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| Presented By Facebook |
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| Axios AM |
| By Mike Allen ·Mar 17, 2021 |
| ☘️ Good Wednesday morning, and happy St. Patrick's Day from Michael Patrick Allen. - Smart Brevity™ count: 991 words ... < 4 minutes.
💻 Join Axios' Russell Contreras and me tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. ET for a virtual event on the sentencing gap between powder cocaine and crack, featuring Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) and the real-life experience of Matthew Charles. Register here. |
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| 1 big thing: Tech's new labor movement |
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| Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios |
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| Big Tech rose to power and wealth largely union-free. But a wave of labor organizing is catching the giants at a vulnerable moment, when they're being challenged by antitrust suits, hostile regulators and employee doubts, managing editor Scott Rosenberg writes. - A high-profile unionization campaign underway among Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Ala., will culminate in a vote count on March 30 — "the digital age's most important labor vote," Dan Primack called it on the "Axios Re:Cap" podcast.
- In Britain, Uber yesterday agreed to reclassify 70,000 drivers as "workers," giving them access to government-mandated benefits.
- A union effort among Google employees that began in January is taking an unconventional path — remaining a "minority union" for now, foregoing the possibility of collective bargaining but allowing the inclusion of contractors and even managers.
What we're watching: There's a split between conventional organizing pushes among blue-collar employees (wages, working conditions), and the animating concerns of white-collar employees (climate, diversity). Our thought bubble: Unions are all about worker solidarity, and the two wings of tech labor would achieve a lot more if they worked together. But doing so would require breaking down a lot of barriers — social divides, and the industry's ingrained ideology of individualism. |
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| 2. The case for going back to the office |
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| Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios |
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| Office workers around the world are being told they can work from home forever, with many companies adopting hybrid models as they plan their returns. Erica Pandey, author of the Axios @Work newsletter, talked to researchers who see benefits to being in the office: - "Leadership is in the office, generally," says Jessica Reeder, an expert on remote work who works on strategy at GitLab, the world's largest all-remote company. "So if you're going in, you have access to leadership. You see them in the halls, and you're visible to them."
- Working parents — especially moms — who telework to be with their children could feel isolated.
- New hires, especially younger ones, can miss out on connections with friends or mentors. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom says he's talked to companies that are considering having an extra day in the office for new hires: A company might tell veteran employees they need to come in three days a week, but have new hires come in four days for extra in-person bonding and training.
Keep reading. |
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| 3. Inflation passes COVID as top investor worry |
 For the first time in 14 months, inflation displaced COVID as the No. 1 market risk in a monthly Bank of America survey of global asset managers, Dion Rabouin writes in Axios Markets. - COVID and the vaccine rollout dropped from "biggest risk" for nearly 30% of respondents in February to less than 15% in March. Inflation was cited by 37%.
93% of investors in the survey expect inflation to rise in the next 12 months, up 7 points from last month — and the highest reading in the history of the survey, which dates back to 1995. - The survey also found fund managers were incredibly bullish: 91% of respondents expect a stronger economy, the highest result on record.
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| A message from Facebook |
| It's time to update internet regulations |
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| The internet has changed a lot in the 25 years since lawmakers last passed comprehensive internet regulations. It's time for an update. See how we're making progress on key issues and why we support updated regulations to set clear rules for addressing today's toughest challenges. |
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| 4. Pictures of America |
| Photo: Adrees Latif/Reuters Above: A drone's-eye view of Sonia, an asylum-seeking migrant from Honduras, walking down a dirt road in Penitas, Texas, yesterday with her three children — Jefferson, 9, Scarlet, 7, and David, 6 — after using a raft to cross the Rio Grande from Mexico. ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked President Biden yesterday: "Do you have to say quite clearly, 'Don't come'?" - Biden: "Yes. I can say quite clearly: Don't come over ... Don't leave your town or city or community."
Video. |
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| 5. Georgia massage parlor shootings leave 8 dead |
| Authorities investigate fatal shooting at massage parlor in Acworth, Ga. Photo: Mike Stewart/AP Amid a wave of attacks on Asian Americans around the country, Asian women were six of the eight people killed last night in a shooting spree at three spas in metro Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. - A 21-year-old suspect was captured in southwest Georgia.
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| 6. New thinking on distance lets more pupils return |
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| Oak Terrace Elementary School in Highwood, Ill. Photo: Nam Y. Huh/AP |
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| Dan Domenech, executive director of AASA, a national superintendents group, said he expects more states and schools to move to a 3-foot social-distance rule from the earlier 6-foot recommendation, AP reports. - Why it matters: With the 6-foot rule, most schools have space to bring back half of their students at a time. Moving to 3 feet could allow about 75% at a time, Domenech said.
The sudden change in thinking is based on a conclusion published last week in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases: "Lower physical distancing policies can be adopted in school settings with masking mandates without negatively impacting student or staff safety." - In some states that already allow 3-feet spacing, schools say they have seen no evidence of increased risk.
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| 7. 🚨 Trump backs the jab |
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| Fox News |
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| With rising concern about Republicans resisting the COVID vaccine — and one day after Tucker Carlson raised questions about the shots — former President Trump told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo last night: I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don't want to get it — and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly. But ... we have our freedoms and we have to live by that — and I agree with that, also. But it's a great vaccine, it's a safe vaccine, and it's something that works. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump secretly got the vaccine at the White House in January, with the news kept quiet until March 1. |
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| 8. Russia will keep meddling |
| Above is a key passage from a U.S. intelligence community report, declassified yesterday by DNI Avril Haines, on foreign threats to the 2020 election. - The conclusions: Russia worked for Donald Trump and against Joe Biden ... Iran worked to undermine Trump ... China "considered but did not deploy" influence operations. The report warns:
We assess that Moscow will continue election influence efforts to further its longstanding goal of weakening Washington. Read the 15-page report. |
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| 9. Visualizing ventilation |
| The N.Y. Times devotes half of the news space on today's front page to a fascinating airflow simulation, "Why Opening Windows Is a Key to Reopening Schools": Sources: Scott E. Frank and Gregory A. James, JB&B; Joseph G. Allen, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard; Mark Thaler, Gensler. Graphic: Nick Bartzokas, Mika Gröndahl, Karthik Patanjali, Miles Peyton, Bedel Saget and Umi Syam, Bill Marsh and Andrew Sondern/The New York Times What's happening: "We worked with a leading engineering firm and experts specializing in buildings systems to better understand the simple steps schools can take to reduce exposure in the classroom." - "This simulation was created using a three-dimensional model of a New York City public school classroom ... Nearly 800,000 points of data were sampled from a simulation of airflow."
Explore the graphic + an augmented reality experience that puts you inside an airflow simulation. |
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| 10. 🏀 You're invited: Axios Madness |
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| Illustration: Lazaro Gamio/Axios |
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| Join us: The Axios Bracket Challenge is officially live. There will be prizes, promises Axios Sports editor Kendall Baker. P.S. ... Ina Fried, editor of our technology newsletter (Axios Login), is doing a women's bracket challenge. Click to join. |
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| A message from Facebook |
| Facebook supports updated internet regulations |
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| It's been 25 years since comprehensive internet regulations passed. But a lot has changed since 1996. See how we're taking action and why we support updated regulations to address today's challenges—protecting privacy, fighting misinformation, reforming Section 230, and more. |
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| 📬 Thanks for starting your day with us. Please invite your friends to sign up for Axios AM/PM. |
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