martes, 30 de diciembre de 2014
Bank of America violates ADA, will pay $110,000
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| Bank of America in Chicago failed to make adjustments for a blind employee. |
Bank of America will pay $110,000 to a former
temporary worker and provide other equitable relief under a consent decree
resolving a disability discrimination case brought by the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency announced today.
The EEOC alleged that Bank of America failed
to accommodate a visually impaired data entry worker and instead terminated his
temporary assignment at one of the bank's branches in downtown Chicago after
one day on the job.
Such alleged conduct violates the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires that employers provide reasonable
accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. This can include
making adjustments or modifications in the workplace that enable an employee with
a disability to perform the essential functions of his job. For example, an
employer may be required to provide screen magnifying software that would
enable an employee with a visual impairment to perform essential computer work. Questions and answers about blindness, visual
impairments and the ADA are available on the EEOC's website.
The EEOC filed suit (EEOC v. Bank of
America, N.A., Civil Action No. 11-cv-6378, September 13, 2011 in the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of Illinois), after first attempting
to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation process. U.S.
District Judge Milton I. Shadur entered the decree resolving the suit December
18. In addition to monetary relief for the former employee, the decree includes
an injunction requiring the bank provide reasonable accommodations to temporary
and contingent workers at its branches throughout Illinois, provides for
training about the ADA's requirements and imposes recordkeeping and reporting
requirements for the duration of the decree.
"Of the millions of working-age Americans
with vision loss, research has shown that fewer than half are employed, An
employer of the size and sophistication of Bank of America, which employs an
enormous number of people working at computer terminals, ought to be a national
leader in employing individuals with disabilities, including vision loss, and a
leader in ADA compliance generally," said John Hendrickson, EEOC Chicago
district regional attorney. "We're optimistic that this consent decree is
going to prompt that kind of progress at Bank of America, not only because it's
the law, but also because it's the right thing to do."
The EEOC's Chicago District Office is responsible
for processing charges of discrimination, administrative enforcement, and the
conduct of agency litigation in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and North
and South Dakota, with area offices in Milwaukee and Minneapolis.
viernes, 19 de diciembre de 2014
Crisis del ébola acerca a Estados Unidos y Cuba(1)
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| Médicos cubanos en albergues para personas con ébola en Africa. |
¿Cuándo fue la última vez que un alto funcionario de
Estados Unidos elogió a Cuba públicamente? ¿Y desde cuándo el gobierno
cubano se ofrece a cooperar con los estadounidenses?
Es raro que los políticos de estos dos países
se desvíen de la sospecha y la intransigencia que han impedido la colaboración
productiva entre ambos durante más de medio siglo, desde que Estados Unidos
impuso un embargo comercial, económico y financiero a Cuba en 1960, poco
después de que Fidel Castro llegara al poder en la isla caribeña en 1959.
Y eso es precisamente lo que sucedió en las
últimas semanas, cuando el secretario de Estado, John Kerry, y la embajadora
estadounidense ante la Organización de las Naciones Unidas, Samantha Power,
hablaron a favor de la intervención médica de Cuba en África occidental, y el
presidente cubano, Raúl Castro, y su antecesor Fidel Castro expresaron su
voluntad de cooperar con los esfuerzos estadounidenses para frenar la epidemia
de ébola que se desató en diciembre de 2013 en la región.
El ébola causó más de 6,.000 muertes en África
occidental hasta la fecha y generó el temor del resto del mundo, por lo que
tiene pocos elementos positivos. Pero uno de ellos puede ser la oportunidad de
cambiar la naturaleza de las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Cuba, para el
bien general.
No desperdicien la
oportunidad
“Uno nunca quiere que
las crisis graves se desperdicien”, llegó a decir el actual alcalde de Chicago,
Rahm Emanuel. “Con eso me refiero a una oportunidad de hacer cosas que pensabas
que no podías hacer antes”, añadió.
El presidente
estadounidense, Barack Obama, debería prestarle atención a su exjefe de
gabinete y no desperdiciar la oportunidad que presenta la crisis del ébola.
Los dirigentes políticos de la Casa Blanca, en
Washington, y del Palacio de la Revolución, en La Habana, podrían transformar
la lucha contra una amenaza en común en una cooperación conjunta que no solo
promueva los intereses nacionales de ambos países, sino que también signifique
un avance de los derechos humanos en el Sur en desarrollo, ya que el derecho a
la salud es un derecho humano.
Las condiciones políticas están dadas. Los
estadounidenses respaldan con firmeza las medidas enérgicas contra el ébola y
elogiarían a un presidente que hiciera más hincapié en la cooperación médica y
en salvar vidas que en la ideología y el resentimiento.
En el sexto de una serie de editoriales que
sostienen la necesidad de un cambio en la política de Washington hacia Cuba, el
diario “The New York Times" pidió a Obama que deje de aplicar una política que
facilita la deserción a Estados unidos de los médicos cubanos que prestan
asistencia médica en servicios en el exterior, por su naturaleza hostil y su
impacto negativo en las poblaciones que reciben el apoyo y la atención de los
profesionales cubanos en África, América Latina y Asia.
“Es incongruente que Estados Unidos valore la
contribución de los médicos cubanos que son enviados por su gobierno a ayudar
en las crisis internacionales, como el terremoto de Haití de 2010, mientras que
trabaja para subvertir a ese gobierno al facilitar tanto la deserción”, señaló
el editorial. Se debe enfatizar y no obstaculizar el fomento de los aportes
médicos cubanos, agregó.
A medida que se conoce más sobre las gestiones
sanitarias de Cuba en el plano internacional se hace menos razonable que
Washington presuponga que toda la presencia cubana en el mundo en desarrollo
sea perjudicial para los intereses estadounidenses.
La apertura constante a la cooperación
bilateral con Cuba de parte de instituciones de salud gubernamentales, el
sector privado y fundaciones con sede en Estados Unidos puede desencadenar
dinámicas positivas para actualizar la política de Washington hacia La Habana.
También enviará una señal más amigable a la reforma económica y la
liberalización política en la isla.
Lea Beneficio, Página 2Crisis del ébola acerca a Estados Unidos y Cuba(2)
 |
| Médicos cubanos atienden a una paciente con ébola en Africa. |
Beneficio,
Página 2
El potencial de cooperación entre Cuba y
Estados Unidos va mucho más allá de la prevención y la derrota del ébola.
Nuevas pandemias en el futuro próximo podrían poner en peligro la seguridad
nacional, la economía y la salud pública de otros países, a la vez que
causarían la muerte de miles de personas, frenarían los viajes y el comercio y
fomentarían la histeria xenófoba. En este momento dramático, la Casa Blanca
debe pensar con claridad y creatividad.
Como el país líder del hemisferio occidental,
Estados Unidos debería proponer la creación de una estrategia de respuesta y
cooperación integral frente a las crisis sanitarias a nivel continental en la
próxima Cumbre de las Américas, que se celebrará en Panamá en abril de 2015.
Como ya expresaron muchos países de América Latina, Cuba debe estar incluida en
esa ocasión.
Cuba desarrolló una amplia pericia médica en
el país y el extranjero, con más de 50,000 médicos y profesionales de la salud
que prestan sus servicios en 66 países. Las medidas de prevención, la detección
temprana, los controles estrictos de las infecciones y la coordinación de la
respuesta en casos de desastres naturales son partes esenciales del enfoque
cubano para cortar las pandemias de raíz.
La falta de alguno de esos elementos en los
sistemas de salud ya colapsados explica los fracasos en la gestión que
acrecentaron el impacto del ébola en África occidental.
Cuando Obama era senador y candidato
presidencial, fue uno de los mayores críticos de la política que veía a Cuba
mediante el prisma de la Guerra Fría. Ahora que es presidente, no alcanza con
que actualice la misma política de embargo que aplicaron sus antecesores. Debe
adaptar el discurso oficial de Washington sobre la Cuba posterior a Fidel: no
es una amenaza para Estados Unidos, sino un país en transición hacia una
economía mixta y una fuerza positiva para la salud mundial.
jueves, 18 de diciembre de 2014
miércoles, 17 de diciembre de 2014
Shale oil poses risks, controversy for Argentina(1)
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| Loma Campana is Argentina's second largest oil field producer. |
Unconventional oil and gas reserves in Vaca Muerta in southwest
Argentina hold out the promise of energy self-sufficiency and development for
the country. But the fracking technique used to extract this treasure from
underground rocks could be used at a huge cost.
The landscape begins to change when you get about 100 km from
Neuquén, the capital of the province of the same name, in southwest Argentina.
In this area, dubbed “the Saudi Arabia of Patagonia”, fruit trees are in bloom
and vineyards stretch out green towards the horizon, in the early southern
hemisphere springtime.
But along the roads, where there is intense
traffic of trucks hauling water, sand, chemicals and metallic structures, oil
derricks and pump stations have begun to replace the neat rows of poplars which
form windbreaks protecting crops in the southern region of Patagonia.
“Now there’s money, there’s work – we’re
better off,” truck driver Jorge Maldonado said. On a daily basis he transports
drill pipes to Loma Campana, the shale oil and gas field that has become the
second-largest producer in Argentina in just three years.
It is located in Vaca Muerta, a geological
formation in the Neuquén basin which is spread out over the provinces of
Neuquén, Río Negro and Mendoza. Of the 30,000 sq km area, the state-run YPF oil
company has been assigned 12,000 sq km in concession, including some 300 sq km
operated together with U.S. oil giant Chevron.
Vaca Muerta has some of the world’s biggest
reserves of shale oil and
gas, found at depths of up to 3,000 meters.
A new well is drilled here every three days,
and the demand for labor power, equipment, inputs, transportation and services
is growing fast, changing life in the surrounding towns, the closest of which
is Añelo, eight km away.
“Now I can provide better for my children, and
pay for my wife’s studies,” said forklift operator Walter Troncoso.
According to YPF, Vaca Muerta increased
Argentina’s oil reserves ten-fold and its gas reserves forty-fold, which means
this country will become a net exporter of fossil fuels.
But tapping into unconventional shale oil and
gas deposits requires the use of a technique known as hydraulic fracturing or
“fracking” – which YPF prefers to refer to as “hydraulic stimulation”.
According to the company, the technique
involves the high-pressure injection of a mix of water, sand and “a small
quantity of additives” into the parent-rock formations at a depth of over 2,000
meters, in order to release the trapped oil and gas which flows up to the
surface through pipes.
Víctor Bravo, an engineer, says in a study
published by the Third Millennium Patagonia Foundation, that some 15 fractures
are made in each well, with 20,000 cubic meters of water and some 400 tons of
diluted chemicals.
The formula is a trade secret, but the estimate
is that it involves “some 500 chemical substances, 17 of which are toxic to
aquatic organisms, 38 of which have acute toxic effects, and eight of which are
proven to be carcinogenic,” he writes. He adds that fracking fluids and the gas
itself can contaminate aquifers.
Neuquén province lawmaker Raúl Dobrusin of the
opposition Popular Union bloc said: “The effect of this contamination won’t be
seen now, but in 15 or 20 years.”
In Loma Campana, Pablo Bizzotto, YPF’s
regional manager of unconventional resources, played down these fears, saying
the parent-rock formations are 3,000 meters below the surface while the groundwater
is 200 to 300 meters down. “The water would have to leak thousands of meters
up. It can’t do that,” he said.
Read Fracking, Page 2
Shale oil poses risks, controversy for Argentina(2)
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| About 24,000 oil barrels a day are produced in this Loma Campana field. |
Fracking, Page 2
Besides, the “flowback water”, which is
separated from the oil or gas, is reused in further “hydraulic stimulation”
operations, while the rest is dumped into “perfectly isolated sink wells,” he
argued. “The aquifers do not run any risk at all,” he said.
But Dobrusin asked “What will they do with the
water once the well is full? No one mentions that.”
According to Bizzotto, the seismic intensity
of the hydraulic stimulation does not compromise the aquifers either, because
the fissures are produced deep down in the earth. Furthermore, he said, the
wells are layered with several coatings of cement and steel.
“We want to draw investment, generate work,
but while safeguarding nature at the same time,” Neuquén’s secretary of the
environment, Ricardo Esquivel said.
In his view, “there are many myths”
surrounding fracking, such as the claim that so much water is needed that water
levels in the rivers would go down.
Neuquén, he said, uses five percent of the
water in its rivers for irrigation, human consumption and industry, while the
rest flows to the sea. Even if 500 wells a year were drilled, only one percent
more of the water would be used, he maintained.
But activist Carolina García with the Multisectorial contra el Fracking group
stated: “That water is not left in the same condition as it was when it was
removed from the rivers; the hydrologic cycle is changed. They are minimizing a
problem that requires a more in-depth analysis.”
She pointed out that fracking is questioned in
the European Union and that in August Germany adopted an eight-year moratorium
on fracking for shale gas while it studies the risks posed by the technique.
YPF argues that these concerns do not apply to
Vaca Muerta because it is a relatively uninhabited area.
“The theory that this is a desert and can be
sacrificed because no one’s here is false,” said Silvia Leanza with the Ecosur
Foundation.
“There are people, the water runs, and there
is air flowing here,” she commented. “The emissions of gases and suspended dust
particles can reach up to 200 km away.”
Nor does the “desert theory” ring true for
Allen, a town of 25,000 people in the neighboring province of Río Negro, which
is suffering the effects of the extraction of another form of unconventional
gas, tight gas sands, which refers to low permeability sandstone reservoirs
that produce primarily dry natural gas.
In that fruit-growing area, 20 km from the
provincial capital, the fruit harvest is shrinking as the number of gas wells
grows, drilled by the U.S.-based oil company Apache, whose local operations in
Argentina were acquired by YPF in March.
“Going around the farms it’s easy to see how
the wells are occupying what was fruit-growing land until just a few years ago.
Allen is known as the ‘pear capital’, but now it is losing that status,”
lamented Gabriela Sepúlveda, of APCA Allen-Neuquén.
A well exploded in March, shaking the nearby
houses. It wasn’t the first time, and it’s not the only problem the locals have
had, Rubén Ibáñez, who takes care of a greenhouse next to the well, said.
“Since the wells were drilled, people started feeling dizzy and having sore
throats, stomach aches, breathing problems, and nausea.”
“They periodically drill wells, a process that
lasts around a month, and then they do open-air flaring. I’m no expert, but I
feel sick,” he said. “I wouldn’t drink this water even if I was dying of
thirst. When I used it to water the plants in the greenhouse they would die.”
The provincial government says there are
constant inspections of the gas and oil deposits.
“In 300 wells we did not find any
environmental impact that had created a reason for sanctions,” environment
secretary Esquivel said.
“We have a clear objective: for Loma Campana, as the first place that
unconventional fossil fuels are being developed in Argentina, to be the model
to imitate, not only in terms of cost, production and technique, but in
environmental questions as well,” Bizzotto said.
“All technology has uncertain consequences,”
Leanza said. “Why deny it? Let’s put it up for debate.”
lunes, 15 de diciembre de 2014
domingo, 14 de diciembre de 2014
miércoles, 10 de diciembre de 2014
lunes, 8 de diciembre de 2014
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