Amazon
Giant, sustainable rainforest fish is now fashion in America
Sometimes you start something and have no idea where it will lead. So it was with Eduardo Filgueiras, a struggling guitarist whose family worked in an unusual business in Rio de Janeiro: They farmed toads. Filgueiras figured out a way to take the small toad skins and fuse them together, creating something large enough to sell.
Meanwhile miles away in the Amazon, a fisherman and a scientist were coming up with an innovation that would help save a key, giant fish that thrives in freshwater lakes alongside Amazon River tributaries.
The ingenuity of these three men is why you can now find a beautiful and unusual sustainable fish leather in upscale New York bags, Texas cowboy boots and in a striking image from Rihanna’s Vogue pregnancy photo shoot, where a red, fish-scaled jacket hangs open above her belly. Sales provide a livable income to hundreds of Amazon families who also keep the forest standing and healthy while it protects their livelihood.
MANAGING A GIANT
The leather is a byproduct of pirarucu meat, a staple food in the Amazon that is gaining new markets in Brazil’s largest cities.
Indigenous communities working together with non-Indigenous riverine settlers manage the pirarucu in preserved areas of the Amazon. Most of it is exported, and the U.S. is the primary market.
Pirarucu can grow to 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) in length. Overfishing endangered them. But things began to change when a settler fisherman, Jorge de Souza Carvalho, known as Tapioca, and academic researcher Leandro Castello teamed up in the Mamiraua region and came up with a creative way to count the fish in lakes, the giant fish’s favorite habitat.
They took advantage of something special about this species: It surfaces to breathe at least every 20 minutes. A trained eye can count how many flash their red tails in a given area, arriving at a pretty precise estimate.
Read: Brazil's Amazon deforestation surges to worst in 15 years
The government recognizes this counting method and authorizes managed fishing. By law, only 30% of the pirarucu in a particular area may be fished the following year. The result is a population in recovery in these areas, allowing for larger catches.
In the riverine communities, people eat the fish, skin and all. But in the big slaughterhouses, where the bulk of the pirarucu catch is processed, the skin was being discarded. Then tannery Nova Kaeru showed up on the scene.
SHOESTRING BEGINNINGS
Thousands of miles away from the Amazon, down a hilly dirt road on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Nova Kaeru will process about 50,000 skins from legally-caught giant pirarucu or arapaima fish this year.
This middle-size company had an unlikely start. In 1997, Filgueiras, the guitarist, got involved in his family toad business, where the amphibians were raised for meat. He was struck by the beauty of their skin, but it was all being thrown out. He decided to try to use it, took a leather working course, and started experimenting.
“I had no financial resources. I bought a used concrete mixer and covered it with fiberglass, adapted a washing machine and started to develop the frog leather,” Filgueiras told The Associated Press in his office.
He managed to transform the skin into leather, but there was a problem: It was too small. No prospective customer wanted it. Filgueiras tried to stitch it together, but the result was too ugly. So he invented a way to weld several pieces together.
His creation started to gain attention at international fairs. A few years later, with a partner, he founded Nova Kaeru tannery, specializing in exotic leather, expanding to salmon and ostrich with techniques that don’t produce toxic waste.
Then one day a businessman knocked on the door with a stack of pirarucu skins and asked him to take a look.
Experimenting with the new skins, Filgueiras found he was able to fix the many holes in the pirarucu leather using the same technique he had created for the toad leather.
The first results impressed him. But in the meantime, the businessman died in an aircraft accident. With no previous experience in the Amazon — so different from its home base in Rio — the company nevertheless decided to procure pirarucu skin on its own in the vast region.
Read: Brazil: Can Lula the Lefty do better?
They got in touch with the people managing the fishery in Amazonas state. That network has now grown to 280 riverine and Indigenous communities, most of them in protected rainforest areas, employing some 4,000 fisher people, according to Coletivo do Pirarucu, an umbrella organization. Nova Kaeru tannery bought the skins — the first buyer the communities had — and today their most important one.
“The commercialization of the skin has been fundamental for the riverine communities,” Adevaldo Dias, a riverine leader from the Medio Jurua region, told the AP in a phone interview. “It helps make the whole business viable.”
The Association of Rural Producers of Carauari, from the Medio Jurua, sells each skin for $37, an important sum in a country where the minimum wage is around $237 per month. The money helps pay the fisherfolk, who receive $1.60 per kilo (2.2 pounds). Dias says the ideal price should be $1.9 per kilo of fish to cover all costs related to managing the fishing. They expect to earn that in the near future by exporting pirarucu meat.
From Medio Jurua and other regions, the pirarucu leather must travel several thousand miles by boat to Belem, where it is loaded onto trucks for another long journey to Nova Kaeru headquarters, a multiday trip. From there, it goes by plane to foreign buyers.
The pirarucu leather first made inroads in Texas, where it is used in cowboy boots. But the fashion industry is increasingly taking notice. In New York City, the luxury brand Piper & Skye has used pirarucu leather for shoulder bags, waist packs and purses that can fetch up to $850.
“As far as the pirarucu being a food source and feeding local communities and putting food on the table for the folks in the areas where it’s fished and beyond, it is not just a durable and beautiful material. It does promote circularity of the species in utilizing a material that would otherwise go to waste,” Joanna MacDonald, brand founder and creative director, told the AP in a video call.
Tarnished Gold: Illegal Amazon gold seeps into supply chains
The medals were billed as the most sustainable ever produced.
To match the festive spirit of South America’s first Olympics, officials from Brazil, the host country for the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro, boasted that the medals hung around the necks of athletes on the winners' podium were also a victory for the environment: The gold was produced free of mercury and the silver recycled from thrown away X-ray plates and mirrors.
Five years on, the refiner that provided the gold for the medals, Marsam, is processing gold ultimately purchased by hundreds of well-known publicly traded U.S. companies — among them Microsoft, Tesla and Amazon — that are legally required to responsibly source metals in an industry long plagued by environmental and labor concerns.
But a comprehensive review of public records by The Associated Press found that the Sao Paulo-based company processes gold for, and shared ownership links to, an intermediary accused by Brazilian prosecutors of buying gold mined illegally on Indigenous lands and other areas deep in the Amazon rainforest.
The AP previously reported in this series that the scale of prospecting for gold on Indigenous lands has exploded in recent years and involves carving illegal landing strips in the forest for unauthorized airplanes to ferry in heavy equipment, fuel and backhoes to tear at the earth in search of the precious metal. Weak government oversight enabled by President Jair Bolsonaro, the son of a prospector himself, has only exacerbated the problem of illegal gold mining in protected areas. Critics also fault an international certification program used by manufacturers to show they aren’t using minerals that come from conflict zones, saying it is an exercise in greenwashing.
“There is no real traceability as long as the industry relies on self-regulation,” said Mark Pieth, a professor of criminal law at the University of Basel in Switzerland and author of the 2018 book “Gold Laundering.”
“People know where the gold comes from, but they don’t bother to go very far back into the supply chain because they know they will come into contact with all kinds of criminal activity.”
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Much like brown and black tributaries that feed the Amazon River, gold illegally mined in the rainforest mixes into the supply chain and melds with clean gold to become almost indistinguishable.
Nuggets are spirited out of the jungle in prospectors’ dusty pockets to the nearest city where they are sold to financial brokers. All that’s required to transform the raw ore into a tradable asset regulated by the central bank is a handwritten document attesting to the specific point in the rainforest where the gold was extracted. The fewer questions asked, the better.
At many of those brokers’ Amazon outposts — the financial system’s front door — the gold becomes the property of Dirceu Frederico Sobrinho.
Read:Leftist millennial wins election as Chile’s next president
For four decades, Dirceu has embodied the up-by-your-bootstraps myth of the Brazilian garimpeiro, or prospector. The son of a vegetable grocer who sold his produce near an infamous open-pit mine so packed with prospectors — among them Bolsonaro’s father — they looked like swarming ants, he caught the gold bug in the mid-1980s and began dispatching planeloads of raw ore from a remote Amazon town. He secured his first concession in 1990, one year after the nation rolled out a permitting regime to regulate prospecting.
Today, from a high rise on Sao Paulo’s busiest avenue, he is a major player in Brazil’s gold rush, with 173 prospecting areas either registered to his name or with pending requests, according to Brazil's mining regulator's registry. In the same building is the headquarters of the nation’s gold association, Anoro, which he leads. Dirceu, until last year, was also a partner in Marsam.
But even with gold jewelry dangling from his fingers and wrist, Dirceu still proudly boasts his everyman garimpeiro roots.
“You don’t motivate someone to go into the forest if they’re not chasing after a dream,” he said in a rare interview from his corner office studded with a giant jade eagle. “Whoever deals in gold has that: They dream, they believe, they like it.”
“We have a saying among the garimpeiros: ‘I’m a pawn, but I’m a pawn for gold,'” he adds.
At the center of Dirceu’s empire is F.D’Gold, Brazil’s largest buyer of gold from prospecting sites, with purchases last year totaling more than 2 billion reais ($361 million) from 252 wildcat sites, according to data from the mining regulator. Only two international firms that run industrial-sized gold mines paid more in royalties in 2021, a sign of how once artisanal prospecting has become big business in Brazil — at least for some.
In August, federal prosecutors filed a civil suit against F.D’Gold and two other brokers seeking the immediate suspension of all activities and payment of 10 billion reais ($1.8 billion) in social and environmental damages.
The complaint alleges the companies failed to take actions that would have prevented the illegal extraction of a combined 4.3 metric tons from protected areas and Indigenous territories, where mining is not allowed. Dirceu said his company complies with all laws and has implemented extra controls, but he acknowledged that determining the exact origin of the gold it obtains is “impossible” at present. He has proposed an industry-wide digital registry to improve transparency.
The ongoing suit is the result of a study published inuly by the Federal University of Minas Gerais which found that as much as 28% of Brazil’s gold produced in 2019 and 2020 was potentially mined illegally. To reach that conclusion, researchers combed through 17,400 government-registered transactions by F.D’Gold and other buyers to pinpoint the location where the gold was purportedly mined. In many cases, the given location wasn’t an authorized site or, when cross-checked with satellite images, showed none of the hallmark signs of mining activity — deforestation, stagnant ponds of waste — meaning the gold originated elsewhere.
Dirceu’s name and those of F.D’Gold and his mining company Ouro Roxo have popped up repeatedly over the years in numerous criminal investigations. He has been charged but never convicted.
A decade ago, federal prosecutors in Amazon’s Amapa state accused his company of knowingly purchasing illegal gold from a national park that was later transformed into gold bars. The charges were dismissed in 2017 after a federal judge in Brasilia ruled that F.D’Gold made the purchases legally, as evidenced by the invoices. Separate money laundering charges against Dirceu were also dismissed, due to lack of evidence. Dirceu has denied wrongdoing.
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Whatever its origin, all the raw ore purchased by F.D’Gold ends up at Marsam.
F.D’Gold accounts for more than one-third of the gold Marsam processes, according to André Nunes, an external consultant for Marsam.
After almost two years as a partner in the Sao Paulo-based refiner, Dirceu stepped down last year and his daughter, Sarah Almeida Westphal, assumed management responsibilities. It was part of an effort to put different family members in charge of their own businesses, which function as separate legal entities, said Nunes, who previously worked for F.D’Gold.
“As much as it’s the same family, it’s important that each monkey has its own branch,” he said.
But the federal tax authority's corporate registry shows Dirceu and Westphal remain partners in a machine rental and air cargo venture based in the Amazonian city of Itaituba, the national epicenter of prospecting. And Westphal could be seen working on a computer at F.D’Gold’s office on the day the AP interviewed Dirceu.
From Marsam, the gold travels far and wide. More than 300 publicly traded companies list Marsam as a refiner in responsible mining disclosures they are required to file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The refiner has been virtually the only supplier to Brazil’s mint over the past decade, according to data provided to the AP through a freedom of information request.
“Why do they want our bars? Because they’re accepted all over the world,” said Nunes, who is also a member of Marsam's six-person compliance committee.
Enabling such robust sales around the world is a seal of approval from the Responsible Minerals Initiative, or RMI.
The certification program, run by a Virginia-based coalition of manufacturers, emerged with the passage a decade ago of legislation in the U.S. requiring companies to disclose their use of conflict minerals fueling civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Later, its standards were supplemented by tougher guidelines developed by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or OECD
Marsam is one of just two refiners in Brazil certified as compliant with RMI’s standards for responsible sourcing of gold, having successfully completed two independent audits. The last one was performed in 2018 by UL Responsible Sourcing, an Illinois-based consultancy.
But its ties to Dirceu's family and its strategic positioning at the pinch point between the Amazon rainforest and global commerce raises questions about its previously unexamined role in the processing and sale of gold allegedly sourced from off-limit areas.
Marsam hasn’t been accused by prosecutors of any wrongdoing and insists that it only refines gold, not sell it, on behalf of third-party exporters and domestic vendors.
The company in 2016 introduced a supply chain policy, which it has updated over the years, requiring it to seek out information from suppliers whenever they are publicly linked to illicit activities. They are also expected to analyze a mandatory declaration of origin form submitted by each client. No such risks were identified in the most recent RMI report and Marsam was moved to a lower risk category requiring an audit once every three years.
Critics say one problem is that the OECD’s guidelines RMI measures companies against pay scant attention to environmental crimes or the rights of Indigenous communities. Instead, they are geared toward risks stemming from civil wars and criminal networks. In Latin America, only Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela — where drug cartels or guerrilla insurgencies are active — are classified as conflict-affected and high-risk areas deserving greater scrutiny for sourcing practices.
But the influx of illegal miners into Indigenous territories has been on the rise in recent years in Brazil — sometimes ending in bloodshed.
In May, hundreds of prospectors raided a Munduruku village, setting houses on fire, including one that belonged to a prominent anti-mining activist. The attack followed clashes farther north in Roraima state, where miners in motorboats and carrying automatic weapons repeatedly threatened a riverside Yanomami settlement. In one incident, two children, ages one and five, drowned when a shooting sent people scattering into the woods.
In their suits against F.D’Gold and the two other brokers, prosecutors blame expanding mining activity for the illegal clearing in 2019 and 2020 of some 5,000 hectares of once pristine rainforest located on Indigenous territories as well as exacerbating “internal rifts that may be irreconcilable.”
Read:Brazil reopens amid looming threat from delta variant
Experts say these kinds of activities barely register in corporate boardrooms where sourcing decisions are made and given the seal of approval by international certification programs.
“Certification connotes a degree of certitude that isn’t at all possible in the gold industry, especially in Brazil,” said David Soud, an analyst at I.R. Consilium, which recently prepared a report for the OECD on illegal gold flows from neighboring Venezuela. “The result is a lot of blind spots that can easily be exploited by bad actors.”
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Some of those blind spots are created by Brazil’s own weak oversight.
Under Brazilian law, securities brokers like F.D’Gold can’t be held responsible if the prospector whose ore they buy lies about its provenance. Nor is there any effective way to track the information provided at the point of sale.
It’s a system that inhibits tracking and accountability at best, and at worst enables willful ignorance as a means to launder illegal gold, according to wildcat mining experts including Larissa Rodrigues of the environmental think tank Choices Institute. For starters, experts say there need to be electronic invoices feeding a database that allows information to be verified.
“The supply chain is absorbing gold that doesn’t come from that chain. We know this happens,” said Rodrigues. “It’s a fact that fraud exists, but you can’t prosecute because you can’t prove it.”
Dirceu didn’t deny the possibility that F.D’Gold has unwittingly bought dirty gold. But he insists F.D’Gold, as an entity regulated by Brazil’s powerful central bank, follows the law and goes beyond what is required — such as hiring in 2020 two companies to monitor through satellite imagery the sources of its gold.
“The moment we had knowledge this could be happening, we hired them,” he said.
As president of the nation’s gold association, he claims to have been pushing since at least 2017 a plan to create a digital profile of every participant in the supply chain, complete with the garimpeiro’s photo, fingerprints and ID number.
“Digitalization and automation is the start of traceability,” he said. “The more legality, the more security there will be for our activities.”
Yet for all the apparent industry goodwill, and the support of Brazil’s tax authority, the proposal remains just that — an idea that hasn’t even been taken up by Congress. In the past two decades, the central bank hasn’t revoked authorization for any company that purchases gold.
For its part, Marsam says it uses its “best efforts” to identify the origin of the metals it refines. That includes requiring clients to sign affidavits attesting to the metal’s legality, demanding original invoices and conducting client visits to verify they have systems in place to prevent fraud.
But it doesn’t visit the mines themselves — something that RMI requires of refiners operating only in high-risk jurisdictions.
“We have to be diligent, but not do work that isn’t ours,” Nunes said. Asked when was the last time Marsam suspended a client it suspects of trading in dirty gold he shook his head, struggling to recall.
“I don’t remember it ever happening,” Nunes said before finally harkening back to one instance more than a decade ago.
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RMI wouldn’t discuss prosecutors' allegations against F.D’Gold, despite its close affiliation with Marsam, citing confidentiality agreements to encourage refiners to participate in its grievance process.
In a statement, it said that it takes all allegations “very seriously” and works with companies to address concerns. As part of that process, refiners are expected to trace activities all the way back to the mine whenever red flags are detected. If they don’t then address the concerns, they will be removed from the conformant list.
A 2018 report by the OECD found that while RMI's standards are aligned with its guidelines there are significant gaps in the way RMI and other industry initiatives carry out audits, relying more on a refiner’s policies and procedures than its due diligence efforts. RMI-approved auditors also demonstrated a lack of basic technical skills and familiarity with the OECD guidelines, the study found.
“There was also an observed absence of curiosity, professional skepticism and critical analysis,” according to the report. RMI said it has since strengthened implementation efforts and is awaiting the outcome of a new assessment being conducted for the European Union.
Additional analysis in 2017 by Kumi, a London-based consulting firm that advises the OECD, found that only 5% of 314 end-user companies then registered with RMI, most of them U.S. based, had policies on sourcing conflict materials that were in line with the OECD guidelines.
“End-user companies set the tone for what happens in their supply chains,” said Andrew Britton, managing director of Kumi, which is conducting a new assessment of certifiers now for the European Commission. “It’s really important that companies’ due diligence on their supply chains really probes into potential risks and is not simply a box-ticking exercise.”
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While land grabbing by ranchers, loggers and prospectors is hardly new in the Amazon, never before has Brazil had a president as outspokenly favorable to such interests.
Bolsonaro campaigned for the nation’s top job with promises of unearthing the Amazon’s vast mineral wealth, and his support for prospectors has encouraged a modern-day gold rush.
Bolsonaro’s father prospected for gold at Serra Pelada, where Dirceu first saw gold mining, and the president sometimes draws on his upbringing to rally support from prospectors. While campaigning, he aired videos in the Amazon region in which he boasted of sometimes pulling over at jungle stream and pulling a pan from a car to try his luck.
“Interest in the Amazon isn’t about the Indians or the damn trees; it’s the ore,” he told a group of prospectors at the presidential palace in 2019, vowing to deploy the armed forces to allow their operations to continue unfettered.
Then in May 2021, he attacked environmentalists for trying to criminalize prospecting.
“It’s really cool how people in suits and ties guess about everything that happens in the countryside,” he said sarcastically.
Beyond the rhetoric, Bolsonaro’s administration recently introduced legislation that would open up Indigenous territories to mining — something federal prosecutors have called unconstitutional and activists warn would wreak vast social and environmental damages.
Dirceu said he opposes allowing mining of Indigenous lands unless local people support the activity and are given first priority to pursue it themselves. But even as he fashions himself a reformer from the inside, he’s also benefitted from the current free-for-all. For one, he doesn’t even consider prospectors working without a permit to be illegal — just irregular.
Given persistent efforts to deregulate gold extraction, calls by Dirceu and the gold association to increase accountability over the gold supply chain “ring hollow,” said Robert Muggah, who oversees an initiative on environmental crime in the Amazon at think tank Igarape Institute.
Soon, Dirceu may stand to profit even more. Recently, F.D’Gold received approval to begin exporting directly. Dirceu said the company is currently seeking clients abroad and hopes to begin shipments soon.
If he succeeds, it means that, for the first time, someone will have a hand in the entirety of Brazil’s gold supply chain: from the Amazon where the gold is mined, to the outposts where it is first sold, to the planes that bring the ore to his daughter’s refinery in Sao Paulo and, finally, into the hands of foreign buyers.
"It’s really important to understand that the nature of gold extraction in countries like Brazil is linked, ineluctably, to the global markets,” said Muggah.
Netflix India's discount intensifies battle with Amazon and Disney
Netflix, Amazon and other video streamers are betting big on India, tantalized by the huge growth potential offered by its more than 1.3 billion people.
On Dec. 14, Netflix slashed prices by up to 60%. Its popular mobile-only plan now costs 149 rupees ($2) per month, down from 199 rupees. A basic subscription that allows a user to watch content on any device has been cut to 199 rupees from 499 rupees. Its most expensive plan, which allows for simultaneous viewing on up to four devices, has been reduced to 649 rupees from 799 rupees, reports Nikkei Asia.
But the reductions might not have gone far enough. The Los Gatos, California-based entertainment giant does not offer annual subscriptions, unlike cheaper rivals Amazon Prime Video and Walt Disney's Disney+Hotstar, which sell yearly plans for 1,499 rupees to access top services in these platforms that offer access to all content. Amazon subscribers also enjoy faster and free deliveries through the conglomerate's e-commerce platform, among other benefits.
SonyLIV dangles an even cheaper annual plan in front of India's highly price-conscious consumers, 999 rupees, while ZEE5 currently sells 12-month packages for 499 rupees.
Analysts say Netflix is trying to reach a wider audience with its price cuts as the premium service's pace of subscriber growth has been unimpressive.
"Netflix has to up the ante! It was more expensive than Amazon and Disney and is falling behind in the subscription numbers," Vineeta Dwivedi, head of digital communications at the Mumbai-based S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, told Nikkei Asia. "Everyone is acing the content game, but the prices have to be comparable. Ultimately, it's about the numbers, and India remains a price-sensitive market which offers a huge and growing user base."
Tapobrati Das Samaddar -- founder of Wordloom Creative Ventures, a company that deals with media, education and performing arts -- concurs. "No matter how much they loved [the content on Netflix], the general public might have thought twice or thrice before investing into its [basic 499-rupee monthly plan] because other platforms were providing far more affordable options," she told Nikkei. "Netfllix's premium pricing was not helping it grow its viewership."
According to research company Media Partners Asia, Netflix had some 4.6 million subscribers in India in 2020, Amazon Prime 17 million and Disney+Hotstar 26 million. The three providers entered India in either 2015 or 2016 and are now focusing on local content as they chase viewers in every part of the country.
Netflix's move in India contrasts with the rate hike it imposed on Japan in early 2021. The previous year, Netflix added roughly 2 million subscribers in the East Asian country to bring its total there to over 5 million.
"Netflix's pricing strategy is something of an enigma," Dwivedi said, "which creates great interest [among] media watchers around the world. Slashing prices in India while raising [them] elsewhere is a strategic long-term move to capture a larger share of the market."
Disney+Hotstar leads the pack in India, mostly thanks to its cricket offerings. The platform streams Indian Premier League and other domestic and international matches, a big draw in this cricket-crazy nation.
Amazon Prime Video will start streaming live cricket on Saturday as part of a deal with the New Zealand cricket board. "Cricket is undoubtedly the most loved sport in India," Gaurav Gandhi, country head of Amazon Prime Video, India, said in a Dec. 20 statement, "and our collaboration with New Zealand Cricket underlines our commitment to give our customers what they want."
Amazon Prime Video thus will start offering what it hopes will be a trifecta of Indian programming -- cricket, Bollywood movies and regional content to suit a multilingual, multicultural nation.
During the CII Big Picture Summit in November, Gandhi spoke about the growth prospects of India's streamers. "It's very early days," he said, "and there is a huge headroom for growth as unique, original content is created."
Other factors will play a role, Gandhi said, including India's young demographics and affordable data plans.
Roughly 65% of India's population is under the age of 35, a segment which the streamers are keen to tap. As for the cheap data plans, they are the result of stiff competition among telcos like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel that are trying to reach even small cities and towns.
Along with its potential subscriber bonanza, India presents a unique challenge with its multilingual, multicultural population. Amazon Prime Video is trying to meet the challenge by offering movies made in several of the nation's languages with English subtitles and, in some cases, Filipino and Bahasa Melayu subtitles so that people across the country and in other nations can watch them.
Amazon Prime Video's local language content currently reaches over 4,000 Indian cities and towns.
Globally, the company said, movies made in Indian languages are being watched in about 170 countries, with international viewers accounting for 15% to 20% of their total audiences.
The platform also offers gripping Indian originals, including "The Family Man," a spy drama, and "Made in Heaven," a series set in a marriage bureau.
Netflix is also spending big on local content. In March, it announced that it is taking its "next big leap in India to bring you more than 40 powerful and irresistible stories from all corners of the country." Among these are the now released relationship drama "Ajeeb Daastaans," family drama "Sardar ka Grandson," and mystery-thriller "Aranyak."
"While Netflix, Disney+Hotstar and Amazon Prime compete in the attention economy, comparing them is nothing short of comparing apples, oranges and watermelons," Shahan Sud, an investment professional at Indian Angel Network, told Nikkei. "Each has a different niche that they are catering to."
Notwithstanding the price cut, Sud said, Netflix "is still grossly overpriced and will face difficulty" in scaling itself across India despite some of its rivals gradually increasing their subscription fees after having started with much lower price bands.
The video streaming industry as a whole, however, is set to expand impressively. RBSA Advisors expects India's video-streaming market to grow to $12.5 billion in 2030 from $1.5 billion in 2021. "With access to better networks, digital connectivity and smartphones, OTT platforms in India have been increasingly attracting subscribers on a concurrent basis," it said in a July report, pointing out that adoption of digital streamers increased manyfold after the coronavirus pandemic struck at the beginning of 2020.
In India, video-streaming platforms are often referred to as OTT, or over-the-top, services.
"The next 100 million is from India," Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings said in 2018 at The Economic Times Global Business Summit, in New Delhi. He was referring to the number of subscribers the streamer hoped to bag in the country in the years to come.
Finding them remains an uphill task.
Brazil's Amazon deforestation surges to worst in 15 years
The area deforested in Brazil's Amazon reached a 15-year high after a 22% jump from the prior year, according to official data published Thursday.
The National Institute for Space Research’s Prodes monitoring system showed the Brazilian Amazon lost 13,235 square kilometers of rainforest in the 12-month reference period from Aug. 2020 to July 2021. That's the most since 2006.
The 15-year high flies in the face of Bolsonaro government’s recent attempts to shore up its environmental credibility, having made overtures to the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and moved forward its commitment to end illegal deforestation at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow this month. The space agency's report, released Thursday, is dated Oct. 27 — before talks in Glasgow began.
Also read: At COP26, over 100 countries pledge to end deforestation
Before Jair Bolsonaro’s term began in Jan. 2019, the Brazilian Amazon hadn’t recorded a single year with more than 10,000 square kilometers of deforestation in over a decade. Between 2009 and 2018, the average was 6,500 square kilometers. Since then, the annual average leapt to 11,405 square kilometers, and the three-year total is an area bigger than the state of Maryland.
“It is a shame. It is a crime,” Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups, told The Associated Press. "We are seeing the Amazon rainforest being destroyed by a government which made environmental destruction its public policy."
Bolsonaro took office with promises to develop the Amazon, and dismissing global outcry about its destruction. His administration has defanged environmental authorities and backed legislative measures to loosen land protections, emboldening land grabbers. This week at a conference in the United Arab Emirates to attract investment, he told the crowd that attacks on Brazil for deforestation are unfair and that most of the Amazon remains pristine.
Brazil's environment ministry didn't immediately respond to an AP email requesting comment on the Prodes data showing higher deforestation.
Also read: Amazon deforestation accelerates by 34.5 pct by July
The state of Para accounted for 40% of deforestation from Aug. 2020 to July 2021, according to the data, the most of any of nine states in the Amazon region. But its year-on-year increase was slight compared to Mato Grosso and Amazonas states, which together accounted for 34% of the the region's destruction. The two states suffered 27% and 55% more deforestation, respectively.
And early data for the 2021-2022 reference period signals further deterioration. The space agency’s monthly monitoring system, Deter, detected higher deforestation year-on-year during both September and October. Deter is less reliable than Prodes, but widely seen as a leading indicator.
“This is the real Brazil that the Bolsonaro government tries to hide with fantastical speeches and actions of greenwashing abroad,” Mauricio Voivodic, international environmental group WWF's executive director for Brazil, said in a statement after release of the Prodes data. “The reality shows that the Bolsonaro government accelerated the path of Amazon destruction.”
Richard Branson announces trip to space, ahead of Jeff Bezos
Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson is aiming to beat fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos into space by nine days.
Branson’s company announced Thursday evening that its next test flight will be July 11 and that its founder will be among the six people on board. The winged rocket ship will soar from New Mexico — the first carrying a full crew of company employees. It will be only the fourth trip to space for Virgin Galactic.
The news came just hours after Bezos’ Blue Origin said Bezos would be accompanied into space on July 20 by a female aerospace pioneer who’s waited 60 years to rocket away.
Also read: Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit reaches space on 2nd try
Bezos chose July 20 as his West Texas launch date — the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. He assigned himself to the flight just a month ago, the final stretch in a yearslong race to space between the two rich rocketeers.
Amazon’s founder will be on Blue Origin’s debut launch with people on board, accompanied by his brother, the winner of a $28 million charity auction and Wally Funk, one of the last surviving members of the Mercury 13 who was chosen as his “honored guest.” The 13 female pilots passed the same tests as NASA’s original Mercury 7 astronauts back in the early 1960s, but were barred from the corps — and spaceflight — because they were women.
As late as Wednesday, Branson declined to say when he would ride into space because of restrictions placed on him by his publicly traded company. But he stressed he was “fit and healthy” to fly as soon as his engineers give him the go.
“I’ve always been a dreamer. My mum taught me to never give up and to reach for the stars. On July 11, it’s time to turn that dream into a reality aboard the next @VirginGalactic,” he said via Twitter.
Virgin Galactic launches its rocket ship from an aircraft, reaching an altitude of roughly 55 miles (88 kilometers). Blue Origin launches its New Shepard rocket from the ground, with its capsule soaring to about 66 miles (106 kilometers). Both those heights are considered the edge of space. By comparison, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches its capsules — both crew and cargo — into orbit around Earth.
Also read: Jeff Bezos will blast into space on rocket s 1st crew flight
All three private space companies plan to take paying customers into space. SpaceX will be the first with a private flight coming up in September.
Flights by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin last about 10 minutes, with three or so minutes of weightlessness. But the returns are quite different: Virgin Galactic’s rocket plane glides to a landing on a runway, like NASA’s old space shuttles did, with a pair of pilots in charge. Blue Origin’s automated capsules parachute to the desert floor, similar to how NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules made ocean splashdowns. Their spaceports are just 200 miles (320 kilometers) apart.
Funk, at age 82, will become the oldest person to launch into space when Blue Origin takes its turn.
“I’ll love every second of it. Whoooo! Ha-ha. I can hardly wait,” Funk said in an Instagram video posted by Bezos.
“Nothing has ever gotten in my way,” she added. “They said, ‘Well, you’re a girl, you can’t do that.’ I said, ’Guess what, doesn’t matter what you are. You can still do it if you want to do it and I like to do things that nobody has ever done.”
She’ll beat the late John Glenn, who set a record at age 77 when flying aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1998. Glenn pooh-poohed the idea of women flying in space, shortly after he became the first American to orbit the world in 1962.
“No one has waited longer,” Bezos said via Instagram. “It’s time. Welcome to the crew, Wally.”
Bezos is stepping down as Amazon’s CEO on Monday.
Also read: Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, will step down as CEO
Blue Origin has yet to announce ticket prices or when the public might strap into the spacious six-seat capsule. Its New Shepard rocket is named for Alan Shepard, the first American in space.
Virgin Galactic has more than 600 reservations in the pipeline. These original tickets went for $250,000. The company will start accepting more following the upcoming flight with Branson. Keen to get to space, Funk reserved a seat years ago.
Virgin Galactic plans three more test flights before taking up customers, Branson was initially supposed to be on the second demo coming up, but moved it up in an apparent bid to outdo Bezos. He said Wednesday, after his other company Virgin Orbit launched a batch of satellites, that it’s important for his customers to see him ride his rocket ship first, before they climb on board.
In Brazil’s Amazon, rivers rise to record levels
Rivers around the biggest city in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest have swelled to levels unseen in over a century of record-keeping, according to data published Tuesday by Manaus’ port authorities, straining a society that has grown weary of increasingly frequent flooding.
The Rio Negro was at its highest level since records began in 1902, with a depth of 29.98 meters (98 feet) at the port’s measuring station. The nearby Solimoes and Amazon rivers were also nearing all-time highs, flooding streets and houses in dozens of municipalities and affecting some 450,000 people in the region.
Read:In Argentina, doctors adapt as COVID-19 strains hospitals
Higher-than-usual precipitation is associated with the La Nina phenomenon, when currents in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean affect global climate patterns. Environmental experts and organizations including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say there is strong evidence that human activity and global warming are altering the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, including La Nina.
Seven of the 10 biggest floods in the Amazon basin have occurred in the past 13 years, data from Brazil’s state-owned Geological Survey shows.
“If we continue to destroy the Amazon the way we do, the climatic anomalies will become more and more accentuated,” said Virgílio Viana, director of the Sustainable Amazon Foundation, a nonprofit. ” Greater floods on the one hand, greater droughts on the other.”
Large swaths of Brazil are currently drying up in a severe drought, with a possible shortfall in power generation from the nation’s hydroelectric plants and increased electricity prices, government authorities have warned.
But in Manaus, 66-year-old Julia Simas has water ankle-deep in her home. Simas has lived in the working-class neighborhood of Sao Jorge since 1974 and is used to seeing the river rise and fall with the seasons. Simas likes her neighborhood because it is safe and clean. But the quickening pace of the floods in the last decade has her worried.
“From 1974 until recently, many years passed and we wouldn’t see any water. It was a normal place,” she said.
Read:At least 25 dead during Brazilian police raid in Rio
Aerial view of streets flooded by the Negro River in downtown Manaus. (AP Photos/Nelson Antoine)
When the river does overflow its banks and flood her street, she and other residents use boards and beams to build rudimentary scaffolding within their homes to raise their floors above the water.
“I think human beings have contributed a lot (to this situation,” she said. “Nature doesn’t forgive. She comes and doesn’t want to know whether you’re ready to face her or not.”
Flooding also has a significant impact on local industries such as farming and cattle ranching. Many family-run operations have seen their production vanish under water. Others have been unable to reach their shops, offices and market stalls or clients.
“With these floods, we’re out of work,” said Elias Gomes, a 38-year-old electrician in Cacau Pirera, on the other side of the Rio Negro, though noted he’s been able to earn a bit by transporting neighbors in his small wooden boat.
Gomes is now looking to move to a more densely populated area where floods won’t threaten his livelihood.
Read:3 killed, 27 hospitalized after boat capsizes off San Diego
Limited access to banking in remote parts of the Amazon can make things worse for residents, who are often unable to get loans or financial compensation for lost production, said Viana, of the Sustainable Amazon Foundation. “This is a clear case of climate injustice: Those who least contributed to global warming and climate change are the most affected.”
Meteorologists say Amazon water levels could continue to rise slightly until late June or July, when floods usually peak.
Amazon, Google register for VAT
Tech giants Google and Amazon acquired Business Identification Number (BIN) from the National Board of Revenue last week to run their business in Bangladesh while ensuring value added tax (VAT) compliance.
The companies will now pay a 15% VAT on revenue earned from the country.
Read NBR looking to procure non-intrusive inspection systems for export-import items
Google got its VAT registration certificate on May 23 and Amazon on May 27. These tech giants earlier paid VAT through banks.
Both companies got the BIN as non-residential companies. PwC Bangladesh, the consultant appointed by both ventures, did the paperwork processing for them and will act as their VAT consultant.
Read PROGGA, ATMA for imposing specific taxes on tobacco products
Guaraná: The edible 'eyes of the Amazon'
The pristine stretch of sand on Ponta da Maresia beach is a gathering point in the Brazilian town of Maués. Early risers head down to swim in warm waters that have neither waves nor salt, for the beach is on the banks of the Maués-Acú River in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, some 1,000km from the ocean.
The beach only emerges for a few months of the year, from August onwards, at the start of the dry season when the river levels drop. This time of year also marks the start of the guaraná season, when the fruit native to the Maués region begins to ripen, its red skins bursting open to reveal white flesh and a black seed that bears a disconcerting resemblance to an eyeball, reports BBC.
Maués is one of the top guaraná-producing regions in Brazil. Both its economy and its culture revolve around the fruit, whose seeds are highly prized for their stimulant and medicinal properties and find their way around the world into everything from fizzy drinks to energy drinks such as Monster and Rockstar, as well as medicines and cosmetics. It's an industry worth millions of dollars to the Brazilian economy each year.
Guaraná contains high levels of caffeine – as much as four times that of coffee beans, as well as other psychoactive stimulants (including saponins and tannins) associated with improved cognitive performance. And numerous research papers explore its potential in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antidepressant, intestinal regulator and even an aphrodisiac.
Maués might be dubbed the "land of guaraná" but the fruit's history long predates the town. The Sateré-Mawé indigenous people have been cultivating guaraná in their ancestral forests nearby for millennia. It was their ancestors who domesticated the species, learned of its properties and devised the best cultivation and processing techniques.
It was only 352 years ago, however, that the earliest written record of guaraná appeared, when the Sateré-Mawé first came into contact with Europeans. The year was 1669, and a Jesuit priest, João Felipe Betendorf, on one of the many missions sent by the Portuguese crown to open up the Amazon and extract its riches, wrote of a "little fruit, which [the Sateré-Mawé] dry and crush, forming balls which they value as the whites value gold". Portuguese colonisers in the 18th Century also described guaraná as the Sateré-Mawé's "most precious asset" and of its use "as currency for payments". By the early 19th Century, records describe an intense commerce of the Amazonian fruit as far and wide as Bolivia, Argentina and even Europe, where it was "greatly appreciated" by the men of science at the International Exhibition in London in 1862.
The Sateré-Mawé had a monopoly on the production of guaraná (or waraná, in their language) up until the late 19th Century, but to talk of their connection to it in purely commercial terms is to entirely miss the political, moral, cultural and spiritual significance it has.
"For us, it's a mystical plant. It's the origin of our people" explained Obadias Batista Garcia, president of the General Council of the Sateré-Mawé Tribe (CGSTM).
Their oral legends describe how they descended from a murdered child, whose eye was buried and grew into the first waraná plant, from which the first Sateré-Mawé person emerged. Garcia tells me their origin story in as concise a way as he can, but it's a bit like explaining the Bible or the Quran in 10 minutes. "It's a long story," he said afterwards. "It's something that parents tell their children every night, so we can learn to live, to be leaders, to be good parents and good children."
Just 75km upriver from Maués, the Sateré-Mawé still cultivate guaraná in their traditional way, on 8,000sq km of protected indigenous territory. They gather seedlings from underneath wild guaraná vines (Latin name Paullinia Cupana), which are then transplanted to clearings where they grow into fruit-bearing bushes.
During the harvest season from November through to March, the seeds are washed, roasted, peeled, ground and then mixed with water to be shaped into batons that are left to dry in a smokehouse and can be kept for years. These batons are then grated on a stone and steeped in water to make an earthy-tasting drink called çapó. It's both a daily beverage and the accompaniment to rituals and rites of passage, such as the Festa da Tocandeira, a coming-of-age ceremony for young men. Preparing and drinking çapó has its own set of rules that are observed, such as who should serve the drink to guests, the order in which it must passed around, and that the bowl should never be handed back empty to the host.
Tourists are welcome to visit and learn about the Sateré-Mawé's waraná-making traditions; the community opened up a pousada (guest house) nearly 30 years ago, taking visitors on hikes through their forest and to see handicrafts being made.
Over the centuries, people across the region have learnt the Sateré-Mawé methods for cultivating and processing guaraná, and nowadays some 2,400 families around Maués grow and sell upwards of 500 tonnes of processed seeds in a good year. "The ribeirinhos [traditional riverside communities] in Maués learnt from the Sateré-Mawé," said Ramom Morato, coordinator of the Guaraná Alliance of Maués (AGM), a network set up in 2017 to improve the quality of life for the people of Maués. "They're all family farmers and a lot of them are descendants of indigenous people or identify as indigenous. The process is artisanal and guarantees a high-quality product. The fruit is selectively harvested by hand and the seeds spend hours and hours in clay pans to reach the perfect humidity. It's different to other regions where the process is industrial."
The AGM was instrumental in securing a geographical indication status for guaraná from Maués in 2018, a guarantee of sorts to buyers of a superior quality product. Another focus of the alliance is to develop community tourism initiatives, through local guides such as Ítalo Michiles, who set up Experiência Mawé in 2019. Almost any excursion with Michiles starts and ends on a small motorboat, navigating the vast web of rivers that wiggle and wind through the forest, connecting rural farms and communities. He takes visitors to have a fish lunch with ribeirinhos and see how they cultivate and process guaraná.
Like the Sateré-Mawé, drinking guaraná is part of their daily routine and part of the experience for visitors, too. The ribeirinhos grate the brown guaraná baton using the coarse dried tongue of a pirarucu, one of the world's largest freshwater fish, which can weigh up to 200kg and has – unsurprisingly – a pretty big tongue, about 10cm long.
Visitors can also take in the modern side of guaraná production in Maués, touring plantations belonging to the state-owned agricultural research agency Embrapa, which is developing more productive cloned varieties of guarana; or the 1,000-hectare Santa Helena Farm, which is owned by global drinks giant Ambev. Most of the farm is protected forest but Ambev grows a small amount of guaraná here, sourcing 90% of their guaraná supply from around 2,000 local farmers. The seeds are sent to Manaus where they become the magic ingredient in the fizzy drink Guaraná Antártica, Brazil's answer to Coca-Cola. While many Brazilians have never heard of the Sateré-Mawé, Guaraná Antártica is a household name; they drink nearly 400 million litres of it each year.
There's also the Festa de Guaraná (The Guaraná Festival), set up in 1979 by an enterprising mayor to celebrate the fruit's harvest. The festival is held in late November or early December and it's the highlight of Maués' social and business calendar, drawing tens of thousands of revellers to a three-day celebration on Ponta de Maresias beach.
An all-encompassing line-up of activities generally includes a trade fair, sporting competitions, concerts and even a Guaraná Queen beauty pageant. The Sateré-Mawé waraná legends are liberally reinterpreted on stage as flamboyant musicals, though the indigenous people are notably excluded from the festivities.
"The music starts up at 19:00," Michiles explained. "All along the beach, stalls sell food and drink, and guaraná of course. People drink turbinado ["turbocharged"] – a non-alcoholic shake with guaraná, avocado, peanuts, and dance till 3, 4 or 5 in the morning. Guaraná gives you so much energy."
Chances are, a fair few pensioners are among the crowds that dance till dawn at the festival. The percentage of elderly people in Maués is double Brazil's national average. This curious phenomenon sparked interest in the Brazilian press when it came to light 10 years ago, with TV crews interviewing razor-sharp 90-year-olds who still do a hard day's work outdoors. It could be down to active lifestyles or the lean Amazonian diet, but their regular guaraná habit seems a likely factor, too.
Scientists from three public universities (Brazil's Universidade do Estado do Amazonas and Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, and the University of León in Spain) began a research project in Maués in 2009 to study the impact of guaraná on the local elderly population. Their findings have been published in a handful of scientific papers published in international journals, including a 2011 paper in the monthly journal Phytotherapy Research, which showed that the elderly in Maués who consume guaraná have more protection against metabolic disorders than those who don't.
Of course, the Sateré-Mawé knew of its health- and energy-boosting properties long before it became a global commodity. Guaraná is their gift to the world and they're finally getting recognition for it. In late 2020, the Sateré-Mawé's waraná was awarded a Brazilian Appellation of Origin status – an official recognition of the exclusive link between the product and its place of origin. It's the first time this certification has been granted to an indigenous people in Brazil and will open the door to a similar status (Protected Designation of Origin) granted by the European Union.
"The Appellation of Origin is the recognition of a decades-long fight to defend a product that should not be reduced to a commodity," said Maurizio Fraboni, an Italian development socioeconomist who has been working with the Sateré-Mawé to protect their culture for years, alongside organisations such as Slow Food.
Their annual production of waraná is tiny compared to that of the wider Maués region, but it's sold in 22 countries around the world, to authorised partners who value its quality and its origin. "Commercialising it has given us financial and political autonomy so that we can create our own policies to manage our land," said Garcia. After all, as he put it: "there would be no Sateré-Mawé without waraná and no waraná without the Sateré-Mawé.
Amazon’s profit more than triples as pandemic boom continues
Amazon’s pandemic boom isn’t showing signs of slowing down.
The company said Thursday that its first-quarter profit more than tripled from a year ago, fueled by the growth of online shopping. It also posted revenue of more than $100 billion, the second quarter in a row that the company has passed that milestone.
Amazon is one of the few retailers that has benefited during the pandemic. As physical stores temporarily closed, people stuck at home turned to Amazon to buy groceries, cleaning supplies and more. That doesn’t seem to be dying down.
Also read: Amazon gets Thursday night games, NFL nearly doubles TV deal
In the first three months of this year, the company reported profit of $8.1 billion, compared to $2.5 billion the year before. Earnings per share came to $15.79, about $6 more per share than what Wall Street analysts expected, according to FactSet.
Revenue jumped 44% to $108.5 billion. Seattle-based Amazon is one of four American companies that have reported quarterly revenue above $100 billion. The others are iPhone maker Apple, oil and gas company Exxon Mobil and retailer Walmart.
Also read: Amazon takes early lead as union vote count gets underway
Amazon said revenue will remain at that level in the second quarter, expecting between $110 billion and $116 billion. Part of the reason why: It plans to hold Prime Day, its popular sales event, during the quarter. Amazon didn’t specify a date for Prime Day, but said it would happen before the end of June.
Besides online shopping, Amazon’s other businesses grew, too. Sales at its cloud-computing business, which helps power the online operations of Netflix, McDonald’s and other companies, grew 32% in the quarter. And at its unit that includes its advertising business, where brands pay to get their products to show up first when shoppers search on the site, sales rose 77%.
Amazon’s growth comes as it faces activism from within its workforce. Workers at a warehouse in Alabama tried to unionize, saying they wanted better pay and more break time. But a majority of voters batted down that effort.
This week, Amazon announced it was giving more than 500,000 workers a raise of between 50 cents and $3 an hour starting next month to attract new workers. The company already pays at least $15 an hour.
Also read: Amazon jumps into health care with telemedicine initiative
The online shopping giant has been on a hiring spree to keep up with a surge in orders. It had 1.27 million employees at the end of March, adding more than 430,000 people in the last year.
Shares of Amazon.com Inc., which are up 40% in the last year, rose 2.6% in after-hours trading Thursday.
Amazon takes early lead as union vote count gets underway
Vote counting in the union push at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, is underway but a winner may not be determined until Friday.
By Thursday evening, the count was tilting heavily against the union, with 1,100 workers rejecting it and 463 voting in favor. The count will resume Friday morning.
The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which is organizing the Bessemer workers, said that 3,215 votes were sent in — about 55% of the nearly 6,000 workers who were eligible to vote. The union said hundreds of those votes were contested, mostly by Amazon, for various reasons such as the voter didn’t work there or doesn’t qualify to vote. The union would not specify how many votes were being contested.
Also read: Amazon jumps into health care with telemedicine initiative
The National Labor Relations Board is conducting the vote count in Birmingham, Alabama. In order to determine a winner, the margin of victory must be more than the number of contested votes, otherwise a hearing would be held on whether or not to open the contested votes and count them toward the final tally.
RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum struck a grim tone Thursday in a statement ahead of the results: “Our system is broken, Amazon took full advantage of that, and we will be calling on the labor board to hold Amazon accountable for its illegal and egregious behavior during the campaign. But make no mistake about it; this still represents an important moment for working people and their voices will be heard.”
Amazon could not be reached for immediate comment.
The vote itself has garnered national attention, with professional athletes, Hollywood stars and even President Joe Biden weighing in on the side of the union.
If the union wins, it would be the first in Amazon’s 26-year history. But the vote also has wide-reaching implications beyond Amazon, which is now the second-largest private employer in the U.S. after retailer Walmart.
Also read: Judge says Amazon won’t have to restore Parler web service
Whatever the outcome, labor organizers hope Bessemer will inspire thousands of workers nationwide — and not just at Amazon — to consider unionizing. For Amazon, which has more than 950,000 workers in the U.S. and has fought hard against organizing attempts, a union loss could chill similar efforts around the company.
The labor board has already reviewed each vote, reading names and signatures on the envelopes with representatives from Amazon and the retail union, both of which had a chance to contest those votes. Contested votes were put to the side and not opened.
Now the board is opening the uncontested votes from their envelopes and counting “yes” or “no” votes.
Also read: Swallowing $16B purchase of Flipkart, Walmart cuts outlook
Even if there’s a clear winner, the battle may be far from over. If workers vote against forming a union, the retail union could file objections accusing Amazon of tainting the election in some way, which could lead to to a redo of the election if the labor board agrees. Amazon could file its own objections if the workers vote to form a union.