Denis Collins Consulting

Thank you for visiting. Here you’ll find various articles and postings about business ethics issues. I specialize in ethics presentations and workshops to help companies achieve, or reinforce, high integrity and superior performance through a systemic and practical approach to ethics. Two of my latest "how-to" books, "Business Ethics: Best Practices for Designing and Managing Ethical Organizations" (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/business-ethics/book258125) and "Essentials of Business Ethics", provide practical advice and best practices for designing and managing ethical organizations. Just about every day since 2010 I have posted an article from that day's New York Times and added a business ethics question for your personal exploration or to use in a workshop or class for relevancy. You can review all the posts under the "Archive" tab. Most blog questions end with the question: "What are the ethics underlying your decision?" Generally, there are 6 ethical lenses, or vantage points, to consider: (1) egoism -- does it benefit me?; (2) social group relativism -- does it benefit my social group?; (3) cultural relativism (one form of it) -- is it legal?; (4) utilitarianism -- is it the greatest good for the greatest number?; (5) deontology -- does it treat every single person with respect ... does it do unto others what I want done to me?; and (6) virtue ethics -- what would a virtuous person concerned with practicing virtue (e.g., Gandhi, Jesus, Mohammad, Mother Teresa -- your moral role model) do? [See my two noted books for more detailed explanations of these theories.] Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions at [email protected]. Denis Collins

[deniscollins]

Passing of Denis Collins

Dear readers, 

For those of you who may be missing Denis’ daily postings, we regret to inform you that Denis passed away on February 25th, 2021, after a long battle with multiple terminal illnesses as a result of his numerous battles with cancer. You may find his published obituary here: https://www.cressfuneralservice.com/obituary/Denis-Collins 

Denis always treasured posting on this blog, and thank you for reading it. 

Best, 

Seth Collins (Denis’ son) 

[deniscollins]

A Black Student’s Mother Complained About ‘Fences.’ He Was Expelled.

What would you do if you were the principal of a private middle school studying August Wilson’s “Fences,” which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987 about a Black family, and an African-American parent of one of the few African American students objected because of the racist slurs peppered with racial slurs from the first page: (1) continue with the Fences’ curriculum, (2) cancel the curriculum, (3) censor the curriculum, (4) give that one students and others who feel the same way a separate assignment, (5) something else, if so what? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Faith Fox, a lawyer and single mother, said in an interview that she imagined her son’s mostly white class at the Providence Day School reading the dialogue out loud. She said her main concern was that the themes were too mature for the group and would foster stereotypes about Black families.

After a round of emails and a meeting with Ms. Fox, the school agreed to an alternate lesson for her son, Jamel Van Rensalier, 14. The school also discussed complaints with the parents of four other students. Ms. Fox’s disagreement escalated. She took it to a parents’ Facebook group, and later fired off an email that school officials said was a personal attack on a faculty member.

On the day after Thanksgiving, the school notified Ms. Fox that Jamel would no longer be attending the school, the only one he had ever known.

His mother called it an expulsion. The school referred to it as “a termination of enrollment” that had to do with the parent, not the student. Either way, what was meant to be a literary lesson in diversity and inclusion had somehow cost a Black 14-year-old his place in an elite private high school.

Jamel had recently made the school basketball team and said in an interview that he hoped to graduate as a Providence Day lifer. “I was completely crushed,” he said. “There was no, ‘Please don’t kick me out, I won’t say this, I won’t say that, my mom won’t say this, my mom won’t say that.’” He is making plans to attend public school in January.

This year has brought a reckoning with race at many American institutions, including schools. When widespread street protests erupted after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, young people across the country used social media to expose racism at their schools. At Providence Day School, Black students shared stories of discrimination and insensitivity on Instagram, and the school was among many that released statements against racism.

“For the Black members of our community, we see you, we hear you and we will act,” the statement said. The school also revised its bias complaint process and created alumni, faculty and student diversity groups.

But Ms. Fox said, she felt the school’s treatment of her son proved this was all just lip service.

“You can have the important conversations about race and segregation without destroying the confidence and self-esteem of your Black students and the Black population,” Ms. Fox said in an interview. Just over 7 percent of the school’s 1,780 students are Black, about 70 percent are white, and the rest identify as members of other minority groups.

A spokeswoman for the school, Leigh Dyer, said last week that officials were “saddened” that Jamel had to leave.

“As a school community, we value a diversity of thought and teach students to engage in civil discourse around topics that they might not necessarily agree on,” Ms. Dyer said. “We have the same expectation for the adults in our community.”

The Nov. 27 termination letter cited “bullying, harassment and racially discriminatory actions” and “slanderous accusations towards the school itself” by Jamel’s mother.

Ms. Dyer provided a statement that said Ms. Fox had made “multiple personal attacks against a person of color in our school administration, causing that person to feel bullied, harassed and unsafe” in the discussions about “Fences.” It also said Ms. Fox had a history of making “toxic” statements about the faculty and others at the school, but did not provide examples.

Ms. Fox denied this. “Instead of addressing the issue they’re trying to make me seem like an angry, ranting Black woman,” she said.

The New York Times reviewed emails and Facebook messages that Ms. Fox provided and also interviewed two other Providence Day parents who said they had similar concerns about the play and about a video the school used to facilitate conversations about the racial slur. They spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their children.

The school had notified parents in early November about the lesson plan in an email. Noting the frequent appearance of the slur in dialogue, it said that students would say “N-word” instead when reading aloud. It said time would be “devoted to considering the word itself and some of its more nuanced aspects of meaning.”

The email included a link to a PBS NewsHour interview with Randall Kennedy, a Black professor at Harvard, discussing the history of the slur while using it repeatedly.

“It wasn’t something that I thought was appropriate for a roomful of elite, affluent white children,” Ms. Fox said.

Her son was also dreading the lesson, which he would have attended via video because of the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s really awkward being in a classroom of majority white students when those words come up,” Jamel said, “because they just look at you and laugh at you, talk about you as soon as you leave class. I can’t really do anything because I’m usually the only Black person there.”

Ms. Dyer, the spokeswoman, said the school had introduced the study of “Fences” in 2017 in response to Black parents who wanted more lessons addressing race. In past years, there had been only one complaint about the play, she said.

After her son was offered an alternative assignment, Ms. Fox posted about “Fences” to the Facebook group. Other parents said they too had concerns about the play and the PBS video. One comment directed her to an online essay by a student from a prior year who described the “dagger” she felt “cutting deeper and deeper” with each mention of the slur in the video.

That’s when Ms. Fox sent an email to the school’s director of equity and inclusion, calling her a “disgrace to the Black community.” Ten days later, Jamel was kicked out of the school. Ms. Fox said that she was surprised but that she does not regret sending the email in the heat of the moment.

After Jamel’s expulsion, a letter signed by “concerned Black faculty members” was sent to parents of the four other students who had complained, arguing the literary merits of “Fences.” It said great African-American writers do not create perfect Black characters when they are trying to show the “damaging legacy of racism.”

That is a view held by many critics and academics. Sandra G. Shannon, a professor of African-American literature at Howard University and founder of the August Wilson Society, said schools should not shy away from the “harsh realities of the past.”

Katie Rieser, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, said “Fences” is taught widely in middle school and high school, but she also urged that it be done so with care.

“It’s telling a story about a Black family that, if it’s the only text or it’s one of only a few texts about Black people that students read, might give white students in particular a sense that Black families are all like this Black family,” she said.

Ms. Fox said the fight to be heard as a Black parent at a predominantly white private institution had been “exhausting.”

She recalled when Jamel came home upset in elementary school after a field trip to a former slave plantation. After she complained, the school ended the annual trips, she said.

The other day, she said her son told her he finally understood “why Black Lives Matter is so important and is not just about George Floyd and all of these people dying in the streets, but it also has to do with how we’re treated everywhere else.

[deniscollins]

‘Is Exxon a Survivor?’ The Oil Giant Is at a Crossroads.

Exxon, for decades one of the most profitable and valuable American businesses, lost $2.4 billion in the first nine months of the year, and its share price is down about 35 percent this year. In August, Exxon was tossed out of the Dow Jones industrial average, replaced by Salesforce, a software company. If you were an Exxon executive, would you spend (1) more, (2) the same, or (3) less on oil exploration and production? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Over the last 135 years, Exxon Mobil has survived hostile governments, ill-fated investments and the catastrophic Exxon Valdez oil spill. Through it all, the oil company made bundles of money.

But suddenly Exxon is slipping badly, its long latent vulnerabilities exposed by the coronavirus pandemic and technological shifts that promise to transform the energy world because of growing concerns about climate change.

The company, for decades one of the most profitable and valuable American businesses, lost $2.4 billion in the first nine months of the year, and its share price is down about 35 percent this year. In August, Exxon was tossed out of the Dow Jones industrial average, replaced by Salesforce, a software company. The change symbolized the passing of the baton from Big Oil to an increasingly dominant technology industry.

“Is Exxon a survivor?” asked Jennifer Rowland, an energy analyst at Edward Jones. “Of course they are, with great global assets, great people, great technical know-how. But the question really is, can they thrive? There is a lot of skepticism about that right now.”

Exxon is under growing pressure from investors. D.E. Shaw, a longtime shareholder that recently increased its stake in Exxon, is demanding that the company cut costs and improve its environmental record, according to a person briefed on the matter. Another activist investor, Engine No. 1, is pushing for similar changes in an effort backed by the California State Teachers Retirement System and the Church of England. And on Wednesday, the New York State comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, said the state’s $226 billion pension fund would sell shares in oil and gas companies that did not move fast enough to reduce emissions.

Of course, every oil company is struggling with the collapse in energy demand this year and as world leaders, including President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., pledge to address climate change. In addition, many utilities, automakers and other businesses have pledged to greatly reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels, the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and have embraced wind and solar power and electric vehicles.

European companies like Royal Dutch Shell and BP have already begun to pivot away from fossil fuels. But Exxon, like most American oil companies, has doubled down on its commitment to oil and gas and is making relatively small investments in technologies that could help slow down climate change.

As recently as last month, Exxon reaffirmed it plans to increase fossil fuel production, though at a slower pace. The company is investing billions of dollars to produce oil and gas in the Permian Basin, which straddles Texas and New Mexico, and in offshore fields in Guyana, Brazil and Mozambique.

Exxon committed to its strategy even as it acknowledged that one of its previous big bets did not go well. Exxon said it would write down the value of its natural gas assets, most of which it bought around 2010, by up to $20 billion. The company is also laying off about 14,000 workers, or 15 percent of its total, over the next year or so as it seeks to cut costs and protect a dividend that it had increased every year for nearly four decades until this year.

But if this crisis is an existential threat, there has been no acknowledgment from Exxon’s executive suite, still known in the company as the “God Pod.”

“Despite the current volatility and near-term uncertainty, the long-term fundamentals that drive our business remain strong and unchanged,” Darren W. Woods, the company’s chairman and chief executive since 2017, said at a recent shareholders meeting.

Exxon is known in the oil world as an insular company with a rigid culture that slows adoptive, pivotal change. It has been that way since John D. Rockefeller founded the company in the late 19th century as Standard Oil, a monopoly later broken up by the government.

An accountant by training, Rockefeller instilled a deep commitment to number crunching that remains in the company’s DNA. Exxon is primarily run by engineers who generally work their way up to senior roles. Its executives project determination in their ability to navigate every imaginable hurdle like OPEC oil embargoes, war and sanctions. Such confidence is perhaps necessary to run a company that does business in dangerous or inhospitable places.

As a trained electrical engineer and 28-year company veteran, Mr. Woods speaks with the same cool self-assurance as his more famous predecessors. But he has kept a lower profile than Lee R. Raymond, who dismissed concerns about climate change in the 1990s and early 2000s, and Rex W. Tillerson, whose international wheeling and dealing between 2006 and 2016 helped him become President Trump’s first secretary of state.

While Mr. Raymond and Mr. Tillerson were dominant figures in the industry, they left Mr. Woods with many problems that were at least partly obscured by higher oil and gas prices.

Mr. Raymond’s public skepticism of climate change damaged the company’s reputation. Mr. Tillerson was slow to take advantage of shale drilling, which lifted the American oil industry. His foray into the former Soviet Union and Iraq proved to be expensive failures. When he bought XTO a decade ago for over $30 billion to acquire fracking expertise and prized natural gas fields, gas prices were at their peak. As the commodity price declined in the years since, the company lost money and wrote off much of the investment last month.

“Darren Woods has inherited a company that has made huge bets in recent years that were not successful,” said Fadel Gheit, a retired Wall Street analyst who was an engineer in research and development at Mobil before its merger with Exxon in 1999.

“Exxon Mobil is like a big cruise ship,” he added. “You can’t change course overnight. They can weather the storm but not go far. They will have to transform to stay relevant.”

Mr. Raymond declined to comment. Mr. Tillerson did not respond to a request for comment. Exxon responded to questions mainly by referring to previous public statements by Mr. Woods and the company.

Casey Norton, a company spokesman, said the acquisition of XTO had “brought people and technology in addition to potential resources” that helped the company be successful in shale fields in the Permian Basin.

In the first few years on the job, Mr. Woods followed the broad strategy set by Mr. Tillerson by borrowing and investing heavily to expand production. The pandemic forced Mr. Woods to change direction. The company now plans to spend one-third less on exploration and production through 2025 than it had originally planned.

Yet the changes Exxon is making, while big in absolute terms, seem like tinkering compared with what European oil companies are doing. BP has announced that it will increase investments in low-emission businesses tenfold over the next decade, to $5 billion a year, while shrinking oil and gas production by 40 percent. Royal Dutch Shell, Total of France and other European companies are making similar moves at varying speeds.

The only major American oil company that comes close to setting European-style targets is Occidental Petroleum. It recently pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions from its operations by 2040 and from the use of its fuel by 2050. It is building a plant in Texas to capture carbon dioxide from the air and use it to push crude oil out of the ground while leaving the greenhouse gas underground for perpetuity.

“We’ve moved from the shale era to the energy transition era, so there is a greater divergence of strategies among the companies, the widest it’s ever been in modern times,” said Daniel Yergin, an energy historian and the author of “The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations.” “Now the big debate is will oil peak in the 2020s or the 2030s or the 2050s?”

Exxon executives have said they recognize an energy transition is underway and necessary. But they have also asserted that it wouldn’t make sense for the company to get into the solar or wind energy business. Instead, the company is investing in breakthrough technologies. One such project involves using algae to produce fuel for trucks and airplanes. Exxon has been talking about that project for years but has yet to begin commercial production.

Exxon refineries might also someday become major producers of hydrogen, which many experts believe could play an important role in reducing emissions. The company is betting on carbon capture and sequestration. One project involves directing carbon emitted from industrial operations into a fuel cell that can generate power, reducing emissions while producing more power.

“Breakthroughs in these areas are critical to reducing emissions and would make a meaningful contribution to achieving the goals of the Paris agreement, which we support,” Mr. Woods said in a message to employees in October, referring to the 2016 global climate accord.

Energy experts said it was possible that Exxon could come up with new uses for carbon dioxide like strengthening concrete or making carbon fiber, which could replace steel and other materials.

“If Exxon and other major oil industry players crack those nuts, the entire discussion about hydrocarbons changes,” said Kenneth B. Medlock III, a senior director at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University. “That kind of change is slow until it’s not. Think about wind and solar, which were slow until they weren’t.”

A big increase in oil and gas prices could also allay some of the concerns about the company, at least temporarily. In recent weeks, as oil prices have climbed on optimism about a coronavirus vaccine, so has Exxon’s stock.

Vijay Swarup, Exxon’s vice president for research and development, said in a recent interview that the company understood it needed to lower emissions and was developing better fuels, lubricants and plastics.

“As we are developing that pathway to get there, we can’t stop providing affordable, scalable energy,” Mr. Swarup said.

But John Browne, a former BP chief executive, said it was not clear that Exxon and the other big American companies would transform their businesses adequately for a low-carbon future.

“They may decide just to carry on and harvest and say, ‘Let’s see what happens in the long run,’” he said. “That’s quite a risky strategy nowadays.”

[deniscollins]

Chick-fil-A Accuses Poultry Suppliers of Price Fixing

What would you do if you were a Chick-fil-A supplier and another supplier offered to share confidential bidding and pricing information with you by by phone and text messages: (1) accept the info, (2) reject the info and inform federal authorities about price fixing, or (3) reject the info but don’t inform regulators? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision? 

Chick-fil-A, the company that says it invented the chicken sandwich, has accused more than a dozen poultry suppliers in a federal lawsuit of inflating prices on billions of dollars of chicken that it bought.

The company filed the lawsuit on Friday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, accusing 16 chicken producers of colluding with one another to manipulate prices after the fast-food chain announced plans in 2014 to serve broiler chicken meat without antibiotics within five years.

Chick-fil-A, which is based in Atlanta, said the suppliers violated federal antitrust laws when they shared confidential bidding and pricing information with one another by phone and text messages.

In the lawsuit, Chick-fil-A said that the suppliers “possessed significant market power in the market for broilers” and that “their conduct had actual anticompetitive effects with no or insufficient offsetting pro-competitive justifications.” The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and lawyers’ fees incurred by Chick-fil-A, which said that its losses from price fixing would be established during a requested jury trial.

The defendants include Tyson Foods, Perdue Farms, Pilgrim’s Pride and Sanderson Farms, all of which are part of a class-action case over price-fixing allegations that began in 2016 and that Chick-fil-A said in its lawsuit it had joined.

The companies have disputed the allegations in the class-action case. A spokeswoman for Perdue Farms echoed those denials on Sunday night when asked to comment on the Chick-fil-A lawsuit.

“We believe these claims are unfounded and plan to contest the merits,” the spokeswoman, Andrea Staub, said in an email.

Tyson Foods said Chick-fil-A’s allegations were without merit.

“Follow-on complaints like these are common in antitrust litigation,” the company said in a statement. “Such complaints do not change our position that the claims are unfounded. We will continue to vigorously defend our company.”

The dispute over chicken prices escalated in June, when the Justice Department indicted two top executives at Pilgrim’s Pride on a price-fixing charge. They have pleaded not guilty.

In October, Pilgrim’s Pride agreed to pay $110.5 million to settle federal charges that it had helped fix prices and then passed on the higher costs for chicken to consumers, restaurants and supermarkets.

Representatives of Pilgrim’s Pride, Tyson Foods and Sanderson Farms did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday night.

In June, Tyson Foods said that it was cooperating with a criminal investigation by the Justice Department into the broiler chicken industry. The company said it had been served with a grand jury subpoena from the department’s antitrust division.

A spokeswoman for Chick-fil-A, which has more than 2,400 locations, declined to comment on Sunday night.

In 2019, Chick-fil-A posted more than $11 billion in domestic sales, the highest revenue for a fast-food chicken chain in the United States, according to Technomic, an industry research firm. Its sales were nearly triple those of both KFC and Popeyes.

For the past 25 years, Chick-fil-A has featured cows in its advertisements and used the slogan “Eat Mor Chikin” to contrast itself with fast-food chains that mainly serve hamburgers.

[deniscollins]

France will foot the bill for vacation pay in distressed industries.

Should the French government pay for up to 10 days of vacation leave for every furloughed employee of restaurants, bars, hotels and sports centers that have been forced to remain closed and have lost business under France’s latest lockdown: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

To the list of generous support measures that France has rolled out to shield workers and businesses from the pandemic, add a new one: footing the bill for vacation pay.

The government said late Wednesday that it would pay for up to 10 days of vacation leave for every furloughed employee of restaurants, bars, hotels and sports centers that have been forced to remain closed and have lost business under France’s latest lockdown.

The pledge, which the Labor Ministry said would cost “several hundred million euros,” came after industry representatives complained that employers couldn’t afford to pay those benefits for lack of income.

The hospitality industry has been hammered by forced lockdowns and social distancing rules. While stores were recently allowed to reopen in France after a second national lockdown in October, restaurants and bars will stay closed through at least Jan. 20, prompting employers to keep workers sidelined on furlough schemes.

Under the taxpayer-funded government support plan, furloughed workers receive 84 percent of their net salary, subsidized by the state.

Yet even if employees aren’t working, they are still on their firms’ payroll, so vacation continues to accumulate. In France, salaried workers accrue 2.5 vacation days a month. According to the Union of Trade and Hospitality Industries, which represents the hotel and restaurant industry, 16 million days of paid leave haven’t been taken since March, representing an estimated cost to employers of 1.5 billion euros.

Faced with a potentially staggering bill, restaurants, hotels and gyms, many of which are barely staying afloat on a combination of cheap state-backed loans and payroll subsidies, pressed the government for additional financial relief for vacation pay.

After heated negotiations, in which the industry asked the government to pay for 15 days of vacation per employee, the Labor ministry agreed to foot the bill for 10 days. Employers will receive full compensation, meaning that workers will be paid 100 percent of their salary when exercising the vacation days.

Under the deal, restaurant, cafe, hotel, bar, gym and hotel employees must use those days between Jan. 1 and the expected Jan. 20 reopening. Businesses are eligible if they were closed for at least 140 days this year or if sales slumped more than 90 percent during national lockdowns.

Since the coronavirus hit, France has outlined over 400 billion euros in state-backed loans and direct subsidies to prevent a wave of bankruptcies and mass unemployment.

[deniscollins]

New York Road Runners Parts Ways With C.E.O. Amid Workplace Complaints

What would you recommend to a New York Road Runners employee who tells you that on multiple occasions she had been referred to as an “educated Puerto Rican woman,” mocked for speaking Spanish, and told to take pictures of people of color for use on the organization’s social media accounts? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

The New York Road Runners, the club that puts on the New York City Marathon, announced Monday that its chief executive would depart at the end of the year, amid complaints from current and former employees who questioned the organization’s commitment to diversity, social justice and gender equality as well as its financial management.

The executive, Michael Capiraso, who has led the Road Runners since 2015 and is credited with significantly increasing its revenues, will leave his post Dec. 31. Kerin Hempel, a former executive with the New York Road Runners who has worked as a consultant with McKinsey & Co., will serve as the interim chief executive until a permanent replacement is named.

George Hirsch, the chairman of the organization, announced the leadership changes on Monday morning. He said the Road Runners’ board had spent the past months listening “to the concerns raised and recommendations offered by the community N.Y.R.R. serves, including its employees and members of the broader running community.”

“In order to achieve our mission to help and inspire people through running," he continued, “we will recruit new leadership to the organization.”

The Road Runners has been reviewing the way it has addressed systemic racism and social justice efforts since a wave of protests after the police killing of George Floyd inspired a re-examination of race nationwide. The review gained added urgency in August after a group of anonymous current and former employees published online a letter critical of the organization under the Instagram name “RebuildNYRR.”

The letter detailed a series of complaints about the Road Runners, including accusations of financial mismanagement and of failing to adequately address diversity and issues related to racism. The letter was critical of Capiraso’s commitment to the issues.

Steve Mura, the manager of running, training and education for the Road Runners, said Monday that Capiraso’s ouster was overdue.

“It shows that the higher-ups, higher leadership, has been listening to what employees have been saying, finally,” said Mura, 36, who has worked at the organization for six years. “This is one of the first major things that they have done to prove that they are listening.”

Before the letter was published, the organization said it had undertaken efforts to pay more attention to issues of race. In June, the Road Runners hired a diversity consultant, who spoke with employees both in groups and individually about their experiences. The consultant also began conducting a diversity and inclusion training program with the senior leadership team, the Road Runners said.

In November, the organization also hired Erica Edwards-O’Neal to serve as senior vice president of diversity, staffing a position that had been unfilled for more than a year. She will start in December. At the same time, the board also hired a New York law firm to conduct an investigation of its workplace culture. According to two people with knowledge of the matter, that investigation is nearing its conclusion. The firm, Proskauer Rose, will deliver a report to the board of the organization; the New York Road Runners has said it will keep the report confidential to protect the identities of people who cooperated with it.

Mura said the meetings and discussions about diversity and inclusion had addressed the need for change, but that little change has occurred that is visible to the public.

“We’re actually doing a lot internally, but change is slow and it doesn’t show externally, so it really appears like we are moving at a snail’s pace,” he said. Capiraso said he and the leadership of New York Road Runners had taken the complaints and concerns that current and former employees had raised “very seriously.”

“I understand what the board is saying, that they are making a decision after having listened to people,” Capiraso said in an interview.

Capiraso began working with New York Road Runners in 2012. During his five-year tenure as chief executive, revenues at the organization increased to more than $100 million, from roughly $70 million, with the help of new media and sponsorship deals and increased participation in high-profile large races like the marathon, which now registers some 50,000 participants, and two half marathons run by the Road Runners that have some 25,000 participants each.

Like all sports organizations, New York Road Runners has been tested financially by the pandemic, which forced the cancellation of the New York City Half Marathon, the Brooklyn Half Marathon and the New York City Marathon. The resulting losses led the organization to lay off or furlough 40 percent of its staff of 229 this year.

In the wake of Capiraso’s dismissal, several current and former employees went public with complaints about the organization’s management.

Frances Alvarado, 26, who is now a teacher, worked at N.Y.R.R. for nearly two years. She said she left in 2019 after she was called an “educated Puerto Rican woman” on multiple occasions, mocked for speaking Spanish, and told to take pictures of people of color for use on the organization’s social media accounts.

“Hopefully they fill that position with someone who reflects the interests of the team and who cares about health and the running community more than the appearance of the company or N.Y.R.R. as a product,” she said.

Janet Cupo, 65, worked for 30 years registering people for races before leaving the Road Runners in 2015. She said Capiraso’s move to automate registration online, where credit cards are required, served to exclude low-income runners, some of whom were minorities. When she suggested a change in the policy, she said, her ideas were rejected.

Sam Dupuis, 29, who has worked with the organization for three years and coordinates running programs, was hopeful the leadership change would result in a more intense focus on including communities of color.

“Our achievements in recent years, while still wonderful in their own right, have not allowed us to be as connected to all of the communities in our area,” Dupuis said.

[deniscollins]

Nike and Coca-Cola Lobby Against Xinjiang Forced Labor Bill

Human rights groups and news reports have linked many multinational companies to suppliers there, including tying Coca-Cola to sugar sourced from Xinjiang. If you were a Coca-Cola executive would you hire a lobbying firm that is working to weaken a Congressional bill that would ban broad categories of certain goods made by persecuted Muslim minorities: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underling your decision?

Nike and Coca-Cola are among the major companies and business groups lobbying Congress to weaken a bill that would ban imported goods made with forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region, according to congressional staff members and other people familiar with the matter, as well as lobbying records that show vast spending on the legislation.

The bill, which would prohibit broad categories of certain goods made by persecuted Muslim minorities in an effort to crack down on human rights abuses, has gained bipartisan support, passing the House in September by a margin of 406 to 3. Congressional aides say it has the backing to pass the Senate, and could be signed into law by either the Trump administration or the incoming Biden administration.

But the legislation, called the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, has become the target of multinational companies including Apple whose supply chains touch the far western Xinjiang region, as well as of business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Lobbyists have fought to water down some of its provisions, arguing that while they strongly condemn forced labor and current atrocities in Xinjiang, the act’s ambitious requirements could wreak havoc on supply chains that are deeply embedded in China.

Xinjiang produces vast amounts of raw materials like cotton, coal, sugar, tomatoes and polysilicon, and supplies workers for China’s apparel and footwear factories. Human rights groups and news reports have linked many multinational companies to suppliers there, including tying Coca-Cola to sugar sourced from Xinjiang, and documenting Uighur workers in a factory in Qingdao that makes Nike shoes.

In a report issued in March, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, listed Nike and Coca-Cola as companies suspected of ties to forced labor in Xinjiang, alongside Adidas, Calvin Klein, Campbell Soup Company, Costco, H&M, Patagonia, Tommy Hilfiger and others.

In a statement, Coca-Cola said that it “strictly prohibits any type of forced labor in our supply chain” and uses third-party auditors to closely monitor its suppliers. It also said that the COFCO Tunhe facility in Xinjiang, which supplies sugar to a local bottling facility and had been linked to allegations of forced labor by The Wall Street Journal and Chinese-language news media, “successfully completed an audit in 2019.”

Greg Rossiter, the director of global communications at Nike, said the company “did not lobby against” the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act but instead had “constructive discussions” with congressional staff aides aimed at eliminating forced labor and protecting human rights.

Asked about the allegations of forced labor, Nike referred to a statement in March in which it said that it did not source products from Xinjiang and that it had confirmed that its suppliers were not using textiles or yarn from the region.

Nike said that the Qingdao factory had stopped hiring new workers from Xinjiang in 2019, and that an independent audit confirmed there were no longer employees from there at the facility. (According to a report published in March by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that cited state media, the factory employed around 800 Uighur workers at the end of 2019 and produced more than seven million pairs of shoes for Nike each year.)

China’s vast campaign of suppressing and forcibly assimilating Uighurs and other minorities in Xinjiang has attracted the scorn of politicians and consumers around the world.

But for many companies, fully investigating and eliminating any potential ties to forced labor there has been difficult, given the opacity of Chinese supply chains and the limited access of auditors to a region where the Chinese government tightly restricts people’s movements.

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would require companies sending goods to the United States to scrutinize those supply chains, or perhaps abandon Chinese suppliers altogether. It would impose high standards, barring imports of goods made “in whole or in part” in Xinjiang unless companies prove to customs officials that their products were not made with forced labor.

The bill also targets so-called poverty alleviation and pairing programs that ship Muslims from impoverished areas to work in factories elsewhere, which human rights groups say are often coercive. Companies would be required to disclose information on their ties to Xinjiang to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Richard A. Mojica, a lawyer at Miller & Chevalier, said that for many companies, convincing the authorities that they have no involvement with forced labor could take months. Firms were already responding by trying to find sources for products outside Xinjiang, he said.

“Rebutting a presumption of forced labor is going to be a very challenging endeavor,” he said.

Companies and groups lobbying on the bill have been pushing for various revisions, including easing disclosure requirements, people familiar with the conversations said.

Apple, which has extensive business ties to China, has also lobbied to limit some provisions of the bill, said two congressional staff members and another person familiar with the matter.

Disclosure forms show that Apple paid Fierce Government Relations, a firm led by former staff aides to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and President George W. Bush, $90,000 to lobby on issues including Xinjiang-related legislation in the third quarter. Apple’s lobbying was previously reported by The Washington Post.

Apple also paid outside firms this year to lobby on another bill, the Uyghur Forced Labor Disclosure Act of 2020.

Apple disputed the claim that it had tried to weaken the legislation, saying it supported efforts to strengthen American regulations and believes the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act should become law.

According to a document viewed by The New York Times, Apple’s suggested edits to the bill included extending some deadlines for compliance, releasing certain information about supply chains to congressional committees rather than to the public, and requiring Chinese entities to be “designated by the United States government” as helping to surveil or detain Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang.

In its March report, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute identified Apple and Nike among 82 companies that potentially benefited, directly or indirectly, from abusive labor transfer programs tied to Xinjiang.

That report said that O-Film Technology, a contractor for Apple, Microsoft, Google and other companies, received at least 700 Uighur workers in a program that was expected to “gradually alter their ideology.” It tied other Apple suppliers, including Foxconn Technology, to similar employment programs.

Apple said in a statement that it had the strongest supplier code of conduct in its industry and that it regularly assessed suppliers, including with surprise audits.

“Looking for the presence of forced labor is part of every supplier assessment we conduct and any violations of our policies carry immediate consequences, including business termination,” the statement said. “Earlier this year, we conducted a detailed investigation with our suppliers in China and found no evidence of forced labor on Apple production lines and we are continuing to monitor this closely.”

Lobbying disclosures show that companies have spent heavily to sway Congress on Xinjiang-related legislation, though they reveal nothing about their specific requests.

In the first three quarters of 2020, Nike spent $920,000 on in-house lobbying of Congress and other federal agencies. Disclosures do not break down expenditures by topic, but show Nike lobbied on matters including physical education grants, taxes and climate change, as well as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

Nike also paid outside firms like Cornerstone Government Affairs, Ogilvy, Capitol Counsel, GrayRobinson, American Continental Group, DiNino Associates and Empire Consulting Group more than $400,000 this year to lobby on issues including the act.

Mr. Rossiter said that Nike had these firms on retainer long before the Xinjiang legislation was introduced, and that the company actively worked with lobbying firms to engage Congress on a variety of subjects it cares about.

Coca-Cola has also invested heavily, spending $4.68 million in the first three quarters of 2020 on in-house lobbying and hiring Empire Consulting Group and Sidley Austin to lobby on issues including the act.

Coca-Cola said in a statement that it complies with all laws associated with its political activities and has “adopted best-in-class disclosures practices.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce declined to comment on lobbying, instead providing a letter it sent to Congress in November with seven other industry groups. The letter said the groups had long been working to combat forced labor, and urged the government to take a comprehensive approach that would mobilize the administration, Congress and foreign governments to address the problem, in addition to industry.

[deniscollins]

Job Interviews Without Interviewers, Products of the Pandemic

If you outsourced your company’s hiring process, would you use a recruiter who: (1) uses a digital hiring system where applicants provide video taped responses to the same set of questions or (2) speaks with the recruiter by phone or live video chat? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

So much of our work lives has moved online during the pandemic: group meetings, chats with the boss — even interviewing for a new job. The pandemic has also led companies to conduct “interviews” without an interviewer. Job applicants are being asked to video record answers to set questions about their experience, skills and personal qualities, rather than speaking with a recruiter by phone or video chat.

So-called case questions that pose a business problem and would typically lead into a 30-minute conversation with a hiring manager may now require solely written responses. Online tests in the form of games aim to measure job-seekers’ cognitive and personal traits.

The new systems are used most often for high-turnover hourly jobs like fast-food worker, phone representative or warehouse employee, said Madeline Laurano, founder of Aptitude Research, a firm based in Boston that studies business hiring practices. But the systems are beginning to be used more often for professional jobs, too, especially in the financial, consulting, technology and health industries, she said.

Recruiters who use the systems no longer have to spend large parts of their days in the back and forth of scheduling interviews — the software handles that. The company can evaluate more applicants by reviewing more videos, written responses and game results, less encumbered by interviewers’ schedule restrictions.

Hiring bias, too, can be reduced using the new technology, since each applicant is asked the same questions in the same way, making performances easier to compare objectively. Nicky Hancock, a managing director for Alexander Mann Solutions, which helps financial institutions worldwide do their hiring, said that recording candidates’ answers to a set of standard questions was fairer. “The face-to-face interviews don’t really work that well because there is unconscious bias, and some people may not know how to do an interview well,” she said.

Some of the new systems can contact references, answer questions about benefits using chatbots, and send along training modules to newly hired employees. Some offer interview tips to candidates before they start the process, Ms. Laurano said.

Job seekers can complete the interview tasks when it is convenient, rather than work around the recruiter’s schedule. That’s a popular feature, said Kevin Parker, chief executive and chairman of HireVue, a firm based in Utah that makes online interview tools.

Sixty percent of the nearly five million interviews conducted so far this year using his company’s video recording software were completed after work hours, Mr. Parker said, and 40 percent of those were recorded on Sundays. Unlike the experience of an in-person meeting, applicants can try again if they don’t like the way they answered a question (by rerecording a video).

Ms. Hancock’s team uses recorded interviews and assessments for hourly and early career professional candidates and is beginning to expand their use for higher level and specialty positions. The specialty jobs may have their own online assessments, Ms. Hancock said. Codility and HackerRank are two tools, for example, that might be used to test the programming acumen of software engineers. Hourly workers might be asked to write or record answers to situational questions like, “If a customer came to you with a complaint you couldn’t resolve, what would you do?”

There are challenges. A job seeker who starts off shakily but pulls together and finishes strong may not have their whole video watched by the recruiter. Technical snafus still happen. It can also be harder for applicants to know whom to contact to check their application status.

Sofia Tobón, a college junior, has applied for 15 banking internships this year, and most required her to do a recorded interview, which was evaluated to determine if she would make it to the next round of interviews, with people. “It feels weird,” she said of the lack of feedback. With a person, Ms. Tobón said, she can receive cues on how things are going, like encouraging nods or requests for details. Still, the more recordings she did, the more comfortable she became.

Ms. Tobón said the recorded process also required an additional level of preparation. Like many job applicants, Ms. Tobón has put together a stable of stories to answer typical queries like, “Give an example of your creativity,” or, “Tell me about a challenge you faced.” Those stories vary in length, but in the case of the recorded interview, a specific time limit is set, so Ms. Tobón had to deliver her answers within that parameter. “It took more practice,” she said.

The impersonal nature added to the stress. In some cases, submitting an application garnered an automatic invitation to record an interview. “With so many qualified people applying, sometimes I ask myself, will this even get viewed?” she said, “or will I be weeded out before they see it?”

Ms. Laurano said it was important for companies to reduce applicants’ stress by clearly communicating what the candidate should expect, minimizing the time and effort required to apply, and quickly delivering an answer. The communication should be personalized, she said, and ideally even convey some of the company culture.

The pandemic has accelerated the use of this technology. In February, Ms. Laurano found that 58 percent of businesses were using or considering using digital hiring systems, including ones with the ability for applicants to schedule their own appointments online and participate in video interviews, either with a recruiter or recorded. Now 77 percent of companies she surveyed are using or considering the use of interview software. Many of the others “probably just aren’t hiring,” she said.

The growth is also global. HireVue tools are available in 40 languages and used in 180 countries, according to Mr. Parker. His new bilingual interview software is gaining popularity in the southwestern United States, he said.

There are other new ways of assessing applicants online. Pymetrics, a four-year-old company based in New York, offers a set of online games that aim to measure job-seekers’ cognitive, social and emotional aptitudes. Applicant results are usually measured against those of the company’s top performers in the job the candidate is applying for.

In one game, for example, the job seeker is asked to pump up a series of cartoon balloons. For every pump, applicants are rewarded with a small amount of play money, accumulating rewards as the balloon is pumped up. They can stop at any time and keep the money, but if the balloon bursts, they lose all of it. The exercise offers information about how candidates learn and their risk and reward appetites.

The exercises were developed in cognitive science labs, said Frida Polli, one of the founders of Pymetrics and a former academic scientist. They reduce bias in hiring because they evaluate personal qualities that applicants can possess without attending elite colleges or fitting into a preconceived image of what a “good” candidate looks like, she said.

The games can feel a bit opaque to applicants, though. In a traditional interview, flubbing a technical question or stumbling over a weak answer shows where to improve in the future, said Ms. Tobón. So while she understood there were no right or wrong answers to Pymetrics tasks she encountered, like dividing a hypothetical bonus between herself and a teammate, she still found herself wondering: “Did I do well? I just want to do well and get employed in this economy.”

[deniscollins]

McKinsey Proposed Paying Pharmacy Companies Rebates for OxyContin Overdoses

The federal settlement with Purdue Pharma comes as States and municipalities seek compensation from opioid makers for helping fuel a health crisis that has killed more than 450,000 Americans since 1999. In 2008, Purdue pled guilty to misleading regulators. McKinsey Consulting, a long-time advisor, developed a list of options to “turbo charge sales.” What would you do if you were a McKinsey partner and a report done for Purdue that projected that in 2019, for example, 2,484 CVS customers would either have an overdose or develop an opioid use disorder and a rebate of $14,810 per “event” meant that Purdue would pay CVS $36.8 million that year? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision? 

When Purdue Pharma agreed last month to plead guilty to criminal charges involving OxyContin, the Justice Department noted the role an unidentified consulting company had played in driving sales of the addictive painkiller even as public outrage grew over widespread overdoses.

Documents released last week in a federal bankruptcy court in New York show that the adviser was McKinsey & Company, the world’s most prestigious consulting firm. The 160 pages include emails and slides revealing new details about McKinsey’s advice to the Sackler family, Purdue’s billionaire owners, and the firm’s now notorious plan to “turbocharge” OxyContin sales at a time when opioid abuse had already killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

In a 2017 presentation, according to the records, which were filed in court on behalf of multiple state attorneys general, McKinsey laid out several options to shore up sales. One was to give Purdue’s distributors a rebate for every OxyContin overdose attributable to pills they sold.

The presentation estimated how many customers of companies including CVS and Anthem might overdose. It projected that in 2019, for example, 2,484 CVS customers would either have an overdose or develop an opioid use disorder. A rebate of $14,810 per “event” meant that Purdue would pay CVS $36.8 million that year.

CVS and Anthem have recently been among McKinsey’s biggest clients. Press officers for the two companies said they had never received rebates from Purdue for customers who had overdosed on OxyContin.

Though McKinsey has not been charged by the federal government or sued, it began to worry about legal repercussions in 2018, according to the documents. After Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against Purdue, Martin Elling, a leader for McKinsey’s North American pharmaceutical practice, wrote to another senior partner, Arnab Ghatak: “It probably makes sense to have a quick conversation with the risk committee to see if we should be doing anything” other than “eliminating all our documents and emails. Suspect not but as things get tougher there someone might turn to us.”

Mr. Ghatak, who also advised Purdue, replied: “Thanks for the heads up. Will do.”

It is not known whether consultants at the firm went on to destroy any records.

The two men were among the highest-ranking consultants at McKinsey. Five years earlier, the documents show, they emailed colleagues about a meeting in which McKinsey persuaded the Sacklers to aggressively market OxyContin.

The meeting “went very well — the room was filled with only family, including the elder statesman Dr. Raymond,” wrote Mr. Ghatak, referring to Purdue’s co-founder, the physician Raymond Sackler, who would die in 2017.

Mr. Elling concurred. “By the end of the meeting,” he wrote, “the findings were crystal clear to everyone and they gave a ringing endorsement of moving forward fast.”

McKinsey’s plan was accepted, even though Russell Gasdia, then Purdue’s vice president of sales and marketing, questioned the firm’s approach, writing Mr. Ghatak the night before the meeting to say that he had real concerns “on the need to turbocharge sales” of OxyContin.

Another Purdue executive, David Lundie, agreed with the strategy, however. Mr. Lundie said the proposal would catch the Sackler family’s attention, according to the documents. It did.

By 2017, Purdue’s chief executive, Craig Landau, wrote that the crisis was caused by “too many Rxs being written” at “too high a dose” and “for too long.” The drugs, he said, were being prescribed “for conditions that often don’t require them” by physicians who lacked “the requisite training in how to use them appropriately.”

When McKinsey was later called on to “disassemble” the aggressive sales campaign, according to the court filings, Mr. Landau was quoted as saying that it was something “we should have done five years ago.”

A press officer for McKinsey on Wednesday said the firm had been “cooperating fully with the opioid-related investigations” and had announced in 2019 that it “would not advise any clients worldwide on opioid-specific business.”

In a statement last month, the Sacklers said that family members “who served on Purdue’s board of directors acted ethically and lawfully.”

McKinsey’s involvement in the opioid crisis came to light early last year, with the release of documents from Massachusetts, which is among the states suing Purdue. Those records show that McKinsey was helping Purdue find a way “to counter the emotional messages from mothers with teenagers that overdosed” from OxyContin.

On Tuesday, Purdue pleaded guilty to criminal charges, including defrauding federal health agencies and paying illegal kickbacks to doctors. The company also faces roughly $8.3 billion in penalties. As part of the settlement, members of the Sackler family will pay $225 million in civil penalties.

In a statement issued after the announcement of the settlement in October, Purdue said it “deeply regrets and accepts responsibility” for misconduct involving its marketing of OxyContin.

The federal settlement with Purdue comes as states and municipalities seek compensation from opioid makers for helping fuel a health crisis that has killed more than 450,000 Americans since 1999. Purdue is now seeking bankruptcy protection, as are other manufacturers.

“This is the banality of evil, M.B.A. edition,” Anand Giridharadas, a former McKinsey consultant who reviewed the documents, said of the firm’s work with Purdue. “They knew what was going on. And they found a way to look past it, through it, around it, so as to answer the only questions they cared about: how to make the client money and, when the walls closed in, how to protect themselves.”

Mr. Giridharadas is a New York Times contributor who wrote a 2018 book that examined the power of elites, including those at McKinsey, for how they evade responsibility for social harm.

In recent years, McKinsey has attracted criticism and unwanted attention for its dealings around the world, including in authoritarian countries such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Its business in South Africa was decimated after McKinsey worked with companies tied to a corruption scandal that led to the ouster of the country’s president. In the United States, McKinsey worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Trump, proposing ways to cut spending on food and housing for detainees.

The documents released last week detail McKinsey’s work with Purdue going back to 2008, the year after the drugmaker pleaded guilty to misleading regulators. The Food and Drug Administration had previously told Purdue that OxyContin would face sales restrictions and that doctors prescribing it would require specialized training.

The Sackler family saw those rules as a threat and, joining with McKinsey, made a plan to “band together” with other opioid makers to push back, according to one email. McKinsey prepped Purdue executives for a vital meeting before an F.D.A. advisory committee reviewing its proposed reformulation of OxyContin to make it less prone to abuse. The reformulation went on the market in 2010.

McKinsey put together briefing materials that anticipated questions Purdue would receive. One possible question: “Who at Purdue takes personal responsibility for these deaths?”

The proposed answer: “We all feel responsible.”

Dr. Richard Sackler, now the family patriarch, was pleased with the preparations, writing to his daughter in a January 2009 email: “Marianna, I am writing to tell you how impressed I was by the preparation for the F.D.A. meeting. Both the method and process as well as the content was excellent and a major departure from efforts like this in the past.”

Purdue’s F.D.A. meeting appeared to be at least partly successful. “Even to this day, the F.D.A. has never required specialized training for OxyContin prescribers,” wrote the state lawyers who filed the documents last week.

[deniscollins]

Patients of a Vermont Hospital Are Left ‘in the Dark’ After a Cyberattack

The F.B.I. estimated that the cybercriminals, who use ransomware called “Ryuk,” took in more than $61 million in ransom over a period of 21 months in 2018 and 2019, a record. What would you do if you were a hospital administrator and hackers attacked your computer systems which made it unable to serve only about one in four of your normal chemotherapy patients: (1) pay a multi-million ransom, or (2) refuse to pay? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?   

At lunchtime on Oct. 28, Colleen Cargill was in the cancer center at the University of Vermont Medical Center, preparing patients for their chemotherapy infusions. A new patient will sometimes be teary and frightened, but the nurses try to make it welcoming, offering trail mix and a warm blanket, a seat with a view of a garden.

Then they work with extreme precision: checking platelet and white blood cell counts, measuring each dosage to a milligram per square foot of body area, before settling the person into a port and hooking them up to an IV.

That day, though, Ms. Cargill did a double-take: When she tried to log in to her work station, it booted her out. Then it happened again. She turned to the system of pneumatic tubes used to transport lab work. What she saw there was a red caution symbol, a circle with a cross. She walked to the backup computer. It was down, too.

“I wasn’t panicky,” she said, “and then I noticed my cordless phone didn’t work.” That was, she said, the beginning of the worst 10 days of her career.

Cyberattacks on America’s health systems have become their own kind of pandemic over the past year as Russian cybercriminals have shut down clinical trials and treatment studies for the coronavirus vaccine and cut off hospitals’ access to patient records, demanding multimillion-dollar ransoms for their return.

Complicating the response, President Trump last week fired Christopher Krebs, the director of CISA, the cybersecurity agency responsible for defending critical systems, including hospitals and elections, against cyberattacks, after Mr. Krebs disputed Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud.

The attacks have largely unfolded in private, as hospitals scramble to restore their systems — or to quietly pay the ransom — without releasing information that could compromise an F.B.I. investigation.

But they have had a devastating and long-lasting effect, particularly on cancer patients, said workers and patients from Vermont’s largest medical system. Its electronic medical record system was restored on Sunday, nearly a month after the cyberattack.

In the interim, clinicians were forced to send away hundreds of cancer patients, said Olivia Thompson, a nurse at the cancer center.

The staff fell back on written notes and faxes, leafing through masses of paper to access vital information. They tried to reconstruct complex chemotherapy protocols from memory.

And while the hospital has taken pains to reassure patients that most care could proceed, some staff members worry that the full damage of the October attack is not well understood.

“To recover from something like this is going to take months and months and months,” Ms. Thompson said. “It feels like we are all alone and no one understands how dire this is.”

Elise Legere, a nurse at the cancer center, said she could compare the past weeks to only one experience — working in a burn unit after the Boston Marathon bombing — and has often found herself wondering about the motivation behind the cyberattack.

“It’s like asking what’s the point of putting a bomb in an elementary school, what is the point?” she said. “There is a lot of evil in the world. Whoever did orchestrate this attack knows a lot about how devastating it is.”

‘We expect panic’

The latest wave of attacks, which hit about a dozen hospitals in the United States, was believed to have been conducted by a particularly powerful group of Russian-speaking hackers that deployed ransomware via TrickBot, a vast network of infected computers used for cyberattacks, according to security researchers who are tracking the attacks.

The hackers typically work for profit. The F.B.I. estimated that the cybercriminals, who use ransomware called “Ryuk,” took in more than $61 million in ransom over a period of 21 months in 2018 and 2019, a record.

The attacks slowed last spring, when cybercriminals agreed among themselves to avoid hacking hospitals amid the pandemic, security researchers said. But just ahead of the presidential election, the groups resumed.

“In the past, they targeted organizations all over the world, but this time they were very specifically aiming for hospitals in the United States,” said Alex Holden, the chief executive of Hold Security, a Milwaukee firm.

The F.B.I. says it will not comment on the attacks, citing ongoing investigations.

Mr. Holden and other cybersecurity experts say that the targets and the timing — just weeks after the United States targeted TrickBot — suggest that one possible motivation could be retaliation.

In late September and October, fearing that cybercriminals could use ransomware to disrupt the election, the Pentagon’s Cyber Command started hacking TrickBot’s systems. Microsoft pursued the systems in federal court, successfully dismantling 94 percent of TrickBot’s servers.

The takedowns relegated TrickBot’s operators to “a wounded animal lashing out,” Mr. Holden said. His firm captured online messages sent among the group, including a list of 400 American hospitals they planned to target, and informed law enforcement.

“We expect panic,” one hacker wrote, in Russian.

U.S. officials warned hospitals about a “credible threat” of attacks on Oct. 23, and then an unusual cluster of attacks on hospitals took place. Several hospital networks — including The University of Vermont Health Network and the St. Lawrence County health system in New York — have said they received no ransom note.

Others reported ransom demands “in eight figures, which is just not something that regional health care systems can do,” said Allan Liska, an analyst with Recorded Future, a cybersecurity firm. These unusual demands, combined with the coordination of the attacks, make “it seem that it was meant to be a disruptive attack” rather than a profit-seeking one, he said.

Mr. Holden said many of the health systems opted to negotiate with their extortionists, even as ransoms jump into the millions.

“A great number of victims are dealing with these attacks on their own,” he said.

The view from inside

In Vermont, the damage radiated out through a sprawling network, hitting especially hard in the cancer center.

“My really good friends are I.C.U. nurses, and they’re like, no big deal, all we have to do is paper charting,” Ms. Cargill, the charge nurse, said. But the cancer center was badly set back for weeks, able to serve only about one in four of its normal chemotherapy patients.

Ms. Cargill spent the rest of the day turning away patients, an experience she cannot relate without beginning to cry, nearly a month later.

“To look someone in the eye, and tell them they cannot have their life-extending or lifesaving treatment, it was horrible, and totally heart-wrenching,” she said. The very first person she turned away, a young woman, burst into tears.

“She said, ‘I have to get chemo, I am the mother of two young kids,’” Ms. Cargill said. “She was so fearful, and the fear was tangible.”

In the days that followed, clinicians attempted to prioritize patients and recreate chemotherapy protocols from memory, gradually aided by backup chart information, said Ms. Legere, a nurse navigator in the unit.

“They were trying to remember everything they knew about a patient, but none of that is accurate,” she said. “Our brains are not designed to be electronic medical records. That’s not safe, and we all know it.”

Patients, she said, “feel very in the dark about when they will get treated,” and many cancer patients who live in rural areas do not have the resources to drive four hours to Boston for treatment.

“Vermont feels intentional, it feels scouted in the sense that it would cause a ton of panic,” she said. “The federal and statewide response is where I’m feeling very deserted. Maybe there’s stuff I don’t see.”

Lawmakers have also accused the Trump administration of marring the federal response.

In an email to The New York Times, Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat of Michigan and member of the Homeland Security Committee, called the president’s firing of Mr. Krebs unacceptable, adding that it caused instability at his agency as it tried to mitigate the hospital attacks amid a surging pandemic.

Administrators at the University of Vermont Health Network acknowledge that restoring services proved far more challenging than they expected.

“If you look at what some other hospitals have gone through, it was days, not weeks,” said Al Gobeille, the system’s executive vice president for operations. “We thought that was what this would be. And we were wrong.”

He said a large number of professionals on information technology — 300 hospital employees, plus 10 members of the National Guard — were deployed to rebuild and clean 1,300 servers and 5,000 laptops and desktop computers. A team of seven F.B.I. investigators was on site for two days after the shutdown, he said, but has had little to no contact with administrators since then.

With the restoration of the electronic patient record system, he said, the hospital’s systems are 75 to 80 percent recovered.

The motivation behind the attack remains unclear. At a news conference last month, Dr. Stephen Leffler, the president of the medical center, said he had received no request for ransom. Since then, though, at the request of the F.B.I., administrators have carefully avoided discussing the matter of ransom, or confirming Dr. Leffler’s statement.

Dr. Leffler, he said, “was saying what he knew at the time,” Mr. Gobeille said.

“The F.B.I. has asked us not to talk about that part of the investigation, and I haven’t said either way,” he said. “I’m a pretty transparent person, so it’s odd to say the F.B.I. has asked me not to talk about it. It’s not who we are. But in this case, I understand why.”

Some patients have complained that they were left dangling, uncertain when their treatment would resume.

Sean McCaffrey, 37, who was scheduled to see a cardiologist on the afternoon of the cyberattack — he had been suffering from chest pains — said he had never been contacted to reschedule the appointment.

“It’s really troublesome because I have lost some faith in my local hospital,” he said. “I was told I’d get a call. It’s been three weeks, and I have no idea what to do.”

Others say they are still waiting to gain access to critical scans. Two days before the shutdown, Damian Mooney, 47, had received a radiologist’s notes on an M.R.I. of his shoulder, which suggested that an aggressive bone cancer may have returned.

The scans have been unavailable since the cyberattack, so no doctor has been able to say whether the radiologist was correct, said his wife, Kat.

“For 26 days, we’ve been sitting here going, ’We don’t know whether this recurred or not,’” she said.

It will be difficult, both for patients and staff members, to regain their sense of security, said Jennifer Long, an outpatient nurse at the medical center.

She and her colleagues, she said, sometimes wonder aloud what allowed the hackers to get into the system: “Is it the kid down the street? Is it someone in another country? Was it an email I sent? Was it the last page I opened?”

“You’re left with that feeling — it’s kind of sickening, it’s very impersonal — knowing that this was a deliberate attack, without any regard for the consequences, and the potential for harm,” she said. “It really stings. It’s really hard to sit with it.”

[deniscollins]

Iconic or Sexist? Palm Springs Mulls a Marilyn Monroe Statue

If you were advising the Palm Springs City Council, how would you vote on a proposal to place a giant sexually charged sculpture of Marilyn Monroe, with her white skirt blown up about her waist, next to the Palm Springs Art Museum where roughly 80,000 school-age children are served yearly by the museum who will exit the museum and see the exposed backside of a 26-foot-tall Marilyn Monroe, including her underwear: (1) support displaying the statue, or (2) oppose displaying it there? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Politicians in Palm Springs, Calif., view “Forever Marilyn” — a giant sculpture of Marilyn Monroe, with her white skirt blown up above her waist — as a fun, nostalgic tourist attraction. But local cultural leaders are painting it as sexist and sensationalist, and they are speaking out against the city’s plans to move the sculpture to a site next to the Palm Springs Art Museum.

From 2012 to 2014, the sculpture, by Seward Johnson, presided over downtown Palm Springs. This month, the City Council voted via a Zoom meeting to bring it back, with financing from a local hotel consortium, and place it on Museum Way, the street leading to the museum.

The museum’s director, Louis Grachos, has urged the Council members to reconsider, calling the sculpture “sexually charged and disrespectful” and inappropriate for the roughly 80,000 school-age children served yearly by the museum. “When you exit the museum, you are going to see the exposed backside of a 26-foot-tall Marilyn Monroe, including her underwear,” he explained by phone this week. “That’s not the message we want to give to our community.”

The museum’s previous three directors (Elizabeth Armstrong, Steve Nash and Janice Lyle), the Modernism Week chairman William Kopelk and the designer Trina Turk are among those who have also spoken out against the sculpture’s placement. In a joint op-ed published in The Desert Sun after the Council meeting, they warned that the artwork is “blatantly sexist” and “devalues the architectural brand that has been so successful at drawing tourists to Palm Springs.”

Mr. Johnson, who died in March, is known for making richly detailed and highly interactive sculptural versions of famous paintings by the likes of Monet and van Gogh. He created the Marilyn statue in 2011 after the scene from the 1955 movie “The Seven Year Itch” that shows the actress standing above a subway grate with her pleated white dress flying up. It was first installed in Chicago, where it was widely panned by art critics, with Abraham Ritchie calling it “creepy schlock by a fifth-rate sculptor.”

During its stay in Palm Springs, the sculpture gained more of a fan base as a meeting point and photo destination, with some posing underneath the dress, looking up. And several residents are excited for the return of the artwork, which has since traveled to Bendigo, Australia, and Stamford, Conn.

The Palm Springs residents John Marksbury and Chuck Steinman wrote in a letter to The Desert Sun: “While not a tourism panacea, and no Michelangelo, ‘Forever Marilyn’ is truly an iconic symbol of the city’s brand. She represents the golden age of Hollywood and the era that put Palm Springs on the map as a chic resort, establishing our city as a mid-century architectural mecca.”

Mr. Grachos, who joined the museum in 2019 and has not seen the sculpture in person, said he understands that some people might enjoy it as a “novelty experience.” But he insists that it undercuts the museum’s values: “If city leadership feels it’s a great asset for visitors, I would say find another place for it.”

The next City Council meeting where this could become an agenda item is scheduled for Dec. 10.

[deniscollins]

Purdue Pharma Pleads Guilty to Role in Opioid Crisis as Part of Deal With Justice Dept.

If you were a Purdue executive, what would you do after finding out that the company was paying illegal kickbacks to doctors who prescribed OxyContin and to an electronic health records company, Practice Fusion, for targeting physicians with alerts that were intended to increase opioid prescriptions? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decisions?

Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty on Tuesday to criminal charges that it misled the federal government about sales of its blockbuster painkiller OxyContin, the prescription opioid that helped fuel a national addiction crisis. The admission brought a formal end to an extensive federal investigation that led to a multibillion-dollar settlement between the company and the Justice Department.

“The abuse and diversion of prescription opioids has contributed to a national tragedy of addiction and deaths,” Jeffrey A. Rosen, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement. “Today’s convictions underscore the department’s commitment to its multipronged strategy for defeating the opioid crisis.”

Purdue’s chairman, Steve Miller, acknowledged in a remotely conducted hearing in federal court in New Jersey that in order to meet sales goals, the company told the Drug Enforcement Administration that it had created a program to prevent OxyContin from being sold on the black market, even though it was marketing the drug to more than 100 doctors suspected of illegally prescribing OxyContin.

Purdue also pleaded guilty to paying illegal kickbacks to doctors who prescribed OxyContin and to an electronic health records company, Practice Fusion, for targeting physicians with alerts that were intended to increase opioid prescriptions. Practice Fusion has paid $145 million in fines for taking those kickbacks.

Doctors overprescribing OxyContin, along with illicit distribution of the drug, have contributed to the deaths of more than 450,000 Americans since 1999.

The plea brought to a close the federal government’s case against Purdue, which has filed for bankruptcy protection to handle the wave of litigation it faces.

The company agreed last month to plead guilty to criminal charges and face criminal and civil penalties of about $8.3 billion as part of the settlement with the Justice Department. A federal bankruptcy judge in New York approved the deal last week.

The settlement included $3.54 billion in criminal fines and $2 billion in criminal forfeiture of profits. The department said they were the largest financial penalties levied against a pharmaceutical manufacturer.

But the federal government is unlikely to receive a majority of the penalties, given that under its bankruptcy restructuring agreement, Purdue will pay other creditors first. In a bankruptcy proceeding, creditors typically collect only pennies on the dollar for what they are owed.

The company’s owners, members of the wealthy Sackler family, agreed to pay $225 million in civil penalties as part of the settlement but did not face criminal charges. The sales of OxyContin helped the Sacklers build a fortune estimated to be at least $13 billion, an amount that dwarfs the fine.

But the settlement agreement does not preclude the federal government from investigating criminal charges against Purdue executives or Sackler family members who are involved with the company.

While the settlement gave the Trump administration a high-profile win in the war against opioid addiction, Purdue also pushed to settle its federal legal issues while President Trump was still in office, anticipating that his officials would cut a more generous deal than a new administration.

Attorneys general in Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina and other states have said that the federal settlement failed to do enough to hold the Sackler family to account.

Purdue did “everything they can to get this deal done in this administration,” Joe Rice, a negotiator for local governments that are suing Purdue, said when the settlement was announced. “It’s advantageous to both sides.”

While the company’s board said last month that it regretted its actions and accepted responsibility “for the misconduct detailed by the Department of Justice,” members of the Sackler family who had served on the company’s board, who could still face legal action, said that they had “acted ethically and lawfully.”

The statement added that those family members “relied on repeated and consistent assurances from Purdue’s management team that the company was meeting all legal requirements.”

OxyContin was introduced to the market in the mid-1990s as a miraculous, nonaddictive painkiller. That was inaccurate, and as more doctors prescribed it, people across the country became addicted to the drug. The increase in demand created a booming market for unlawful prescriptions and pharmacies that were no more than fronts for OxyContin sales, which also helped to fuel a larger scourge of addictions to illegal opioids like heroin and illicitly obtained fentanyl.

The federal settlement does not end all of the litigation that Purdue faces, nor will it end the continuing investigations and lawsuits related to other drugmakers and distributors accused of fueling the opioid addiction crisis.

[deniscollins]

G.M. Drops Its Support for Trump Climate Rollbacks and Aligns With Biden

For nearly four years, General Motors has pushed Mr. Trump to loosen Obama-era standards on fuel economy and climate-warming emissions. Mr. Trump rolled back Mr. Obama’s standards from 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 to 40 miles per gallon and revoked California’s legal authority to set its own standard. California, meantime, reached a separate deal with Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, BMW and Volvo under which they would be required to increase their average fuel economy to about 51 miles per gallon by 2026. If you were CEO of GM, would you immediately withdraw from the pre-emption litigation against California and invite other automakers to join them: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

General Motors turned its back Monday on the Trump administration’s legal fight to nullify California’s strict fuel economy rules, signaling that it was ready to work with President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to reduce climate-warming emissions from cars and trucks.

The decision by Mary Barra, the General Motors chief executive, to withdraw her company’s support for Trump administration efforts to strip California of its ability to set its own fuel efficiency standards was a striking reversal. It was also a signal that corporate America is moving on from President Trump.

More specifically, it was a sign that Mr. Biden may find the auto industry amenable as he tries to reinstitute and rebuild Obama-era climate change regulations that Mr. Trump systematically dismantled, at times with the help of industry.

“President-elect Biden recently said, ‘I believe that we can own the 21st century car market again by moving to electric vehicles.’ We at General Motors couldn’t agree more,” Ms. Barra wrote in a letter Monday to leaders of some of the nation’s largest environmental groups.

She added, “we are immediately withdrawing from the pre-emption litigation and inviting other automakers to join us,” a signal to Toyota and Fiat-Chrysler, the other two major automakers that have sided with the Trump administration against California in the ongoing legal fight.

G.M.’s maneuvering was a public humiliation to Mr. Trump as he pursued his democracy-defying effort to subvert the will of the American electorate and claim another term. Ms. Barra gave no warning to the administration, but she did speak by telephone on Monday with Mary Nichols, California’s top climate regulator and an architect of the Obama-era fuel economy rules. Ms. Nichols is also a leading candidate to run the Environmental Protection Agency under Mr. Biden.  

“It’s always interesting to see the changing positions of U.S. corporations,” said a spokesman for the E.P.A., James Hewitt, when informed of Ms. Barra’s announcement.

There is little doubt Ms. Barra’s action was prompted by the outcome of the presidential election, according to two people familiar with her thinking who were not authorized to speak publicly. Even so, the way she did it took analysts aback.

“This is about as bold as it gets,” said Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan.  “This huge pivot, so closely following an election result, particularly from a firm like General Motors, is a big, big deal.”

He added: “This is the first big industrial step toward the next president. Are other industries going to have epiphanies and pivot?”

The sudden shift may help the Biden administration move quickly to reinstate tough rules on planet-warming auto pollution, this time with support from industry giants that fought such regulations for years.  

“There were many things where the wind was in the face of the Obama administration on climate, specifically, the automakers,” said John Morton, a former climate policy adviser to Mr. Obama who has spoken with members of Mr. Biden’s transition team.

“Biden will not be pushing against the industry the way Obama had to,” he said.

In fact, Mr. Biden said that he had spoken about policy issues in a meeting with Ms. Barra just last week. “G.M.’s choice to work with the Biden-Harris administration and California to advance these goals demonstrates a promising path forward for how industry, labor, government, and environmental organizations can come together to tackle big problems and make vital progress on behalf of the American people,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “I applaud the steps that Mary Barra announced in her letter to environmental leaders today.”

For nearly four years, General Motors has pushed Mr. Trump to loosen Obama-era standards on fuel economy and climate-warming emissions. Ms. Barra met with Mr. Trump in his first weeks in office and urged him to weaken the stringent tailpipe pollution standards that would have been the United States’ most significant domestic policy to curb global warming.

Last year, the administration went even further, revoking the legal authority of California and other states to set tighter state restrictions. When the states sued, G.M., Toyota and Fiat Chrysler intervened on the side of the administration.

Ms. Barra’s letter stopped short of backing California’s standards but indicated that she was open to aligning her company with them, joining five other auto companies — Ford, Honda, BMW, Volkswagen and Volvo — that already have.

“We believe the ambitious electrification goals of the president-elect, California, and General Motors are aligned to address climate change by drastically reducing automobile emissions,” she wrote. “We are confident that the Biden administration, California, and the U.S. auto industry, which supports 10.3 million jobs, can collaboratively find the pathway that will deliver an all-electric future. To better foster the necessary dialogue, we are immediately withdrawing from the pre-emption litigation and inviting other automakers to join us.”

The president-elect has promised policies to make the United States electricity sector a net-zero producer of planet-warming pollutants by 2035 — and to reduce total American emissions to zero by 2050. To do that, virtually all cars and trucks would have to stop burning diesel and gasoline, and their electric batteries would have to be charged by renewable energy sources like the wind and the sun.

Environmentalists applauded the move by General Motors. “This is a victory for Americans from every corner of the country who all deserve cleaner cars and clean air,” said Wendy Wendlandt, acting president of Environment America. “We hope other automakers will follow the lead of G.M., Ford, BMW, Honda, Volkswagen, Volvo and others driving toward the right side of history when it comes to the clean car standards. It’s never too late to do the right thing.”

A spokesman for Toyota, Scott Vazin, wrote in an email, that “Given the changing circumstances, we are assessing the situation, but remain committed to our goal of a consistent, unitary set of fuel economy standards applicable in all 50 states.”

A spokesman for Fiat Chrysler did not respond to a request for comment.

Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, who was once a G.M. lobbyist, said, “General Motors did the right thing today by removing their name from this misguided lawsuit. It’s time for other automakers to do the same.” Ms. Dingell represents the auto manufacturing city of Dearborn, Mich., on the outskirts of Detroit, and for decades, she and her deceased husband, former Representative John Dingell, pushed back against tightening fuel economy standards.

Since his first days in office, Mr. Trump proudly pushed his plan to roll back auto fuel economy standards as a signature economic move, one that he vowed would revive American auto manufacturing. The plan also ignited Mr. Trump’s fight with California, which has led the legal fight for states to enact their own fuel economy standards.

But in the end, Mr. Trump’s rollbacks exceeded even what automakers had asked for, prompting a rift within the industry. Some automakers sided with the White House, arguing that they needed a single national standard to give them market stability. Others sided with California, saying the state’s standards would drive the industry to a more innovative future and a global resurgence.  

Mr. Obama had seen the fuel economy rule as the centerpiece of his environmental legacy. Modeled after California’s state-level standard, it required automakers to build vehicles that achieve an average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, which would have  eliminated about six billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution over the lifetime of the vehicles. Automakers at the time had complained about the stringency of the standard, but they had little choice but to comply after the government bailout of their industry following of the 2008 financial crisis.

Initially, automakers were eager to see Mr. Trump loosen that rule. But in private meetings, they also told him that they did not want to see him roll back the rule too far, fearing that California and other states would then sue to maintain separate, tighter state-level standards — an outcome that automakers saw as their worst nightmare.  

Disregarding the automakers, Mr. Trump rolled back Mr. Obama’s standards from 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 to 40 miles per gallon and revoked California’s legal authority to set its own standard.

California, meantime, reached a separate deal with Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, BMW and Volvo under which they would be required to increase their average fuel economy to about 51 miles per gallon by 2026.

The deal, brokered by Ms. Nichols, was reached in secret and enraged Mr. Trump when it was announced. In the months that followed, Mr. Trump amped up his attacks on California and its governor, Gavin Newsom, as his administration pursued a series of unusual, and sometimes punitive, policy actions against the state, in what was widely seen as retribution for the clean cars deal.  

That California compromise is now seen as the likely model for a new, Biden-era fuel economy rule.  

[deniscollins]

9 Ways to Support Small Businesses

How many of the 9 recommendations below to help small businesses during the pandemic do you currently do? What ones can you add to your personal list? Why? What are the ethics underlining your decisions?

In the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, consumers buoyed small businesses with gift card purchases and online fund-raising campaigns. But as the pandemic persisted and restrictions constrained operating hours, many independent businesses continued to struggle.

Throughout the country, owners have creatively come up with strategies to keep businesses afloat, which benefits consumers, proprietors and a neighborhood’s commercial health

“There’s a multiplier effect,” said Bill Brunelle, the managing partner of Independent We Stand, an organization that helps its small-business members nationwide with marketing. “If you buy at a hardware store, that owner may hire a local accountant, while the employees may go to local restaurants and other nearby stores. The success of one business can steamroll through the economy.”

Ande Breunig, a real estate agent in Evanston, Ill., said, “Everyone complains about the lack of retailing, but we can only keep these businesses afloat with our participation.” Ms. Breunig started a Facebook group hoping to motivate residents to increase their support of local shops and services.

So how can consumers contribute to this virtuous cycle, especially during the all-important holiday season? Here are some tips to consider.

Buy Local

Before you reflexively hit “place order” with an e-commerce behemoth, find out whether a local retailer offers the same item. Independent bookstores, for example, can often order and quickly receive your selection. While you can get many things online, “go for a walk, go into a store, keep your mask on and shop,” said Ellen Baer, the president and chief executive of the Hudson Square Business Improvement District, devoted to an area west of SoHo in Manhattan. “Think of the people on the other end of the purchase.”

But shopping locally does not necessarily mean forgoing all online sites. Platforms like Bookshop and Alibris connect users to small booksellers. Clothing boutiques can sell through sites like Shopify, Lyst.com and Farfetch, as well as Sook, a newcomer that also hosts stores selling housewares.

When sending gifts to out-of-town friends and family, look for independent stores in their towns. And don’t assume that an e-commerce site can out-deliver a local business — even online sites have experienced delays because of the pandemic’s supply-chain disruption.

Go to the Source

There are always times when you need delivery. But on other days, think twice about how you order takeout. Rather than using a delivery app, ask for curbside pickup: Sites like Grubhub and Uber Eats charge restaurants fees that can reduce already thin margins. Instacart and Shipt, two companies that offer shopping and delivery, also charge the merchants who use the sites.

And while it is easy to purchase through a so-called digital shop on sites like Facebook and Instagram, shopping through third-party apps typically reduces the net profit for the merchant. (Facebook, which owns Instagram, has waived selling fees through the end of the year but will re-evaluate the practice in January, a Facebook spokeswoman said in an email.)

Be Social

Help bolster a business’s social media presence by “liking” hardware stores, dry cleaners and other independent shops on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Write positive reviews, post photos generously of purchases, and don’t forget to tag the businesses. And consider slightly broader efforts, like community email lists and social media groups like Nextdoor.

Retailers are savvy when it comes to selling, but many don’t fully understand that social media plays a crucial role, Ms. Breunig said. Through her Facebook group, she started an “adopt a shop” effort, in which residents select a store and commit to shopping there once a week (with no spending minimum) and posting about their experiences on Facebook. Within five days, Ms. Breunig said, 24 Evanston stores were “adopted.”

Beyond Charity

You can double the effect of philanthropic efforts by involving small businesses whenever possible. Order meals for essential workers from independent restaurants. Shop local when buying for clothing drives. And even if it’s a bit more expensive, purchase from local markets for food drives.

Suzanne Fiske, the director of on-air development for WHYY, the public radio and television stations in Philadelphia, had yet another idea. “Our listeners care about the mom-and-pop shop next door that is having trouble during the pandemic,” she said, so she asked donors on social media platforms to name their favorite local business when they contributed to be read aloud. The station awarded the two with the most votes — Horsham Square Pharmacy in Horsham, Pa., and MYX, a Bryn Mawr, Pa., start-up that creates a custom-blend beverage dispenser — radio advertising worth $3,500. The promotion also motivated listener donations, with more than 700 contributors calling on the day of the small-business challenge, close to three times the typical number, Ms. Fiske added.

Loyalty Counts

Service businesses — including personal trainers and hair salons — have especially been affected by the pandemic since they are among the trickiest to reopen. Gift cards help, but so does generous tipping for the ones that are open.

And remember that small businesses rely on regular customers, even as they try to attract new ones. Like so many others, Symone Johnson, who owns Indulge Hair Salon LLC in Englewood, N.J., was unprepared for a sudden closure in March. She began making videos to help her clients style their own hair without charge and hosted virtual sessions to recreate an online version to allow socializing.

Her clients offered to pay, but she declined, she said. “I didn’t do it for the financial benefit — it kept me busy and I didn’t think of myself.” New clients came after watching the videos, she said, and both they and the pre-existing clientele showed their generosity. “Instead of a 20 percent tip, it became a 50 percent tip,” Ms. Johnson said.

Accept the Rack Rate

Everyone loves a discount, but perhaps now is not the time. If you can afford it, pay full price.

Participate in Community Efforts

While the pandemic has left many feeling isolated, local business organizations are trying to fill the void with socially distanced community programs that can spur economic activity.

The Chamber of Commerce in Wellfleet, Mass., on Cape Cod, for example, is sponsoring a monthlong, online bingo contest in which each square is a “call to action,” including donating to a local nonprofit or taking a virtual class.

Share ideas with local business organizations or municipal governments seeking ways to help. Downtown Phoenix is expanding its traditional holiday market, Phoestivus, to use empty storefronts to showcase the creations of local artisans as well as some retailers’ inventory. Items displayed in the storefronts can be purchased on smartphones using QR codes or other forms of touch-free payment.

“It’s a way to bring a community out,” said Samantha Jackson, the senior director of strategy and community affairs at the nonprofit Downtown Phoenix Inc. “There are people who don’t come downtown who stick to their neighborhoods who are surprised at how nice it is.”

Offer Your Skills

If you’re an accountant, a lawyer, a banker, or a digital marketing specialist, to name just a few, local businesses may welcome your help. Kimberly Pardiwala, for example, who most recently led a business that arranged group sales for Broadway shows, grew concerned that restaurants would again suffer with the onset of cold weather. The Larchmont, N.Y., resident approached David Masliah, the owner of the town’s popular Encore Bistro to order prix fixe dinners regularly for her neighborhood association. “We are all so separate now, so it’s important to restore our community,” she said.

Practice Kindness

Proprietors are under enormous, sometimes existential, pressure right now, so share emotional support when you can. Ask retailers how they are holding up and inquire about employees who may now be unemployed.

[deniscollins]

Who Postpones Black Friday? This Year, the French

While the American Thanksgiving is just another Thursday in Europe, Black Friday has thrived. In Britain, Spain and other countries, Amazon and other big retailers already started offering Black Friday discounts online earlier this month. Amazon’s global sales surged 35 percent in the first nine months of 2020, to $260 billion, often at the expense of small retailers don’t have the same deep pockets as big corporations from collapsing into mass bankruptcies. Should government ban Black Friday online sales by large corporations to December 4 to help small businesses: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

The French government on Friday declared it was postponing Black Friday, as it moved to quell a nationwide rebellion by shopkeepers who say that Amazon has been stealing business from them during France’s coronavirus lockdown.

Black Friday, the U.S. import that has been embraced by European retailers as the quasi-official kickoff to the Christmas shopping season, will be delayed by a week in France, to Dec. 4, after the government wrested an agreement from Amazon and the country’s biggest retailers to delay their discounts.

The move is intended to level the playing field for booksellers, clothing shops and “nonessential” businesses that were forced to close their doors on Oct. 30 after a second national lockdown was imposed, propelling consumers to online sites, including Amazon.

Under the accord, big retailers agreed to put off their Black Friday sales promotions on the condition that the government reauthorizes the reopening of small retailers by then. Shopkeepers have agitated since the new lockdown orders took effect to be able to restart business.

“Let us open or we will die,” Yohann Petiot, the director general of France’s Alliance du Commerce, a trade group for businesses, told government officials this week.

But the finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, did not say on Friday when shops and other nonessential businesses would be allowed to resume operations. While the current lockdown has helped curb an alarming new outbreak of coronavirus cases, French health authorities have cautioned that any reopenings must meet strict safety protocols

Stores “will be able to open as soon as health indicators improve,” Prime Minister Jean Castex said Friday.

The spectacle of one of Europe’s most powerful countries scrambling to protect its retailers from Amazon highlights the difficulties governments are facing as they try to strike a balance between enforcing a second round of shutdowns amid pandemic fatigue, and preventing businesses that don’t have the same deep pockets as big corporations from collapsing into mass bankruptcies.

In France, the episode has ignited a fresh backlash against the American online giant. Since it arrived in 2000, Amazon has become a favorite in France, capturing nearly half of online spending in 2019. During the most recent lockdown, sales in France jumped nearly 50 percent from a year ago, the company said.

But rapid growth has turned Amazon into a symbol of a dominant multinational that detractors say is importing unwanted American-style consumerism, as well as job instability and environmental degradation, to the eurozone’s second-largest economy.

In the lead-up to the announcement, Mr. Le Maire and other politicians urged shoppers not to give Amazon their business.

The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and environmental organizations and trade groups, circulated an online petition titled “Noël Sans Amazon” (“An Amazon-free Christmas”). Addressed to Santa Claus, it commits signatories to a “#ChristmasWithoutAmazon,” which is described as a tax-dodging Grinch that destroys small businesses, jobs and the environment.

The virtual call to arms, however, quickly fell victim to an online hack that overloaded the website with fake signatures sent from over 200 different servers, including hundreds in the name of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, with the comment “Sorry, not sorry, Jeff.”

But Amazon’s influence in France — it holds around 20 percent of the French e-commerce market — is such that other big retailers held back from agreeing to postpone their Black Friday sales until Amazon did.

After Mr. Le Maire told the French Senate Wednesday that it made sense to help small retailers by postponing Black Friday, Frédéric Duval, general manager of Amazon France, told a French radio station on Thursday  that Amazon was “listening to the recommendations of the government” and would put off its online sales until Dec. 4, paving the way for a broad accord.

Still, the scramble by French politicians to soothe the ire of small businesses has reopened a broader controversy over Black Friday itself, which wasn’t even an event in Europe until a few years ago. It was ushered in mainly by Amazon, which began promoting major sales in lock step with those in the United States.

While the American Thanksgiving is just another Thursday in Europe, Black Friday has thrived. In Britain, Spain and other countries, Amazon and other big retailers already started offering Black Friday discounts online earlier this month.

France has been slower than other European countries to join the trend, and politicians have discouraged shoppers from participating, warning of “a frenzy of consumption” in which people are encouraged to buy products they don’t need. The fact that Amazon is not a French company did not help, either.

Yet Black Friday has been a crucial tool for retailers to top up sales. Last year, retailers in France raked in an estimated 6 billion euros in revenue around Black Friday.

Those sales are more critical than ever this year as retailers faced unprecedented losses from lockdowns linked to the coronavirus pandemic. Though stores reopened from June through September, it was not enough to fully compensate for France’s first lockdown: year-to-date sales are still, on average, 10 percent below their 2019 levels, according to an analysis by the German bank Allianz.

Restrictions on nonessential stores in France have already cast a shadow over the nearly €18 billion in retail sales that retailers normally make in November and December, Allianz said.

Whether pushing back Black Friday will help small retailers remains to be seen. The pandemic has rocked the economy, and the government is spending billions of euros to keep small businesses afloat, offering cheap state-backed loans and government subsidies for payrolls.

In one sense, the Black Friday delay has given small retailers a leg up. Several big chains that were allowed to remain open, including supermarkets like Carrefour and electronics giants including Fnac and Darty, had already printed promotional materials that may now have to be discarded.

Some bigger retailers had started offering discounts this week. Others have contracts with suppliers for deliveries in time for Nov. 27 promotions that may now need to be delayed.

Small retailers have used the lockdown to speed up the creation of websites and infrastructure to enable online ordering. The government has tried to encourage a transition to online sales, pushing “click and collect” activity, where customers can order online and come collect their own package.

Many shops, though, still don’t have the resources to compete with organized bigger retailers that have a pickup and delivery infrastructures in place. In some cases, the government has stepped in with even more subsidies: Recently, it announced it would pay postage for booksellers to send  orders through the mail as a way of encouraging the French to buy locally rather than on Amazon.

The online giant, however, will likely continue to be a big winner in the pandemic. Global sales surged 35 percent in the first nine months of the year, to $260 billion.

It is expected to rake in billions more with global Black Friday sales, which are now being carried out on Nov. 27 everywhere in the world where it operates — except France.

[deniscollins]

These Items in Your Home Are Harming America’s Sea Animals

In 2016, the United States produced more plastic waste than any other nation, and less than a tenth of the world’s cumulative plastic waste had been recycled. An Oceana report found that in the reported cases, 90 percent of the sea animals examined had swallowed plastic, and the rest were entangled in it. Recently some municipalities, counties and states have banned single-use plastic bags, one of the biggest contributors to ingestion and entanglements. If your company (such as a supermarket) uses single-use plastics would you: (1) continue to do so, (2) offer consumers a plastic-free option or (3) stop using single-use plastics? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

How severely the world’s plastic waste crisis is affecting marine wildlife is not fully understood, despite decades of research and gruesome images of whales’ bellies filled with plastic and a turtle with a straw lodged in its nostril. A new report by Oceana, a conservation group, illustrates some of what we know about how plastic affects sea turtles and marine mammals in United States waters.

The findings offer a glimpse of a larger problem.

The authors focused on sea turtles and marine mammals for practical reasons. These animals are federally protected, so when they are found in distress or wash up dead on a beach, responders are required to document it. By collecting data from government agencies and marine life organizations around the country, the authors found almost 1,800 cases of plastic entanglement or ingestion affecting 40 species since 2009.

But the report notes that the number is “a gross underestimate” because humans observe a tiny fraction of animal deaths in the ocean. Even so, of the nation’s 23 coastal states, it found cases in 21.

“This is the first time we’re looking at the problem from a U.S. perspective,” said Kimberly Warner, the report’s author and a senior scientist at Oceana. “This brings the problem home.”

In 2016, the United States produced more plastic waste than any other nation, and more of that plastic entered the ocean than previously thought, according to a recent study. As of 2015, less than a tenth of the world’s cumulative plastic waste had been recycled.

The Oceana report found that in the reported cases, 90 percent of the animals had swallowed plastic, and the rest were entangled in it. Necropsies often showed that the animals had died from blockages or lacerations. Other times, ingesting plastic may have simply weakened the animal or played no role in its death. Over all, in 82 percent of the cases, the animals died.

The culprits go beyond the usual suspects.

In the 1980s, environmental activists warned of the devastating effects of six-pack rings ensnaring sea animals. People started dutifully cutting them before disposal, and in 1994 the Environmental Protection Agency mandated that six-pack rings must be degradable, though the process may take months. Consumers have also been warned about releasing balloons, which can harm marine animals.

Recently some municipalities, counties and states have banned single-use plastic bags, one of the biggest contributors to ingestion and entanglements, according to the report. Plastic packing straps were found constricting the necks or bodies of seals and sea lions, naturally curious animals who may have gotten entangled while trying to play. Manatees ingested lots of fishing line.

But the report also found many more surprising items caused harm. Along the Gulf Coast, mesh produce bags were found in the guts of sea turtles and also entangling their bodies. In 2015, a loggerhead turtle in Georgia was found with a toothbrush and fork in its digestive tract, among other items. Two years later, another turtle was found in New York with a plastic dental flosser inside it. Food wrappers, sandwich bags, sponges, and even decorative plastic Easter grass were among the items discovered. A bottlenose dolphin in North Carolina had its head stuck in the hole of a flying disc. In Virginia, a DVD case lacerated the stomach of a sei whale.

Many of the victims are endangered or threatened.

More than a dozen species at risk of extinction — including sea turtles, Hawaiian monk seals and sei whales — ingested or were tangled in plastic. Manatees, those gentle, slow-moving giants that graze on seagrass, made up 700 cases. The report quotes Brandon Bassett, a biologist at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, describing part of what he found inside one dead manatee: “Imagine a ball of plastic bags in the stomach, about the size of a cantaloupe, and then a bunch of plastic bags that were wrapped and almost like a rope that was about 3 feet long.”

Scientists are learning more about why animals consume plastic. To sea turtles, a floating plastic bag may resemble a jellyfish meal, but that doesn’t explain the bottle caps and hard plastic shards found in their digestive tracts or stool. One study suggested that plastic starts to smell appetizing as it becomes coated in algae and microorganisms.

In South Carolina, one ailing loggerhead passed almost 60 pieces of plastic through its digestive system during its rehabilitation at a sea turtle center. Juveniles are more at risk because of their size and undeveloped gastrointestinal tract. More than 20 percent of the sea turtles that had ingested plastic were just months old. Some were only a few days old. A recent Australian study found that just 14 pieces of plastic in their digestive tracts significantly increased sea turtles’ risk of death.

Still, plastic waste is not the biggest killer of marine life.

Humans have created all kinds of dire problems for sea animals: rising sea temperatures, fishermen hauling in unintended species, ships striking them, other marine pollution and habitat degradation.

“Plastic in and of itself may not be as big of a threat as we’re led to believe,” said Jesse Senko, an assistant research professor and senior sustainability scientist at Arizona State University. “The scientific community has not done a good enough job of really assessing these questions, looking beyond how it affects an individual animal.”

He believes that images of decomposing sea birds with bellies full of plastic lead the public and media to focus on plastic even when other threats are more significant.

Ultimately, plastics and rising sea temperatures are connected; after all, the vast majority of plastic is derived from fossil fuels.

The Oceana report calls on national, state and local governments to restrict the production of single-use plastics and it asks companies to offer consumers plastic-free options.

“I’m old enough to remember a time when it didn’t permeate everything in my life,” Dr. Warner said. “And yet it’s built up at an alarming rate.”

[deniscollins]

Virus Cases Rise, but Hazard Pay for Retail Workers Doesn’t

According to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents nearly one million grocery workers, 108 of its grocery workers had died as a result of Covid-19 and that more than 16,300 had been infected or exposed to the virus. The grocery chain Kroger offered raises at the start of the pandemic and bonuses through mid-June, but those have ended. Employees nationwide have staged protests outside stores asking Kroger to reinstate the pay, especially given its booming business — sales are soaring, and it recently said its 2021 business results “will be higher than we would have expected prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.” If you were a Kroger’s executive, would you provide hazard pay to your front line workers: (1) Yes, (2) No? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

With coronavirus cases rising across the country, retailers are preparing for another rush from shoppers worried about new lockdowns and pandemic shortages.

But many retail workers, heralded as heroes during the first wave of the pandemic, are not being provided with the same level of bonuses and raises this time, even as the health risks for them increase. Even as some companies have announced new hazard pay in recent days, some industry observers say many retailers are not sharing enough of the profits they have earned during the pandemic with their workers, but are instead benefiting shareholders through stock buybacks.

Amazon, which said last month that its quarterly profit had increased nearly 200 percent, ended its $2-an-hour pay raise for workers earlier this year and then provided a pandemic-related bonus in June, but a spokeswoman said no new hazard pay was planned.

Walmart, which reported another big increase in quarterly sales on Tuesday, had paid a series of special cash bonuses, but the company has not raised wages broadly as a way to reward workers during the pandemic.

The grocery chain Kroger offered raises at the start of the pandemic and bonuses through mid-June, but those have ended. Employees nationwide have staged protests outside stores asking Kroger to reinstate the pay, especially given its booming business — sales are soaring, and it recently said its 2021 business results “will be higher than we would have expected prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.” This week, the company told workers that they would receive discounts at its fuel centers and a $100 store credit as a “holiday appreciation.”

On Wednesday, Lowe’s said in its quarterly earnings report that it had already paid more than $800 million in pandemic-related benefits to employees. At the same time, the company said it expected to buy back about $3 billion of its own stock in the fourth quarter, after spending about $1 billion on buybacks and dividends in the third quarter.

“We ask workers with the least to sacrifice the most, and they are not even getting compensated in return,” said Molly Kinder, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, who is preparing a report that ranks which largest retailers have been most generous to their workers during the pandemic. “The companies have the money to do this.”

The issue of hazard pay for retail workers reflects the harsh reality of the pandemic economy — a case of shifting supply and demand. In March and April, when retailers were overrun with customers and workers were calling in sick or quitting, the companies needed to give incentives to employees to stay on the job.

But when the additional unemployment benefits, totaling $600 a week, expired at the end of July, many more Americans needed jobs, making it easier for retailers to attract and retain workers.

The public attention has also waned, as news media accounts of workers getting sick from the virus faded and focus turned to protests over police violence and the election. “The headlines have moved on,” Ms. Kinder said.

But the risks to retail workers have not. As the number of new infections hits daily records, retail workers must spend hours inside, dealing with customers who may refuse to wear masks or wear them incorrectly. A large part of this burden has fallen on female, Black and Hispanic employees, who make up a sizable proportion of retail workers.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents nearly one million grocery workers, said that 108 of its grocery workers had died as a result of Covid-19 and that more than 16,300 had been infected or exposed to the virus.

Some leaders in government have tried to step in and compensate retail workers for the risks they are taking. But efforts to include hazard pay for frontline workers in the various rounds of federal stimulus bills have all failed, including a proposal from Senator Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican.

Calling it “Patriot Pay,” Mr. Romney had proposed that essential workers receive raises of up to $12 an hour from May through July. That was meant to make up for any difference between what workers would earn on the job and what they were receiving in additional unemployment assistance. Mr. Romney’s proposal was never approved, and Congress remains at a stalemate over a new round of stimulus.

There may be other issues preventing retailers from continuing to offer pandemic pay raises. Even temporary raises, ostensibly limited to the extraordinary circumstances of 2020, can set expectations for higher pay permanently. Some analysts say retailers opt for bonuses instead of raises because they can be given out at random and do not normalize higher pay.

But a few big retailer have increased wages. Best Buy, which offered “appreciation pay” to hourly frontline workers starting in March, raised its starting rate for U.S. employees to $15 an hour on Aug. 2, the day after the additional pay was set to end.

Home Depot said on Tuesday that it would transition from paying a temporary weekly bonus to associates in stores and warehouses to permanently increasing wages for its hourly frontline workers. It’s not clear how generous those raises will prove for each worker. The company, which noted that average wages varied across the country, said it would invest $1 billion on the raises on an annualized basis.

The momentum behind higher pay in the retail industry appears to have picked up during the pandemic. Unions representing retail workers say they feel emboldened to push for significant pay increases as they enter various contract negotiations over the coming year, bolstered by what they see as the shopping public’s new appreciation for low-wage workers.

In Florida, where President Trump won this month, more than 60 percent of voters supported a measure that will raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour from $8.56 by 2026. And multiple polls conducted during the pandemic show growing support among Democrats and Republicans to raise the minimum wage.

Pay bumps tied to the pandemic have been relatively modest, but raising wages a few dollars an hour can amount to a large increase in a retail worker’s take-home pay. Kroger gave a $2-an-hour pay raise from the end of March to mid-May and gave employees a bonus of $150 or $300, based on their part- or full-time status. In May, it offered a separate bonus of $200 or $400.

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, a roughly 370-store discount chain that has seen its sales and earnings boom, said on a recent earnings call that it stopped its “premium pay” of $1.50 an hour for frontline associates at the end of the second quarter and would replace it with some type of monthly “discretionary bonus.”

Absent federal action, some states have allocated funds that they received as part of the giant stimulus package, known as the CARES Act, to frontline workers.

In Vermont, retailers are invited to apply for state grants that can benefit their workers who have stayed on the job during the pandemic. Companies like CVS and Shaw’s, a regional grocery chain, have signed up for the grants, according to the state. The employers pass the money through to the workers, acting only as conduits.

But some retailers — wary of being perceived as accepting aid in place of struggling businesses — have blocked their workers from accessing the money, baffling state lawmakers.

Tim Ashe, president of the Vermont Senate, who proposed the grants, said it meant many local workers would go without a substantial check — totaling as much as $2,000.

“Imagine being told by your manager that corporate won’t fill out the paperwork that could get you $2,000,” Mr. Ashe said.

Dollar General, which reported $1 billion in operating profit in the second quarter, is one retailer that is turning down the state’s offer to compensate its employees for working through the pandemic. Mr. Ashe said the state official overseeing the program had told him that Dollar General “seemed completely uninterested.”

A company spokeswoman initially said Dollar General would not apply for the grants because “we believe these limited funds should support the small-business community,” but then said on Wednesday that the company was looking to apply.

Dollar General said on Tuesday that it had spent $73 million on employee bonuses and planned to spend an additional $100 million this year, twice what it had initially planned.

“To demonstrate our ongoing gratitude and support for our employees directly serving our customers and communities during this pandemic, we are proud to double our initial plans for second-half bonuses,” Dollar General’s chief executive, Todd Vasos, said in a statement.

By comparison, Dollar General spent $602 million repurchasing its stock in the second quarter and has authorized the purchase of an additional $2 billion in stock.

Walmart, which operates six stores in Vermont employing hundreds of workers, had originally declined to apply for the grants. Like Dollar General, Walmart initially told Vermont officials that the money should go to smaller businesses. But on Tuesday, a Walmart spokeswoman said the company had changed its mind.

“After further discussions with local and state officials, we’re pleased to hear there was sufficient funding to provide bonuses to all small and medium-sized businesses in Vermont and that there are remaining funds for employees of larger companies,” the spokeswoman said.

In total, Walmart has spent $1.1 billion on bonuses rewarding its employees who worked during the pandemic. Full-time workers have received a series of three cash payments of up to $300 each. Walmart paid workers a bonus in September related to store performance, but has not indicated whether any additional bonuses related to the pandemic would be granted.