s. In the same period, the number of growers covered by U.F.W. contracts has fallen to 22 from about 150. The march last summer stood as a reckoning of sorts for a union desperate to regain its relevance.California’s fields provide about half of the produce grown in the United States for domestic consumption.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesFarmworkers at an orange grove outside Fresno.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesU.F.W. officials say they have secured contracts focusing on health coverage.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesLabor organizing has rebounded nationwide in the last few years, with unions winning elections at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island and at least 275 Starbucks stores, and among white-collar workers in the tech and media industries. But in California’s fields, which supply about half of the produce grown in the United States for the domestic market, such efforts have found little traction.It has been more than five years since the U.F.W. mounted an organizing drive and election petition in the state — at Premiere Raspberries in Watsonville. The U.F.W. unionization vote succeeded, but the company refused to negotiate a contract and in 2020 announced plans to shut down and lay off more than 300 workers.Ms. Mota, who has worked seasonal jobs around the state for two decades, has seen her wages drop by about $6,000 over the last several years. She is now earning around $15,000 a year. She said that on farms without union contracts, bosses sometimes make veiled threats about cutting hours, refuse to give workers breaks in 100-plus degree weather and turn a blind eye to dangerous conditions.“Where we do not have a union contract, there is no respect,” she said in Spanish on a recent morning from her ranch-style home in the farming town of Madera.But the bill backed by Ms. Mota, which Mr. Newsom signed into law after the marchers arrived in Sacramento, has fueled a cautious optimism. Backers say the ability to more freely organize will help them gain more influence.“There is new energy, new legislation and attention from the public in terms of workers’ rights,” said Christian Paiz, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who has researched farm labor in the state. “We could be on the front lines of a renaissance.”The Shadow of Cesar ChavezFarmworkers have, for generations and by design, existed on the fringes of the American work force.The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 excluded farm and domestic workers from federal protections — a decision, rooted in racism, that ensured that the Black, Latino and Asian people whose work opportunities were largely limited to those two industries were not covered.But by the 1960s, momentum for change was building.Farm workers on their march from Delano to Sacramento in 1966.Jon Lewis/Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale UniversityMr. Chavez, who was a farm laborer picking avocados and peas before becoming a grass-roots organizer, teamed up with Dolores Huerta, a young workers’ rights activist from the Central Valley, and in 1962 they founded the National Farm Workers Association. It became the U.F.W.Labor Organizing and Union DrivesA New Inquiry?: A committee led by Senator Bernie Sanders will hold a vote to open an investigation into federal labor law violations by major corporations and subpoena Howard Schultz, the chief executive of Starbucks, as the first witness.Whitney Museum: After more than a year of bargaining, the cultural institution and its employees are moving forward with a deal that will significantly raise pay and improve job security.Mining Strike: Hundreds of coal miners in Alabama have been told by their union that they can start returning to work before a contract deal has been reached, bringing an end to one of the longest mining strikes in U.S. history.Gag Rules: The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that it is generally illegal for companies to offer severance agreements that require confidentiality and nondisparagement.Three years later, it was a key force behind the Delano grape workers’ strike, in which thousands of Mexican and Filipino farmworkers walked off their jobs, demanding raises from $1.25 to $1.40 an hour, as well as elections that could pave the way for unionization.As the striking farmworkers made their way along the 335-mile trek in 1966, which started in Delano, the group grew steadily, and other unions began to pledge their support.In the Bay Area, longshoremen had refused to load shipments of grapes that hadn’t been picked by unionized workers and, before long, a statewide pressure campaign had become a national one.Weeks after the march began, a lawyer for Schenley Industries, a large Central Valley grape grower that was a target of the boycott, contacted Mr. Chavez, and the company soon agreed to negotiate a contract. It officially recognized the U.F.W., making it the first major corporation to acknowledge a farm union.The grape workers’ strike stretched into the summer of 1970, when widespread consumer boycotts forced major growers to sign on to collective bargaining agreements between the union and several thousand workers.In the years that followed, Mr. Chavez forged a relationship with Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, and helped champion the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, which established the right to collective bargaining for farmworkers and created a board to enforce the act and arbitrate labor fights between workers and growers. It was the first law in the country guaranteeing protections to farm workers.Cesar Chavez, center, leader of the National Farm Workers Association, outside a farm in 1966, with supporters bearing signs proclaiming “Strike.” The association was a predecessor of the United Farm Workers.Paul Fusco/Magnum PhotosBut the union’s gains soon began to erode. Mr. Brown’s Republican successor, George Deukmejian, and his appointees made changes to the farm labor board in the 1980s and cut funding, arguing that the adjustments were necessary to correct an “easily perceived bias” in favor of farm workers and the U.F.W. and against growers. And even when the union has won elections, it has often faced legal challenges from growers that can drag on for years.The law that Mr. Newsom signed last year, Assembly Bill 2183, was the union’s biggest legislative victory in years. It paved the way for farmworkers to vote in union elections without in-person election sites. For years, U.F.W. officials argued that dwindling membership numbers stemmed from fears about voting in person at sites often held on properties owned by the growers.The bill faced opposition from growers, who contended that the measure would allow union organizers to unfairly influence the process. Mr. Newsom initially voiced reticence, but signed the measure into law after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Biden publicly pushed him to do so.“In the state with the largest population of farmworkers, the least we owe them is an easier path to make a free and fair choice to organize a union,” Mr. Biden said at the time.Supporters of the measure highlight how the demographics of farmworkers have changed over the years. In the 1970s, under Mr. Chavez, many farmworkers were U.S. citizens, but migration from Mexico and Central America in the decades that followed created a work force composed primarily of undocumented workers. Because they lack immigration papers, supporters say, they are especially vulnerable. (Undocumented workers can be covered by labor agreements.)In signing the measure, Mr. Newsom and the U.F.W. agreed to support follow-up compromise legislation that would guard farmworker confidentiality during elections and place limits on card-check voting, a method in which employees sign cards in favor of unionizing.‘We Are Ignored’Last summer, as she marched past vineyards and groves of mandarin oranges, Ms. Mota thought of the harvest cycle that has defined much of her life.She reflected on the dormant season, in December and January, when she prunes pistachio and almond trees, and the rainy months, when it’s sometimes hard to find work. But then comes the prosperous citrus and grape harvests, through the spring and the fall, which always make her think of the families who will eventually toast with wine squeezed from the fruit she plucked from the vine.“I love for my hands to harvest a fruit and then seeing those fruits and vegetables in the restaurant,” Ms. Mota said.U.F.W. supporters marched last year to urge Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill that would make it easier for workers to vote in union elections.Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated PressShe thought, too, about the invisibility and dangers of her work — the tiny teeth marks etched into her leather boot by a snake bite, the molehill where she badly sprained her ankle, the co-worker airlifted to San Francisco with injuries.“We are ignored,” she said.Still, she didn’t feel that way during the march, where in many towns people greeted them with snacks, Gatorade and full meals. While the group was in Stockton, an inland port city, Ms. Huerta, now 92, stood before the crowd wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with the words, “Sí se puede.”“You all have made me so proud,” she told them.Ms. Huerta, who helped negotiate the first farmworker contract with Schenley, left U.F.W. leadership more than two decades ago to pursue other causes. But in an interview, she said the need for unionization remained as high as it was when she helped start the union.“Farmworkers wanted the support and still want the support,” said Ms. Huerta, who attributed the dearth of contracts to a refusal by growers to bargain in good faith.Despite setbacks in recent decades, U.F.W. officials say they have continued to secure contracts that focus on health care benefits, wage increases and cultivating a respectful culture between farmworkers and employees. At Monterey Mushrooms, which has operated under a contract since the 1980s, U.F.W. officials say the average annual income for a mushroom picker is $45,000 and includes vacation time and a pension. (The statewide average for farmworkers is between $20,000 and $25,000 a year, according to the U.S. Labor Department.)“With a union contract, workers are educated about their rights and empowered to defend them,” said Teresa Romero, the union’s president.Issues might vary from farm to farm, Ms. Romero said. “In one workplace it may be low wages, in another it may be unsafe conditions, in still another it may be the workplace culture — having to pay bribes or endure sexual harassment to get work or having a particular supervisor who is racist or cruel,” she said. “We understand the immense risks that workers are taking when speaking up on the job; it takes courage for workers to form their union.”Dolores Huerta, a founder of the U.F.W., at a rally in the 1970s.Cathy Murphy/Getty ImagesMs. Romero said she was confident that the new state law — along with a streamlined federal process to protect workers involved in labor disputes surrounding immigration threats from employers — would translate into more bargaining power and more contracts.A Question of StrategySome labor watchers are skeptical of the union’s ability to reinvigorate itself.Miriam Pawel, an author who has written extensively about the union and Mr. Chavez, said the U.F.W.’s decline reflected a shortfall in organizing efforts in the communities where farmworkers live.“It’s evolved more into an advocacy organization and walked away from the more difficult work of organizing,” Ms. Pawel said. Referring to the 1975 labor relations act, she added, “They have the most favorable labor law in the country and have barely taken advantage.”Ms. Pawel cited a 2016 state law mandating that agricultural employers pay overtime if people worked more than eight hours in a day. The union lobbied for the measure, but growers warned that they couldn’t afford to pay overtime and would adjust schedules to avoid doing so. The new overtime rule has been phased in over the years, and some farmworkers have voiced anger about losing hours.“If the union were stronger in the fields, and at organizing, it could have won elections and demanded better overtime provisions in contracts,” Ms. Pawel said.Ms. Romero pushed back against such criticism, arguing that, until Mr. Newsom signed A.B. 2183 in September, many farmworkers had justified fears that, if they sought unionization, their bosses would fire them or even try to get them deported.Indeed, a report by the University of California, Merced, Community and Labor Center found that 36 percent of farmworkers said they would not file a report against their employer for failing to comply with workplace safety rules and that 64 percent cited fear of employer retaliation or job loss.And since the bill’s passage, the Farm Employers Labor Service, a trade group that staunchly opposed the law, has placed advertisements on Spanish-language radio stations, warning about what it means to be in a union. In one ad, a man shouts: “Signing a union petition can lead to the union stealing 3 percent of your salary! Do not let them!”Those messages deeply concern Ms. Romero.“Filing for an election when workers are not protected from genuine risks of retaliation will only lead already poor people into further hardship,” she said. “This is the implicit threat that the growers’ power depends on.”‘They Just Want to Work’Joe Del Bosque at his melon farm in Firebaugh, Calif. He has never had a union contract and plans to keep it that way.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesMany California growers say they can be better bosses without unions.On a recent afternoon off Interstate 5 in the small city of Firebaugh, Joe Del Bosque stared out at bare fields on the melon farm he has owned since 1985. A thick fog hung over the area, and the ground was puddled from rain water. It was the quiet season on the farm, where he employs more than 100 farmworkers annually.Mr. Del Bosque said that when he was a boy, his parents, legal U.S. residents, traveled from a town near the California-Mexico border to the Central Valley to pick melons every summer. As a farm owner, he has never had a union contract, and aims to keep it that way.He provides his employees with good conditions and fair wages, he said, without their having to pay union dues. “From my experience, workers who are moving around from season to season do not want the extra hands involved,” he said of the union. “They just want to work.”He said he had little trouble finding field hands, including migrants who move from farm to farm with each season. And he noted that in the Salinas Valley — closer to the coast, where housing is more expensive — many growers rely on H-2A visas, which let them bring workers, often from Mexico, for just a few months of the year.That impermanence, he said, works against the U.F.W. “If the workers are here only a few months a year and then leave the state, how are you going to organize?” he said.Mr. Del Bosque said that he respected the U.F.W.’s history and the groundwork of Mr. Chavez and Ms. Huerta, but that he opposed A.B. 2183. The law, he contends, will allow the U.F.W. to unfairly sway farmworkers at their kitchen tables and behind closed doors.“That’s the intimidation factor,” Mr. Del Bosque said.A New Spirit of ActivismAsuncion Ponce began harvesting grapes in the late 1980s. He says bosses on unionized farms “don’t mess with you.”Mark Abramson for The New York TimesWhile the impact of the law remains unclear, it has buoyed the spirits of some farmworkers.Asuncion Ponce started harvesting grapes along the rolling green hills of the Central Valley in the late 1980s. Through the decades, Mr. Ponce has worked on several farms with U.F.W. contracts. Bosses on those farms, he said, seemed aware that if they harassed or mistreated workers, the union would step in.“They don’t mess with you any more,” he said, “because they think there could be problems.”Even so, he has seen his financial security decline. He averaged $20,000 a year in the 1990s and 2000s, he said, but these days he brings in around $10,000 a year picking grapes and pruning pistachio trees. His eight-hour shifts are no longer supplemented by overtime, as growers have cut hours — partly as a result of the overtime bill U.F.W. leaders supported.Occasionally, Mr. Ponce said, he relied on third-party contractors, who growers sometimes employ, to find him available work. But he said he was optimistic that with the new legislation he would land a full-time job on a union farm.On a recent evening, the 66-year-old sipped coffee and decompressed after a shift at a farm outside of Fresno. His feet ached and his flannel shirt was stained with fertilizer, but he is happy that his job lets him spend all day outdoors — a passion born in his hometown in the Mexican state of Puebla, where he harvested corn and anise.He smiled softly under his white mustache as he spoke about the legacy of Mr. Chavez, which inspired him to join for several legs of the pilgrimage last summer.“I marched for many reasons,” he said in Spanish. “So we are not as harassed and mistreated as we are now in the fields, so benefits and better treatment come our way.”For Ms. Mota, joining the march helped awaken a new spirit of activism.Over the years, she said, she felt afraid to talk about unionizing at work, but now she tells any colleagues who will listen about the advantages she sees: the ability to negotiate a better salary, benefits and a respect for seniority.Her viewpoint was shaped in her early years as a farmworker. “Throughout the years I have realized that we are marginalized,” she said. “They don’t value us.”Once, she said, she watched as a farmer grabbed a knife used to harvest cantaloupe and put it to the cheek of another worker. He glared into the farmworker’s eyes, she said, and called the workers his slaves.“You feel humiliated,” she said, fighting back tears.She is convinced that having a strong union is the only answer. “We deserve a dignified life in this country,” she said.“Throughout the years I have realized that we are marginalized,” Veronica Mota said.Mark Abramson for The New York Times More

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    Protests in Prague Signal a Troubled Winter Ahead in Europe

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    Tens of thousands gathered in the Czech capital for the second such protest in a month, spurred by an energy crisis and rising prices that are affecting countries across Europe.PRAGUE — Thousands of protesters flocked into Prague’s Wenceslas Square on Wednesday, demanding the resignation of the government of the Czech Republic as an energy crisis stoked popular unrest that will be closely watched in other European capitals.Despite a rain-soaked start, demonstrators hoisting Czech flags and chanting, “Shame! Shame!” turned out for the second time in a month to rally under the slogan “Czech Republic First.” They were a hodgepodge of figures with a broad range of causes, including Kremlin sympathizers and those who said they are fighting a “global elite.”But many at the protest were there to express their concern about soaring prices and energy costs as winter loomed, with the Czech Republic one of the first countries in Europe to face such large protests over the issues.Many protesters linked their economic woes to the European Union’s tough sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine — repeating a line propagated by the Kremlin, which is advancing the narrative that E.U. sanctions against Russia are to blame for inflation and other financial troubles on the continent.E.U. leaders counter that their sanctions against Russia are not causing energy prices to surge, but rather Russia’s weaponization of its gas supplies. Russia’s decision to cut the gas supply to E.U. countries in response to their support of Ukraine has sent already high electricity prices — caused by pandemic-era distortions — skyrocketing. And while individual E.U. countries might take some measures tailored to each’s particular energy mix at home, the most effective intervention to stop the spiraling electricity costs will come at the collective level, analysts say. E.U. energy ministers are meeting in Brussels on Friday to assess, and most likely finalize, a set of new policies that will aim to support households and businesses, and tax profits from energy firms. Many of the protesters in Prague linked their economic woes to the European Union’s tough sanctions on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Martin Divisek/EPA, via ShutterstockBut the E.U. efforts are viewed skeptically among protesters in Prague, the Czech capital, where some raised E.U. flags crossed with red Xs, while others raised the flags of the Czech Communist Party and far-right factions. The odd mix, spanning the extremes of the political spectrum, was spearheaded by Ladislav Vrabel, who brands himself as a populist leader seeking to force the resignation of the government and push for a deal with Russia for cheap gas.“It is the duty of the Czech government to ensure the security of its citizens and their economic stability,” he said before the protests. “Our government is bringing us to the edge of war and economic collapse.”The landlocked Czech Republic was particularly reliant on Russian gas and oil brought in through neighboring countries, even receiving E.U. exemptions from sanctions against Russia.Mr. Vrabel’s first protest, on Sept. 3, took the government by surprise when more than 70,000 people marched on Wenceslas Square, the iconic gathering point of the Czech capital where hundreds of thousands gathered in 1989 to oust the communist government. It appeared to be a surprise even to Mr. Vrabel himself — he initially registered the rally for 500 people, according to City Council records.“It has been a wake-up call, and I hope it has been a wake-up call for others across Europe,” said Tomas Pojar, an adviser to the Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala.Smaller protests have emerged in Germany, with thousands gathering in recent days in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to demand that Berlin open the recently completed gas pipeline from Russia, Nord Stream 2. The pipeline was ruptured this week in what European officials said appeared to be a deliberate attack.Similar to the protests against coronavirus pandemic restrictions that hit Europe in 2021, the demonstrations in the Czech Republic and Germany are drawing an unlikely pairing of right- and left-wing groups, as well as anti-vaccine and fringe conspiracy figures. And similar to those pandemic protests, analysts worry that radical groups will try to use the rallies to make inroads into the broader population.After the first Czech protest this month, Prime Minister Petr Fiala’s government offered a price cap on electricity prices for citizens.Virginia Mayo/Associated PressMatthias Quent, a German expert on far-right extremism, said that some disgruntled citizens might believe the far-right groups’ protests were their only outlet.“They may think they have no other place to express their displeasure,” he said.The far right is having a resurgence across Europe. This week, the Brothers of Italy party won the largest share of votes in Italian elections. And in Sweden, a group founded by neo-Nazis and skinheads looks set to become the largest party in the next government.In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany, known by its German acronym AfD, has risen to about 15 percent in public polls and is planning protests in Berlin next month.“People are not even using heating yet — that is still to come,” said Mr. Quent. “And, nevertheless, the AfD already had a visible upswing. This is, indeed, the scenario I have feared.”In the Prague protest, many who joined bristled at the idea of being called fringe or far right.“It’s not only energy prices rising — grocery prices, too. I am raising my granddaughter, and I am worried,” said Miroslav Kusmirek, who came from a town 30 miles outside the capital to protest on a rainy afternoon. “I see companies now struggling and I worry; if the company that employs me collapses, so will I.”As he spoke, a speaker onstage from Germany’s AfD, Christine Anderson, was shouting to loud cheers, “You no longer live in a democracy!”For energy experts, the populist surge adds yet another knot in the tangle of problems Europe is grappling with. On top of Russia’s cutting gas, France’s nuclear plants have been at half capacity because of maintenance issues, and a severe drought has hampered Germany’s ability to import coal over the summer.Supporters of Giorgia Meloni’s Brother of Italy party celebrating the victory of the right-wing coalition in Rome on Monday.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesSimone Tagliapietra, an energy expert at Bruegel, a European research group, said that, in a worst-case scenario, some countries could find themselves facing a “vicious cycle” of popular discontent that pushes for populist responses that could stoke rivalries among European states. In that scenario, he said, countries could stop trading electricity.“If countries are to close down their energy borders, what you have is flaring political tensions between European countries,” he said. “That becomes very, very risky because we can really compromise European unity. Countries could start to fight about all other political issues.”Although that is still far from the current reality, he said, a false report suggesting that France might stop sending electricity to Italy sparked outrage among Italians and illustrated the sensitivity of the situation. “That’s just a preview of what could happen,” he said.In the wake of the first Czech protest this month, Prime Minister Fiala’s government offered a price cap on electricity prices for its citizens, but the protests on Wednesday show that it has yet to ease economic anxieties.Czech electricity trading prices have more than doubled compared with last year’s, according to some analysts. About 10 percent to 15 percent of households have been hit badly, according to research by the STEM Institute for Empirical Research in Prague, which advises the government. The middle class is also starting to feel the pinch, it said, with its disposable income falling by 50 percent compared with last year’s.Claudia Trantina, 27, was one such protester on Wednesday, driving an hour from her home city, Plzen, to protest in Prague. “I can’t provide my daughter with the things I had as a kid,” she said. “It’s not like I can’t pay the bills, but I can’t do things like take her to the zoo or restaurants.”What has confused analysts is that anxieties are at a higher level than during the recession in 2008, when economic indicators were worse, said Nikola Horejs, the STEM research director.“The mood is tense, but this mood is much worse than the actual situation, which is something that confuses the government and it confuses economists,” he said.Many experts say that part of what causes discontent is European leaders’ failure to find the right messaging on the energy crisis.“We need a kind of wartime mobilization,” said Mr. Tagliapietra. “Not exactly like Churchill — but something of that sort. The leadership needs to tell people: Look, this is a war. An economic war has been launched against us by Russia.”In Prague, officials say they have been trying to send that message, but are wary of provoking anger or fear.“If the subject comes up day after day and it is scaremongered, it will not have a positive effect,” said Petr Tresnak, a deputy minister of industry and trade. “You need an informed public, but you don’t want to cause panic.”The protest in Prague on Wednesday was the second such demonstration in a month.Martin Divisek/EPA, via ShutterstockMatina Stevis-Gridneff More

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    Truckers’ Protests Over Labor Law Block Access to Oakland’s Port

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    For days, a convoy of truckers has blocked the roads that serve the Port of Oakland, crippling a major West Coast cargo hub already hampered by global supply chain disruptions.The protest is meant to send a message to Gov. Gavin Newsom: Keep the drivers clear of a California labor law that they say threatens their livelihood.The truckers, primarily independent owners and operators, are demonstrating in opposition to Assembly Bill 5, a law passed in 2019 that requires gig workers in several industries to be classified as employees with benefits, including minimum wage and overtime pay.Along with a coalition of trade groups, the truckers want Mr. Newsom to issue an executive order putting off the application of the 2019 law to their work and to bring labor and industry to the table to negotiate a path forward.A representative of Mr. Newsom said the state would “continue to partner with truckers and the ports to ensure the continued movement of goods to California’s residents and businesses, which is critical to all of us.”Smaller protests were organized last week at the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.In a statement, Danny Wan, executive director of the Port of Oakland, said he understood the displays of frustration. But he warned against more delays surrounding the ports, a vital link in a supply chain already hemorrhaging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Covid-19 lockdowns in China.“Prolonged stoppage of port operations in California for any reason will damage all the businesses operating at the ports and cause California ports to further suffer market share losses to competing ports,” he said.When Mr. Newsom signed the measure into law, it received immediate rebukes from companies like Uber and Lyft, whose leaders argued that the law would change their businesses so severely that it might well destroy them.The state law codified a California Supreme Court ruling from 2018 that said, among other things, that people must be classified as employees if their work was a regular part of a company’s business.Both Uber and Lyft, along with DoorDash, quickly lobbied for a ballot measure that would allow gig economy companies to continue treating their drivers as independent contractors.California voters passed the measure, Proposition 22, in 2020, but last year a California Superior Court judge ruled that it was unconstitutional. Uber and Lyft quickly appealed and have been exempt from complying with Assembly Bill 5 while the court proceedings play out.But that wasn’t the case for the truckers. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge by California truckers, who under the new law are viewed as employees of the trucking companies they do business with.Nearly 70,000 California truck drivers work as independent owners and operators, ferrying goods from ports to distribution warehouses. Trucking companies and the protesting drivers argue — as Uber and Lyft did — that if Assembly Bill 5 is applied to them, the drivers will have less flexibility in when and how they work.Proponents of the law say the companies could simply take the drivers on as full- or part-time employees and continue to offer them flexible schedules.A majority of port truckers in California are independent operators and do not work for a single company. A smaller number of drivers are unionized and are represented primarily by the Teamsters.Matt Schrap, chief executive of the Harbor Trucking Association, a trade group for transportation companies serving West Coast ports, said the “frustration is that there is no pathway for folks to have independence.”“That frustration is boiling over into action,” Mr. Schrap said.Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a former state lawmaker who was an architect of the labor bill, rejected the idea that applying the law to the trucking industry would be a disservice to drivers.“These truck companies have a business model that is misclassifying workers,” said Ms. Gonzalez Fletcher, who is about to take over as head of the California Labor Federation. “How they have been operating has been illegal.”The trucker protests come as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union is engaged in contract negotiations with the Pacific Maritime Association, representing the shipping terminals at 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle.Farless Dailey III, president of Local 10 of the longshore union, said that for their own safety, his members were not trying to get through the truck blockade.“They don’t get paid when they don’t get in,” he said. “But we’re not going to put our members in harm’s way to pass through the line of truckers.”Officials at the port said the largest marine terminal had been closed since Monday because of the protests. Three other smaller terminals have operated, but with a limited capacity.Christopher S. Tang, a distinguished professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, Anderson School of Management, who studies supply chains, said the shutdowns at the Port of Oakland should not — for now — cause major issues for consumers.“The impact will not be significant in the short term,” he said. “Many retailers have stockpiled inventory.”On Thursday, German Ochoa, a trucker who lives in Oakland, arrived at the port, as he had every day this week.As horns from semitrucks blared in the background, Mr. Ochoa said by phone that he was standing shoulder to shoulder with other truckers. Some held poster boards that read, “Take down AB 5!!!” and “AB 5 Has Got to Go!,” he said.“This is taking away my independence,” Mr. Ochoa said. “It’s my right to be an independent driver.”Noam Scheiber More

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    Pakistan Raises Fuel Prices in Effort to Stabilize Economy

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    The interim government’s move was seen as a bid to revive a $6 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund.ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s government on Friday sharply increased fuel prices for consumers, paving the way to revive a $6 billion bailout package from the International Monetary Fund and stabilize the country’s cratering economy amid deepening political turmoil.The move raising gasoline and diesel prices by about 20 percent — or about 15 cents — a liter staved off concerns that Pakistan, which already faces double-digit inflation, would join a wave of global defaults as the financial shocks from the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and rising interest rates batter many poorer nations.But the decision may cost the new coalition government popular support, analysts say, adding to the political uncertainty that has embroiled the country since Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament early last month.“The price hike signals that the government has decided to bite the bullet and make choices that are necessary, even if they cost near-term political capital,” said Uzair Younus, the director of the Pakistan Initiative at the Atlantic Council. “The hike will ease markets and reduce uncertainty. It will be critical for the government to maintain momentum and continue making decisions that get Pakistan out of the current crisis.”Since his ouster, Mr. Khan has held a series of political rallies, drawing huge crowds and heavily criticizing the current coalition government and the military, blaming them for his removal from office. Some officials now fear that the government’s move to appease the I.M.F. could hand Mr. Khan a wave of public outrage that he could manipulate on the streets.Former Prime Minister Imran Khan, at top center in dark vest, leading an antigovernment rally in Islamabad on Thursday.Aamir Qureshi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDiscussions between the I.M.F. and the new interim government, led by Shehbaz Sharif, had been deadlocked for weeks over the terms of reviving the bailout, which was announced in 2019 and later suspended after Pakistan’s previous government failed to meet some loan conditions, like cutting energy subsidies.Pakistan has hoped for a release of a roughly $900 million seventh tranche of the $6 billion I.M.F. bailout package. Earlier this week, a fresh round of talks between the I.M.F. and the new Pakistani government in Doha, Qatar, appeared to fail after fund officials declined to accept the Pakistani request to delay the ending of government subsidies.Mr. Sharif had been reluctant to end government energy subsidies and roll back unfunded subsidies to oil and power sectors — a key I.M.F. demand — fearing public backlash that could diminish his party’s chance of success in the next general elections.Those elections are scheduled to be held next year, but the new government has come under mounting public pressure from Mr. Khan’s supporters to hold them earlier.On Thursday, Mr. Khan warned the government to announce the next elections and dissolve Parliament within six days. The warning came just after he led thousands of supporters to the capital Wednesday evening. Angry supporters clashed with the police in the capital and several other Pakistani cities. At least 1,700 protesters were arrested by the police in Punjab, the country’s most populous province.That political pressure has added to the new government’s reluctance to embark on meaningful economic reforms that, while important to stabilize the economy in the years to come, would cause immediate pain to Pakistanis’ wallets, analysts say.The interim government, led by Shehbaz Sharif, center, has been deadlocked in talks with the International Monetary Fund.Saiyna Bashir for The New York TimesLate Thursday night, drivers desperate to fill their tanks before the price increase went into effect after midnight flocked to gas stations across major cities. Many drivers’ incomes have already been squeezed by soaring inflation in recent years that has pushed up the price of basic goods.“There is no rise in our income proportional to the rise in the price of fuel and other essential items,” said Saleem Khan, 44, as he waited to fill his motorcycle’s tank at a gas station in the port city of Karachi.Mr. Khan makes around 18,000 rupees, or about $90, a month working in a restaurant in the city. In previous months, he could send nearly 10,000 rupees every month to his relatives in Bajaur, a tribal district bordering Afghanistan.“This month, it seems I’ll be able to send barely 7,000 rupees to my family,” he said.Nearby, Rasheed Ahmed, a garment factory worker, sat on his motorcycle, worrying how he would pay for basics like food and rent with the fuel price increase.“We thought the ousting of Imran Khan will help the country in decreasing the fuel prices, but the current rulers are crueler than the previous government,” Mr. Ahmed, 34, said.The new coalition government has struggled to find its bearings since coming to power in early April and is in a particularly precarious position. It has no electoral mandate, but was chosen by Parliament to take over after Mr. Khan’s ouster. And it is a tenuous coalition of political parties that previously clashed frequently and only came together around the singular aim of removing Mr. Khan from office. Mr. Sharif’s party also faces internal divisions over policy decisions.A market in Islamabad last month. Many Pakistanis are worried about their ability to afford basic necessities as inflation rises.Saiyna Bashir for The New York TimesMr. Khan’s government, before its removal from office, was also facing increasing public discontent over rising inflation. Mr. Khan claims that the economy was improving under his government, but in order to soothe the public’s flaring tempers, he announced he was cutting petroleum and energy prices — a move that eased public discontent but added to the country’s fiscal deficit.Understand the Political and Economic Turmoil in PakistanCard 1 of 5A chaotic time. More

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    Ukraine War Strains North Africa Economies

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    Egypt imports most of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine, and is looking for alternative suppliers. And Tunisia was struggling to pay for grain imports even before the conflict.CAIRO — On the way to the bakery, Mona Mohammed realized Russia’s war on Ukraine might have something to do with her.Ms. Mohammed, 43, said she rarely pays attention to the news, but as she walked through her working-class Cairo neighborhood of Sayyida Zeinab on Friday morning, she overheard a few people fretting about the fact that Egypt imports most of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine.War meant less wheat; war meant more expensive wheat. War meant that Egyptians whose budgets were already crimped from months of rising prices might soon have to pay more for the round loaves of aish baladi, or country bread, that contribute more calories and protein to the Egyptian diet than anything else.“How much more expensive can things get?” Ms. Mohammed said as she waited to collect her government-subsidized loaves from the bakeryRussia’s invasion of Ukraine this week threatens to further strain economies across the Middle East already burdened by the pandemic, drought and conflict. As usual, the poorest have had it the worst, reckoning with inflated food costs and scarcer jobs — a state of affairs that recalled the lead-up to 2011, when soaring bread prices helped propel anti-government protesters into the streets in what came to be known as the Arab Spring.In a region where bread keeps hundreds of millions of people from hunger, anxiety at the bakeries spells trouble.In Egypt, the world’s top importer of wheat, the government was moving in the wake of the Russian invasion to find alternative grain suppliers. In Morocco, where the worst drought in three decades was pushing up food prices, the Ukraine crisis was set to exacerbate the inflation that has caused protests to break out. Tunisia was already struggling to pay for grain shipments before the conflict broke out; the war seemed likely to complicate the cash-strapped government’s efforts to avert a looming economic collapse.Harvesting wheat in Luxor, Egypt.Khaled Elfiqi/EPA, via ShutterstockBetween April 2020 and December 2021, the price of wheat increased 80 percent, according to data from the International Monetary Fund. North Africa and the Middle East, the largest buyers of Russian and Ukrainian wheat, were experiencing their worst droughts in over 20 years, said Sara Menker, the chief executive of Gro Intelligence, an artificial intelligence platform that analyzes global climate and crops.“This has the potential to upend global trade flows, further fuel inflation, and create even more geopolitical tensions around the world,” she said.After years of mismanaging their water supplies and agricultural industries, countries like Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco cannot afford to feed their own populations without importing food — and heavily subsidizing it. In recent years, the number of undernourished people in the Arab world has increased because of the overreliance on food imports, as well as a scarcity of arable land and rapid population growth.Beyond its effect on the price of bread, the uncertainty and turmoil brought on by the war will push up interest rates and lower access to credit, which, in turn, would quickly force governments to spend more to service their high debts and squeeze essential spending on health care, education, wages and public investments, said Ishac Diwan, an economist specializing in the Arab world at Paris Sciences et Lettres university.He predicted a rise in economic pressure on Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan and Morocco, warning that Egypt and Tunisia in particular could see peril to their banking sectors, which hold a large share of the public debt.Egypt is also heavily dependent on tourism from Russia, which has helped its tourism industry recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, giving the country extra cause for alarm.Global inflation and supply chain issues stemming from the pandemic have also raised the price of pasta in Egypt by a third over the last month. Cooking oil was up. Meat was up. Nearly everything was up.But most important, bread, the cost of which had already risen by about 50 percent at non-subsidized bakeries over the last four months; a five-pound note (about 30 cents) now buys only about seven loaves of bread, down from 10, bakery employees said.Egyptians, about a third of whom live on less than $1.50 a day, rely on bread for a third of their calories and 45 percent of their protein, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, a United Nations agency.Mona Fathy, 36, serving food to her children in her home, in the impoverished neighborhood of El-Ayyat in Giza, Egypt.Mohamed Abd El Ghany/ReutersGovernment officials said on Thursday that Egypt had enough grain reserves and domestically produced wheat to last the country until November. But because of rising import prices President Abdel Fatteh el-Sisi last year announced that Egypt would raise subsidized bread prices this year, risking public fury.“Of course I’m worried,” said Karim Khalaf, 23, who was collecting and stacking baladi loaves as they slipped out of the oven, steaming slightly, in a bakery in Sayyida Zeinab on Friday morning. “My salary hasn’t changed, but now I’m spending more than I’m making.”Morocco, where the all-important agriculture sector employs about 45 percent of the work force, is facing an economic crisis precipitated by global inflation, a surge of food and oil prices, and the worst drought in three decades.Anti-government protests that erupted on Sunday suggested that many Moroccans have lost patience with their six-month-old government as they struggle to make ends meet two years into a pandemic that annihilated the once-lucrative tourism industry.Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? More

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    G.M. Cancels Shifts at Michigan Plant Over Canada Protest Disruption

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    General Motors is the latest automaker to suspend production because of protests at a crucial Canadian border crossing that have disrupted supply chains already in turmoil because of the pandemic.G.M. said it had canceled two shifts on Wednesday and Thursday at a factory in Lansing, Mich., that makes sport utility vehicles. The plant depends on components that normally travel across a bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit that was closed by truck drivers and far-right groups angry about vaccine mandates and demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.Ford Motor and Toyota have also shut down some operations because factories could not get parts manufactured in Canada.The shutdown at the border will prevent manufacturing at Toyota’s three Canadian plants for the rest of this week, Scott Vazin, a spokesman for Toyota Motor North America, said Thursday.As long as the shutdowns are short lived, the impact on automaker sales and worker livelihoods should be limited. Companies are likely to make up for any lost production by running extra shifts or other measures.“A couple of days shouldn’t be that significant,” Mr. Vazin said. “We’re certainly hoping the blockade ends.”Said Deep, a spokesman at Ford, said Thursday morning that the company was running its plants in Oakville and Windsor, both in Ontario, at reduced capacity.“This interruption on the Detroit-Windsor bridge hurts customers, autoworkers, suppliers, communities and companies on both sides of the border that are already two years into parts shortages resulting from the global semiconductor issue, Covid and more,” Mr. Deep said. “We hope this situation is resolved quickly because it could have widespread impact on all automakers in the U.S. and Canada.”John Bordignon, a spokesman for Honda Canada, said Thursday morning that the company’s plant in Alliston, Ontario, had temporarily suspended one production line Wednesday evening but was back online on Thursday.The company will continue to monitor the flow of goods between Canada and the United States, and further disruptions were “certainly possible,” he said.Protesters challenging Canada’s vaccine requirements and other pandemic restrictions began cutting off traffic Monday on the Ambassador Bridge, the vital span that connects Detroit and Windsor.The bridge accounts for roughly a quarter of the trade between the United States and Canada. Trucks carry an estimated $300 million worth of goods across the bridge each day, about a third of which are related to the automobile industry.Companies have begun rerouting shipments to alternative crossing routes, like the Blue Water Bridge, which links Port Huron, Mich., and Sarnia, Ontario. But a new blockade on Wednesday on a route to that bridge, as well as a surge of diverted cars and trucks, slowed traffic there.The closings are likely to lead to losses for other industries, as well. On Wednesday, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that the Biden administration was tracking potential disruptions to agricultural exports to Canada.Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, said in a statement on Thursday that the blockade was putting the state’s economy at risk.“The blockade is having a significant impact on Michigan’s working families who are just trying to do their jobs,” she said. “Our communities and automotive, manufacturing, and agriculture businesses are feeling the effects.”Carmakers worldwide have struggled with shortages of semiconductors and other parts that severely curtailed production and sales. They had hoped that the flow of components and materials would start to return to normal this year.Ford said last Friday that it would be forced to shut down some production lines and reduce work hours at plants across North America this week because of chip shortages.Most carmakers operate on a “just-in-time” system that dispatches parts and materials to their factories as they are needed. The system has helped manufacturers reduce costs.But it has also left companies vulnerable as the pandemic closed foreign ports and factories and overloaded shipping companies, warehouses and truckers.David C. Adams, the president at Global Automakers of Canada, which represents Toyota and Honda, said auto facilities typically had about two days of inventory on hand. “Then things start to become problematic in terms of having enough parts to keep the lines running.” More

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    The National Labor Relations Board grants a reprieve to inflatable rats.

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    It turns out that inflatable rodents may be as unstoppable as their living, breathing cousins.On Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that unions can position large synthetic props like rats, often used to communicate displeasure over employment practices, near a work site even when the targeted company is not directly involved in a labor dispute.While picketing companies that deal with employers involved in labor disputes — known as a secondary boycott — is illegal under labor law, the board ruled that the use of oversized rats, which are typically portrayed as ominous creatures with red eyes and fangs, is not a picket but a permissible effort to persuade bystanders.Union officials had stationed the rat in question, a 12-foot-tall specimen, close to the entrance of a trade show in Elkhart, Ind., in 2018, along with two banners. One banner accused a company showcasing products there, Lippert Components, of “harboring rat contractors” — that is, doing business with contractors that do not use union labor.Lippert argued that the rat’s use was illegal coercion because the creature was menacing and was intended to discourage people from entering the trade show. But the board found that the rat was a protected form of expression. “Courts have consistently deemed banners and inflatable rats to fall within the realm of protected speech, rather than that of intimidation and the like,” the ruling said.The rise of the rodents, often known as “Scabby the Rat,” dates to the early 1990s, when an Illinois-based company began manufacturing them for local unions intent on drawing attention to what they considered suspect practices, such as using nonunion labor. The company later began making other inflatable totems, like fat cats and greedy pigs, for the same purpose.The labor relations board had previously blessed rats in a 2011 ruling. But seven years later, its general counsel, Peter B. Robb, sought to reopen the debate.Mr. Robb, a Trump appointee, issued an internal memo in 2018 arguing that erecting a rat near an employer that was not directly involved in a labor dispute amounted to “unlawful coercion” — an attempt to disrupt the business of a neutral party. His office subsequently intervened on behalf of the companies in a handful of cases in which firms sought to block unions from deploying large inflatable paraphernalia close to their facilities.One of those cases was dismissed, while a successor to Mr. Robb sought to dismiss another. (A judge has yet to rule on the motion to dismiss that case.)In the case brought by Lippert, an administrative law judge ruled against the company in 2019, arguing that the rat did not amount to a picket or illegal coercion.The judge noted that the rat and banners, which were erected by members of a local branch of the International Union of Operating Engineers, were stationary and did not create confrontation with passers-by. There was no evidence that the two union representatives present marched in front of the trade show or blocked people from entering, the judge wrote. They appeared to merely sit beside the rat.The company appealed to the labor board in Washington, which solicited public comment last fall on whether it should modify or overturn the precedent.But the board’s chairman, Lauren McFerran, a Democratic appointee, concluded that precedent required dismissing the complaint. Two Republican appointees indicated that they considered the precedent flawed but that banning inflatable rats would violate the First Amendment.A lone Republican appointee, William J. Emanuel, argued that the precedent should be overturned. More