[Plura-list] Chevron bought the US justice system; Chickenized reverse-centaurs; Announcing "The Shakedown"

[Cory Doctorow]

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I'm speaking at two more events this week!

Fri: World Ethical Data Forum https://worldethicaldataforum.org/wedf-2020

Fri: "The Future You" with Brian David Johnson
https://www.changinghands.com/event/march2021/brian-david-johnson-future-you-break-through-fear-and-build-life-you-want

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Today's links

* Chevron bought the US justice system: It was cheaper than paying its
$9.8b fine for ecocide.

* Chickenized reverse-centaurs: Can Amazon drivers get justice?

* Announcing "The Shakedown": Rebecca Giblin and I wrote a book about
creative worker exploitation!

* This day in history: 2020

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current
writing projects, current reading

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👩🏼‍🦼 Chevron bought the US justice system

You know that free-floating sense that multinational corporations are
above the law, able to buy their way out of consequences for even the
most blatant, heinous crimes?

There's a (nearly) unbelievable, highly concrete example  of it underway
right at this moment.

It's the story of Steven Donziger, a campaigning lawyer who sued Chevron
for its ecocide in Ecuador, a genocide against indigenous people,
committed with cooperation from a brutal military dictatorship.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/02/free-steven-donziger/#free-donziger

Donziger managed the impossible. He secured a conviction against
Chevron, and a $9.8 billion judgment against the company, owed to the
indigenous people they poisoned, whose lands and bodies remain poisoned
and sick to this day.

Now, if you're an exec at Chevron and you value money more than life,
the rational move that proceeds from this judgment is straightforward:
any legal maneuver that costs *less* than $9.8b is your fiduciary duty
to your shareholders.

Give it to Chevron: buying your way out of red-handed genocidal
environmental racism is an art form, and they are masters.

First, Chevron paid $2m relocating Ecuadoran judge Albert Guerra to the
US, where he testified that the the Ecuadoran fine was the result of a
bribe.

Chevron paid for Guerra and his family to move to the USA, paid for his
immigration process, paid his income tax, and coached him for 53 days
before he appeared in the Southern District of New York Court of Judge
Lewis A Kaplan.

Kaplan believed Guerra, and continued to believe him even after Guerra
recanted his testimony and admitted that he'd lied at Chevron's behest.

Six other courts, including the Supreme Courts of Ecuadoran and Canada,
have upheld the fine against Chevron.

Why would Kaplan believe Guerra after Guerra said he was lying? Maybe it
has something to do with Kaplan's own legal background: before he was a
judge, he was a corporate lawyer working for a firm that represented
tobacco companies in cancer liability lawsuits.

Kaplan used Guerra's testimony to convict Donziger on civil racketeering
charges. Chevron brought the charges, and cannily, they dropped their
demand for monetary compensation, which meant Donziger couldn't get a
jury trial.

But the fact that Chevron didn't seek monetary damages doesn't mean what
you'd expect: after Kaplan ruled against Donziger, the judge hit him
with an order to pay Chevron millions in court fees.

Worse still, he ordered Donziger to turn over his laptop and phone - not
to the court, but to Chevron, who would then get access to his
privileged attorney-client communications with the victims of Chevron's
ecocide, opening those people to violent retaliation.

Donziger appealed the order. Kaplan then charged him with a misdemeanor
for having the temerity to appeal. This was so chickenshit that the
District Attorney refused to take up the case, so Kaplan appointed a
corporate lawfirm that fronts for Big Oil to prosecute Donziger.

This firm, Seward & Kissel, has a blue-chip roster of climate criminals
for clients, including Chevron itself. They are prosecuting Donziger in
front of Judge Loretta Preska, whom Kaplan hand-picked to hear the case
(he had to violate SDNY procedures to make this happen).

Preska is a member of the Federalist Society, a corporate-backed law
organization whose major donors include Chevron.

Donziger is fighting this with his hands tied behind his back. Not only
did Kaplan get him disbarred (there's a pending appeal), but he had him
*arrested*.

Donziger is the only person in the entire USA who is in pre-trial
detention for a misdemeanor. The only one. He's been under house arrest
for more than 580 days. The maximum sentence for the misdemeanor is 180
days. He still hasn't had a trial.

Donziger spoke to Esquire's Jack Holmes about his case, describing how
Kaplan has barred him and his Ecuadoran clients from seeking enforcement
of the judgement anywhere in the USA.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a35812573/steven-donziger-chevron-house-arrest/

Preska, the Federalist Society judge whom Kaplan picked to hear the
contempt charge, has denied his request for a jury trial.

Donziger calls it "corporate political prosecution" and calls himself "a
corporate political prisoner."

This is bigger than the judgment against Chevron. As Donziger says, "if
you can't do this kind of legal work to hold these polluters
accountable, the destruction of the earth will happen at a faster pace."

The corporate takeover of the justice system isn't an abstract
conspiracy theory. It is very specific, and it is playing out before our
eyes, in a courtroom in New York City.

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👩🏼‍🦼 Chickenized reverse-centaurs

AI researchers talk about "centaurs" - machine-human collaborative teams
that outperform either computers or people. The greatest chess players
in the world are collaborations between chess-masters and chess software.

But not all centaurs are created equal. A "reverse centaur" is what
happens when a human is made to assist a machine, rather than the other
way around. Amazon may not have invented the reverse centaur, but they
perfected it.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/reverse-centaur/#reverse-centaur

Take the "Mechanical Turk," a massive cohort of precarious,
sub-minimum-wage pieceworkers who do human decision support for
automated processes. There's a reason that South Asian labor activists
say "AI" stands for "absent Indians."

Or Amazon warehouse automation: Amazon warehouse robots can't
pick-and-pack the items they locate, so they shuttle them to human
pickers at a dangerous tempo. The more automated an Amazon warehouse
becomes, the more injuries it reports.

https://www.ft.com/content/087fce16-3924-4348-8390-235b435c53b2?shareType=nongift

Reverse-centaurism isn't the only human-life-destroying area where
Amazon leads. It's also a leader in "chickenization," a labor economics
term that comes from the US poultry industry, where workers are
misclassified as independent contractors.

The poultry packers have divided the country into noncompeting
territories, so "independent" farmers only have one vendor who'll take
their birds. The farmers have to buy their chicks from that monopolist,
who also specs their feed, medicine and housing.

The farmers are told everything - except what they'll be paid. When the
farmers bring their birds to market, the monopolist exploits its
information asymmetry advantage to offer just enough for the farmer to
start over again, but not enough to get ahead or out of debt.

Chickenization is like avian flu: prone to jumping its niche and
spreading virulently to every corner of the world. Chickenization is now
rampant across all labor markets, from call-centers:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/02/chickenized-by-arise/#arise

to medical care:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/18/always-get-their-rationalisation/#telehealth

Amazon loves chickenization, too. Its Flex delivery program uses
employees misclassified as independent contractors, paying sub-minimum
wage. The company subjects these drivers to constant overt and covert
surveillance.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/02/free-steven-donziger/#chickenized-flex

But as bad as Flex is, it's not the end-state of Amazon's innovative
workplace terrors. For that, you need to look at Delivery Service
Partners (DSP), a workforce of chickenized reverse-centaurs. This is
some peak innovation right here.

Writing for Wired, Caitlin Harrington describes the suffocating horror
of chickenized reverse-centaurs.

Amazon claims that DSP drivers don't work for them. Instead, they work
for "entrepreneurs" who buy Amazon delivery vans and pay drivers to
operate them.

https://www.wired.com/story/some-amazon-drivers-have-had-enough-can-they-unionize/

There are 158,000 DSP drivers, working for 2,500 DSPs. They wear Amazon
uniforms and drive Amazon vans. Amazon packs those vans with
reverse-centaur gear: Rabbit (realtime tracking), Mentor (automatic
driver-scoring) and Netradyne (a mesh of always-on AI spy cameras).

Amazon DSP vans have Netradyne cameras inside and out, including one
that is always trained on drivers' faces, performing digital phrenology
on them, scoring them based on junk-science microexpression detection
and other imaginary metrics.

Now DSP drivers aren't just expected to match an impossible machine pace
by limiting water intake so bathroom breaks won't derail the 300
packages they deliver during a 10-hour shift.

Netradyne cameras are next-level reverse-centaurism. They make sure
you're not yawning while you deliver 300 packages during a 10-hour shift
- and if you do, they deduct points and notify your manager.

And because they're both chickenized and reverse-centaured, DSP drivers
are left with little recourse. Amazon doesn't allow any individual DSP
to 40 vans. That means that if a DSP's drivers unionize, Amazon can just
cut its contract with the DSP and put them all out of work.

Unions are (maybe) finally coming to Amazon's US ops. The union drive at
the Bessemer, AB warehouse could be the start of a new era for Amazon
and its workers: fair wages and safe working conditions for the
workforce that we've all come to depend on.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/19/deastroturfing/#real-power

But that won't help DSP drivers win wage- and condition-parity with
other drivers in the industry (UPS's unionized drivers make $38/h plus
benefits and pensions). DSP doesn't work for Amazon, they work for an
Amazon contractor.

But as Harrington points out, there is precedent for this kind of
fragmented workforce attaining labor justice. In the 1980s, large firms
fired their custodial staff and replaced them with subcontractors
working for staffing firms.

The Justice For Janitors movement targeted the companies where these
workers showed up for work, not the companies that sent them a paycheck.
This got all the subcontractors' janitors ready to unionize: they signed
union-cards en masse and doubled their wages.

Justice for Janitors didn't have to contend with the kind of digital
controls Amazon has mastered - but they also didn't have access to the
Discord and Reddit forums where DSPs are organizing today.

And Biden's NLRB is seeking to strike down Trump's annihilation of the
"joint employer" classification that Obama used to force McDonald's
franchisees to bargain with their workers.

The 1935 National Labor Relations Act was wise to worker
misclassification, and allowed workers to provided service to a company
to unionize. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 gutted this protection by
excluding contractors from collective bargaining.

Flex drivers - and Uber drivers and other "gig economy" chickenizees -
are prisoners to this exemption, and the PRO Act, which is headed for a
showdown with the GOP in the Senate, would fix it, restoring the right
to unionize.

Follow @amazonda3 to learn more about Amazon drivers' campaign for fair
wages and decent treatment.

https://twitter.com/amazonda3


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👩🏼‍🦼 Announcing "The Shakedown"

Back in 2018, I appeared onstage in Melbourne with Rebecca Giblin, a
lawyer and researcher who specializes in copyright's relationship to
artist compensation for a panel called "How do artists get paid?"

https://www.wheelercentre.com/events/how-do-writers-get-paid

It was a fantastic, intense discussion and even more intense was our
chat in the taxi afterwards, where we talked about the specific ways
that creative labor markets are open to abuse.

It's not just that people make art for intrinsic reasons and will
continue to do so even under miserable circumstances, even if they can
do better - it's that copyright is totally inadequate (and sometimes
counterproductive) as a labor law.

As creative markets have grown more concentrated - thanks to lax merger
scrutiny and an official policy of welcoming monopolies as "efficient" -
the bargaining power at every level of the industry has grown more unequal.

A market with one national brick-and-mortar retailer, one global digital
retailer, four major publishers, two social media companies, etc etc is
not a market that we can fix by handing more copyright to artists.

Giving a writer more copyright under those circumstances is like giving
your kid extra lunch money to replace the money the bullies take at the
school-gates every morning. No matter how much money you give your kid,
the bullies will take that, too.

Think of how Amazon traps writers with Kindle exclusives, which locks
their work perpetually to Amazon's own platform using DRM. Or how Disney
refuses to pay royalties to writers of bestselling novelizations:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/19/disneymustpay/#disneymustpay

Worse: the tech and media companies that operate these "market"
monopolies use them to seize creators' *artistic* monopolies
(copyrights) and then invoke copyright law whenever their dominance is
challenged.

Governments might punish a company for its monopoly, but they'll
actively help it defending its copyrights. A market monopoly based on
creative monopolies isn't just sheltered from legal liability - it can
use IP law to punish its competitors.

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

No just monopolies.

Markets dominated by excessive buying-power (monoposonies) are far more
common than markets dominated by selling-power (monopolies) and they're
*much* worse for workers, including creative workers.

As Rebecca and I discussed all this in that Melbourne taxicab, something
germinated in Rebecca's mind; later, as she pursued her research, she
kept returning to those themes. Eventually, she realized she wanted to
make a book from them.

Last year, during the pandemic lockdown (much more thorough in Melbourne
than LA!), Rebecca and I worked on a book called THE SHAKEDOWN, and this
week, we can announce that it will be published by Beacon Press!

THE SHAKEDOWN is a book about the way that excessive buying power in
creative labor markets lets giant corporations steal from creators - and
how creators can push back.

This isn't one of those "Chapter 11" books, where you get ten chapters
of terrible news, and then an eleventh chapter called "What you can do
about it," full of anodyne advice about writing to your lawmaker or
switching to ethical sellers.

This is a book about historical and novel ways of rebalancing the power
of workers against the massive corporations that squeeze them, from
unionization to limits on contracting law, from interoperability to
licensing regulations.

It lays out the way that creative labor markets from games to movies to
books to music to news and beyond have been cornered by rapacious,
dishonest giants who use the same tactics that destroy the livelihoods
of all kinds of workers.

It connects the struggles of creative workers to all workers struggles,
and proposes a theory of change grounded in solidarity and systemic
action - while focusing on the distinctive tools available to creative
workers.

The book is out in 2022, and we're just finished the manuscript now. I
couldn't be more excited about this, and I'm incredibly grateful to
Rebecca for her invitation to collaborate with her, and to Paul Lucas
for selling the book, and Joanna Green for buying it!

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👩🏼‍🦼 This day in history

#1yrago The worst Democrat in Congress just lost his job
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/19/gb-whatsapp/#lipinski-slain

#1yrago Africa's Facebook modders are world leaders
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/19/gb-whatsapp/#self-determination

#1yrago Data is the New Toxic Waste
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/19/gb-whatsapp/#oily-rags-r-us

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👩🏼‍🦼 Colophon

Today's top sources: Naked Capitalism (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/).

Currently writing:

* My next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and
reconciliation. Yesterday's progress: 524 words (117721 total).

* A short story, "Jeffty is Five," for The Last Dangerous Visions.
Yesterday's progress: 262 words (8885 total).

* A cyberpunk noir thriller novel, "Red Team Blues." Yesterday's
progress: 1048 words (33112 total).

Currently reading: Analogia by George Dyson.

Latest podcast: Privacy Without Monopoly: Data Protection and
Interoperability (Part 3)
https://craphound.com/news/2021/02/28/privacy-without-monopoly-data-protection-and-interoperability-part-3/

Upcoming appearances:

* World Ethical Data Forum Fireside Chat with Charlie Stross, Mar 19,
https://worldethicaldataforum.org/wedf-2020

* Launching "The Future You" with Brian David Johnson, Mar 19,
https://www.changinghands.com/event/march2021/brian-david-johnson-future-you-break-through-fear-and-build-life-you-want

*  Balancing Worldbuilding and Narrative (with Karen Osborne and Kali
Wallace), Mar 24,
https://ucsd.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YSvD5IjGS7Su2z-xhQN1ZA

* Interop: Self-Determination vs Dystopia (FITC), Apr 19-21,
https://fitc.ca/presentation/interop/

Recent appearances:

* Conspiracy Theories (Utopian Horizons):
https://soundcloud.com/utopianhorizons/conspiracy-theory-w-cory-doctorow

* Canadian Speculative Fiction (Unknown Worlds):
https://unknownworlds.podbean.com/e/canadian/

* Who Uses the Users? (This Machine Kills)
https://soundcloud.com/thismachinekillspod/48-who-uses-the-users-ft-cory-doctorow

* Technology, Self-Determination, and the Future of the Future (CERIAS)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yC_hBDS-RU

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59
(print edition:
https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/9781736205907)
(signed copies:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially,
provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link
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https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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"*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla*" -Joey "Accordion
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