Will ending curbside pickups for Uber, Lyft and taxis help LAX's traffic? - Los Angeles Times

Even in a city infamous for its traffic, the congestion at Los Angeles International Airport was growing dire.

Spurred by extensive construction, a surge in air travel and the arrival of Uber and Lyft, traffic volumes at the nation’s second-busiest airport rose by half over a decade, turning a drive through the 1.5-mile terminal area into a half-hour ordeal.

Without major changes, airport officials warned, traffic at LAX on an average summer day would soon resemble the bumper-to-bumper crawl on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

On Friday, city officials unveiled a plan aimed at reducing the congestion.

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Starting at the end of October, travelers leaving LAX will be required to board a shuttle or walk to a waiting area east of Terminal 1 to hail an Uber, Lyft or taxi. Drop-off policies, and pickups for family and friends, will not change.

The plan will remain in place until the completion of an elevated airport train, scheduled for 2023. The people-mover will arrive every two minutes and will whisk passengers between the terminals, a car rental facility, a ground transportation hub and a Metro station.

The sleek train and a $14-billion overhaul of the aging airport are major parts of L.A.’s efforts to improve transportation in traffic-choked Southern California before the 2028 Summer Olympics. Where pickups will occur after the people-mover opens is still unclear.

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The idea of transferring to a shuttle bus to catch a ride home has frustrated and dismayed many travelers, who say more schlepping will make LAX more stressful.

“It’ll be a lot less convenient, and it will probably take a lot longer to get home,” Kristi Nichols, 23, an engineer who travels frequently for work and to visit family, said at the airport Friday.

Starting next month, she said, she’ll try to get picked up by family or book a SuperShuttle instead.

Officials are asking travelers to give the new system a try. Frequent bus service and a well-organized pickup area may be more efficient than today’s crowded curbsides, they said, where riders can wait for a half-hour or more while Uber and Lyft drivers inch through traffic.

“You will no longer have to fight the traffic to get out of the central terminal area,” said Keith Wilschetz, deputy executive director of operations at Los Angeles World Airports. “Once you’re in your car, you’re right on Sepulveda.”

Uber and Lyft account for 27% of the 100,000 vehicles in the LAX terminal area on an average day, Wilschetz said. Taxis make up 4%. Shifting pickups to a parking lot will eliminate about 15% of the vehicles in the terminal, he said.

During the first half of 2019, LAX saw 10% more vehicle trips than in the same time period in 2016, the first full year that Uber and Lyft operated there. The number of Uber and Lyft trips soared 123% over that period, while taxi trips fell 39%, according to city data.

Meanwhile, ridership plummeted on high-occupancy buses and shuttles, data show. Trips on LAX’s FlyAway buses fell by two-thirds, as did rides on shared vans such as SuperShuttle and Prime Time. Courtesy shuttles to car rental facilities, parking lots and hotels saw a 20% decline.

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Passengers hoping to go home in an Uber or Lyft should order a ride as they pick up their bags, then board a shuttle on the lower level of the airport, Wilschetz said. Travelers looking for a cab should proceed directly to the waiting area, where there will be a taxi queue.

Curbside lanes on the arrivals level will be converted to bus-only lanes to speed travel times. Bright green shuttles are supposed to arrive every three to five minutes, and will make a maximum of two stops before going to the pickup lot.

The pickup area, at the corner of World Way and Sky Way, is a parking lot converted into a plaza with umbrellas, trash cans, bathrooms and phone charging stations. The area will offer food trucks that will operate from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m.

Many travelers will form their first impression of L.A. based on the waiting area, Wilschetz said, so “we want it to be a good one.”

City airport officials in August awarded a $65.5-million contract to set up and maintain the lot, operate the passenger shuttles, direct traffic and offer customer service for travelers who are lost or frustrated.

Uber has some concerns with the plan, a spokesman said, and company officials hope LAX will “listen to and incorporate” input on how to improve the system. Lyft said the company has been “working closely” with the airport to reduce congestion and shorten wait times.

Drivers for both companies currently wait near the airport, in an area that some drivers call “the pig pen,” until they are assigned a rider. Matching with a passenger and fighting through terminal traffic to reach the curb can take up to an hour, and drivers are not paid for that time.

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“You should see Monday mornings,” said Lyft driver Jorge Ferran, 63. “It’s horrendous.”

If it works, the new system could help drivers pick up passengers more quickly, which would increase their earnings, said Harry Campbell, who publishes the Rideshare Guy website.

But that depends on whether passengers give the shuttles a try, he said. Already, he said, people are talking about being picked up by friends or family again, or trying buses that carry travelers from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

“There’s a psychological barrier to having to take a shuttle to an Uber,” Campbell said. “It’s just a hassle.”

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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-05/lax-ending-uber-lyft-taxis-curbside-pickup-traffic-construction

2019-10-05 12:00:00Z
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“Morale is high and we just want a fair deal”: Unifor members go on strike - paNOW

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A strike across Saskatchewan’s Crown corporations seemed nearly inevitable Thursday, as the deadline for a deal crept closer. At a press conference, Jerry Dias, president of Unifor National, told media members it was clear that the Crowns and the union were at an impasse. He said it had been a week since the union made its last offer and it hadn’t heard anything from the Crowns or the provincial government.

Dias explained the union was asking for a two per cent increase a year while pointing out that Crown corporations made $400 million in profits last year.

Dias places the blame for the impasse on the provincial government. He said the Crown bargainers have told him the government mandated the Crowns not offer any increases for the first two years.

Premier Moe on the talks

Speaking in Saskatoon earlier Thursday, Moe said the provincial government doesn’t believe a general strike will be in the best interests of the Crown corporations or their workers.

He acknowledged there is a framework the Crowns are working from in their negotiations but said it doesn’t amount to a wage freeze.

“We feel there is an offer on the table that is five points over five years … We feel this is a fair offer as we look forward over the course of the next five years,” said Moe.

Moe said he hoped the sides could come to an agreement without job action. But he also said the Crowns were actively planning to keep services provided and work was being done on essential services.

When asked if the province was looking at back-to-work legislation, Moe said the government wasn’t actively considering it and that the government respects the workers’ right to strike.

–

nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell

— with files from Lisa Schick/ 980 CJME

by Nigel Maxwell

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October 05, 2019 at 01:10AM

The GM strike is really about the switch to electric cars - MarketWatch

From the outside looking in, the talks between the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) striking members and the management of General Motors look like normal disagreements over pay. In reality, they’re really about the future of cars in the U.S.

UAW members’ anxieties and uncertainties are actually shared by GM GM, -0.20%  and most other automakers, which know that it’s no longer a question of when internal combustion engine cars will be replaced by electric vehicles, but how quickly the changeover will take place.

The shift to electric means a fundamental transformation of what workers will do and how many are needed to do it.

Electric cars have far fewer parts, which means far fewer people are needed to put them together. When one analyst took apart a Chevrolet Bolt and Volkswagen Golf, he found that the Golf had 125 more moving parts than its electric counterpart. What’s more, the electric vehicles’ parts are often easier to put in place using automated machines. The UAW’s own estimates that the move to electrification may cost 35,000 members to lose their jobs may not be the most scientific study ever done, but it’s also probably not far off.

Fewer workers needed

GM has attempted to appease the UAW with specific promises, including the construction of an electric battery plant in one of the Ohio cities hit hardest by recent factory closings. But even this tactic has only confirmed the UAW’s worst fears: The battery plant won’t need as many workers, and GM would prefer to pay them less than what other workers make at plants that require more complicated assembly.

None of this is anyone’s fault. GM is trying to respond to a global trend that it needs to follow in order to stay relevant. The UAW is trying to protect its members. But it’s crucial that the parties work together, because they collectively represent a part of the American automotive industry that’s falling behind its global competition.

Take the year 2023, for example. The UAW and GM are negotiating a four-year contract that will expire then. Meanwhile, in Germany this week, the first hearings were held in a class-action lawsuit brought by 450,000 consumers in that country against its largest automaker, Volkswagen, over the diesel emissions scandal. Legal experts believe that the lawsuit, like the UAW’s contract, will also find its resolution in 2023.

Europeans embrace EVs

This matters because it’s one small example of the cultural differences between American automakers and the companies they’re competing against. In Germany, the people are pushing the automaker to move away from the traditional toward new technology. That push has no parallel here in the U.S.

Timeline projections differ, but many analysts and auto executives believe that EVs will become comparable or cheaper than internal combustion vehicles by the mid-2020s, and most agree that electric cars will begin to outsell conventional ones by 2030 or the mid-2030s. And most of that EV growth is happening in China and Europe, not in the United States.

Sales of EVs in China in 2018 were higher than the rest of the world combined, and the Chinese government has invested over $60 billion to shape an automotive industry fueled by electricity. In Europe, France and Germany recently announced a partnership to invest nearly $7 billion to develop EV batteries that solve the problem of limited range.

China and Europe are two different sides of the same coin. The Chinese auto market is so new that many of its consumers are about to purchase their first car, and its automakers have no legacy attachments to combustible engines. European automakers and consumers are in the opposite position, yet both, thanks in part to heavier regulations, have come to grips more quickly with the electric transition, invested more heavily in its future, and are therefore more prepared for change.

Tesla as market leader

The United States has Tesla TSLA, -0.69%, far and away the market share leader in electric vehicles. But in nearly every other case, it lags far behind.

A resolution to the strike is probably imminent. That’s good news. Better news would be an increase in the amount of collaboration between the UAW and GM, and other American automakers and the workers they employ.

What looks like a fight for today is actually a fight for future American relevance. It would just make a lot more sense if the people that we need to compete globally were working together as a team, rather than fighting each other.

Daron Gifford leads Plante Moran’s automotive industry consulting services.

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https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-gm-strike-is-really-about-the-switch-to-electric-cars-2019-10-05

2019-10-05 11:00:00Z
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UAW strikers in Texas watch Detroit as union leaders meet with GM - Detroit Free Press

Jamie L. LaReau Detroit Free Press

Published 8:22 AM EDT Oct 5, 2019

Some 1,200 miles south of Detroit, several thousand UAW workers in Texas are intently watching daily for any news from the Renaissance Center.

Negotiators for the UAW and General Motors have been holed up in the RenCen in bargaining discussions since GM's contract with the union expired on Sept. 14. That prompted about 46,000 union members to go on strike nationwide against GM two days later.

Those strikers include nearly 5,000 workers at GM's Arlington Assembly plant in Texas.

“I haven’t heard anybody say, 'Let’s go back to work,'" said Mike Cartwright, a union worker at the plant. "They want to get back to work, but they want to hear from the bargaining table that they have an agreement.”

On Friday, Terry Dittes, the UAW's lead negotiator with GM, told strikers the two sides had made "good progress regarding the issues of health care and a path for temporary employees becoming seniority members." Work remained, he said, on wages, job security and other matters — though temp workers and health care are known to be key issues.

Some analysts estimate the strike has cost GM about $1 billion so far, while workers are getting only their UAW strike pay of $250 a week. 

More: GM can withstand losses of UAW strike — because of what it stands to gain

More: UAW rejects GM's latest offer, tells members it 'came up short'

Right-to-work

Nearly all of Arlington's 5,000 hourly workers belong to the UAW, remarkable considering that Texas has been a right-to-work state since 1941. That means that under the labor code, a person cannot be denied employment because of membership or nonmembership in a labor union or other labor organization.

Michigan is also a right-to-work state in recent years, but with a far deeper union history than Texas.

Labor leaders at Arlington say UAW members are committed to this strike.

"We were one of the plants with a higher percentage of members authorizing the UAW to go on strike," said Ken Hines, shop chairman at UAW Local 276. "Nobody wants to strike, but we felt it was necessarily to win back some of the concessions we gave during the bankruptcy period."

One of those was a cost-of-living-allowance that union members want reinstated, among other issues. 

Hines said most strikers prefer to return to work, but are prepared for a long strike and will, "continue to sacrifice for as long as it takes.”

The union wants job security, higher wages and a pathway for temps to be hired permanently with better pay and benefits. GM wants to lower its costs, preferably with hiring more temporary workers.

The union also wants to protect its health care benefits, whereas GM has been said to want the union members to pay more than the 3% of total costs they pay now. 

The two sides are at odds, which means Saturday is day 20 of the strike.

Hines, 50, made sure his members would be prepared for a long strike. Starting early last year, he would remind members at any union meetings to start saving their money.

“Because you never know what the future holds and we wanted to make sure our membership was prepared in case we went on strike," said Hines.

Hines has phone numbers for about 1,700 of his union members programmed in his cell phone, he said. He has text messaged about half of them since the strike started to check on their welfare.

"There are some who are struggling," Hines said. Those are usually the temporary workers who made less and did not get overtime to save up money.

Hines said he has directed them to food banks. Also, local residents and businesses have donated food, money and other items to the local union hall for those who need help.

American dream city

Cartwright, 59, is OK financially to endure a strike. He was at those union meetings and remembers Hines saying, "Hey, remember contract time is coming up and we don’t know what to expect so save your money.’”

Cartwright has worked for GM for 34 years. He spent six years at GM's Fairfax Assembly and Stamping Plant in Kansas City, Kansas. The rest of his time has been at Arlington, a massive 5.75 million square-foot facility that sits on 250 acres right between Dallas and Fort Worth. 

Arlington is the American Dream City, according to its official government website. GM's website said the plant churns out 1,200 of GM's most profitable vehicles daily: Chevrolet Tahoe, Chevrolet Suburban, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade full-size SUVs. 

 “We know we make a lot of money for the corporation here," said Cartwright.

Still, Hines and Cartwright said workers in Arlington want assurance that GM will invest in U.S. manufacturing and not stop assigning vehicles suddenly there, as GM did last fall at four other plants in the United States. 

GM said it would indefinitely idle Detroit-Hamtramck, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and a transmission plant in Warren and one in Baltimore. As part of its initial offer to the UAW, GM had offered up solutions to keep Detroit-Hamtramck running by building an electric pickup and grant a battery cell manufacturing facility to the Lordstown area. GM said it would invest $7 billion in U.S. manufacturing and create or retain 5,400 jobs.

More: Fate of GM Lordstown plant unresolved as contract talks linger: What could happen

More: GM promises UAW 5,400 jobs, $7B in US investment: What it means

More support

Cartwright has lived through past strikes. In 2007, the UAW went on strike against GM for two days. Cartwright said the community was less supportive then, wondering why the workers were on strike. 

But this time it's different. He said GM is "a great company" that pitches in with the UAW workers to do local charity.

"We do a lot of community work here and we have a connection with businesses and organizations, so we’re getting more support from the community this time," said Cartwright. "Now when we have issues we don’t have to explain them. People know what we’re about.”

Cartwright said there are 10 gates surrounding the facility in Arlington and every day each has about 10 picketers in front of them. Everyone does 4 hours a week picket duty and often union members in other industries show up to picket in solidarity with them.

The members also watch social media, their email and websites for any updated news on the strike.

"Our key issues are the pay on our benefits and the treatment of temporary workers," said Cartwright. "It’s about fairness. Most of us have been here for years, the temporary worker doesn’t affect us. But it’s about all of us and we want what’s fair. The mood is that everybody here understands that this is a process we have to go through and we have to support our leadership.”

For many at Arlington, it's their first time striking, said Cartwright. "They heard about past sacrifices, they now see and feel the sacrifices."

And in a right-to-work state, Cartwright said the strike will serve to "improve our membership and our ties.”

Contact Jamie L. LaReau: 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter.

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2019-10-05 10:00:00Z
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Recall: 1.1 million pocketknives can pop open due to faulty lock; injuries reported - USA TODAY

Kelly Tyko USA TODAY

Published 10:27 PM EDT Oct 4, 2019

Harbor Freight Tools is recalling about 1.1 million Gordon Folding Knives because they pose a safety risk.

According to the recall notice posted on the Consumer Product Safety Commission website, the knives' "locking mechanism can fail to engage on extension of the blade, posing a laceration hazard."

The recall comes after seven reports of the pocketknives failing to lock, which resulted in "six reports of laceration injuries, including four that required medical attention," the notice states.

The knives were sold between July 2008 through July 2019 at the Calabasas, California-based home improvement chain for about $5. The chain has more than 1,000 stores nationwide.

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The knife is stainless steel with black metal on the handle and five cutouts on each side of the handle, according to the recall notice. The knife measures about 3 inches and has a silver-colored metal belt clip attached to the back of the handle.

“China” is printed on one side and “Stainless Steel” is printed on the other side of the knife blade.

Consumers should stop using the recalled knives immediately and return them to a  store for a "full refund in the form of a $5 store gift card plus sales tax."

For more information about the recall, call Harbor Freight at 800-444-3353 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. PT Monday through Friday or email recall@harborfreight.com.

Follow Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko

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2019-10-05 02:26:00Z
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Disney bans Netflix from advertising on its networks - The A.V. Club

Photo: Chesnot (Getty Images)

The streaming cold war got a few notches hotter today, as The New York Times reports that Disney has begun banning advertisements from Netflix on the majority of its TV networks—including ABC, Freeform, Nat Geo, and more. The only exception to this blanket ban is ESPN, presumably on the grounds that, hell, nobody knows how sports streaming actually works.

Today’s news comes alongside continuing reports that Disney is taking its “No, you really can’t play with our toys anymore” approach to the nascent online fist fight to its logical extreme, with company CEO Bob Iger recently dropping off the board at Apple for similar reasons. As the Times also notes, there’s really no downside to the mega-giant pissing off Netflix by shutting off their ads; neither company is pursuing new licensing deals with the other, obviously, and unlike, say, the cable companies, the streamer doesn’t have any allies or connections Disney can’t afford to lose.

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Netflix spends something like $1.6 billion a year on advertising, which is baffling in so far as the company has only one product, and pretty much everybody on the planet knows what it is. (As far as we can tell, they’re mostly pursuing the “freed from a cult” and “woke up from a long-ish coma” demographics.) Still, losing access to the Oscars—which the company sponsored this year, and which will continue to be broadcast on ABC through at least 2028—has to hurt, even if they might manage to sneak in there another way.

None of this is shocking, exactly; nobody likes taking money to tell consumers how great their competitors are. Still, there was a minute there, during the long, ongoing fracturing of the media markets, where TV networks and streaming services were considered different enough that you could skirt around that particular taboo. No longer, though; with the launch of Disney+ now a little more than a month away, the time for hardball is presumably here to stay.

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2019-10-05 00:45:32Z
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Without a deal, Saskatchewan's Crown workers hit the picket lines - News Talk 980 CJME

Employees represented by Unifor at seven of Saskatchewan’s Crown corporations, including SaskTel, SaskPower and SaskEnergy, are officially on strike.

According to the union, negotiations between the Crowns and workers had reached an impasse.

Without a deal, workers walked off the job at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, starting with those at SaskTel, who were gathered outside of the telecom’s downtown Regina office on Lorne Street, wearing signs, waving flags and marching around.

On Friday morning at about 7 a.m., at least 100 workers started picketing along Saskatchewan Drive in front of the SaskTel headquarters.

Members are prepared to strike for as long as it takes to get the Sask. Party government back to the table, said Dave Kuntz, president of Unifor Local 1S, which represents workers at SaskTel, SecurTek and DirectWest.

“We’re going to put extreme pressure on them and we’re going to point the finger directly at where the problem is,” Kuntz said.

“We’d like to think everything we’re doing is going to work and that they’re going to come to their senses and bring fairness back to the table.”

Among its demands, the union is seeking a raise of two per cent a year — something MLAs got in a 2.3-per-cent cost-of-living increase.

However, Unifor says the offer it got instead was a two-year wage freeze followed by a one-per-cent raise in 2021 and a two-per-cent increase the year after.

Kuntz said the union’s grievance is not with the Crowns, which he said are willing to settle and have “tried multiple times.”

“They understand the impacts to the business, they understand the impact to the customers and they understand the impacts to their employees,” he said.

“The government is not letting them settle so they’re holding back the money.”

Job action has taken place since Sept. 30, when workers started a work to rule campaign, refusing overtime and disregarding company performance targets.

Since then, the two sides haven’t even met, Kuntz said.

“We’ve told them, ‘We’re ready to go, we’re available 24-7 to talk.’ They haven’t even approached us,” he said. “Quite honestly, we’re baffled. Why not?”

The union representing the Crown workers posted videos on its Twitter feed showing the start of the strike.

SaskTel posted a statement on its Facebook page on Friday morning, saying: “We’re currently experiencing a labour disruption. During this time, we’re making every effort to minimize the impact to our customers by having our management team maintain services.”

The company’s statement said “delays may be experienced.”

It is 12:01 in Regina and the first workers are walking off the job as part of our province wide strike for wage fairness. #canlab #skpoli pic.twitter.com/xdm59peeek

— Unifor Canada (@UniforTheUnion) October 4, 2019

The Crown strike has officially begun in #yxe. A few dozen pickets are out with signs and coffee at Sasktel building on 1st Ave. ⁦@CKOMNews⁩ pic.twitter.com/e20tSRnx2c

— Brent Bosker (@brentbosker) October 4, 2019

Every day that thousands of Sask Crown members are on a picket line, the Province of Saskatchewan loses money and residents will not get the reliable services they're used to. @PremierMoeScott it is time for a fair deal. #saskpoli pic.twitter.com/uGLTaYwCuP

— Unifor Canada (@UniforTheUnion) October 4, 2019

Meili offers his take on Unifor strike

Speaking to reporters on Friday, NDP Leader Ryan Meili blamed Premier Scott Moe and the Sask. Party government for the labour disruption.

Meili said from what he has heard from union leaders around the bargaining table, the government has refused to budge on its offer to workers, which includes no pay increases for the first two years.

“The Crown leadership has been willing to come up with a deal but it’s really Scott Moe who said, ‘No, we don’t want to deal.’ He’s the one who has insisted on zeroes and forced this strike to happen,” Meili said.

“(This is happening) in a time when this government has been drawing hundreds of millions of dollars out of the Crowns in recent years, using them as their personal piggy bank to plug the holes in their budgets.”

A statement from Minister of Finance Donna Harpauer on Friday afternoon thanked the crown employers and workers still on the job to provide essential services.

It reiterated the government’s stance that a strike is “not in the best interests of crown corporations, employees, or the people of Saskatchewan.”

“We believe that the employer offer of five per cent over five years respects the hard work of crown employees while balancing the fiscal reality of our province, and we remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached at the bargaining table in good faith,” Harpauer said.

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October 04, 2019 at 08:03PM