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As Walmart moves to phase out its familiar blue-vested “greeters” at 1,000 stores nationwide, disabled workers who fill many of those jobs say they’re being ill-treated by a chain that styles itself as community-minded and inclusive. 

 

Walmart told greeters around the country last week that their positions would be eliminated on April 26 in favor of an expanded, more physically demanding “customer host” role. To qualify, they will need to be able to lift 25-pound (11-kilogram) packages, climb ladders and stand for long periods. 

 

That came as a heavy blow to greeters with cerebral palsy, spina bifida and other physical disabilities. For them, a job at Walmart has provided needed income, served as a source of pride and offered a connection to the community.  

Customer backlash

 

Now Walmart, America’s largest private employer, is facing a backlash as customers rally around some of the chain’s most highly visible employees. 

 

Walmart says it is striving to place greeters in other jobs at the company, but workers with disabilities are worried.  

 

Donny Fagnano, 56, who has worked at Walmart for more than 21 years, said he cried when a manager at the store in Lewisburg, Pa., called him into the office last week and told him his job was going away.  

 

“I like working,” he said. “It’s better than sitting at home.” 

 

Fagnano, who has spina bifida, said he was offered a severance package. He hopes to stay on at Walmart and clean bathrooms instead. 

 

Walmart greeters have been around for decades, allowing the retail giant to put a friendly face at the front of its stores. Then, in 2016, Walmart began replacing greeters with hosts, adding responsibilities that include helping with returns, checking receipts to deter shoplifters and keeping the front of the store clean. Walmart and other chains have been redefining roles at stores as they compete with Amazon.  

The effect of the greeter phase-out on disabled and elderly employees — who have traditionally gravitated toward the role as one they were well-suited to doing — largely escaped public notice until last week, when Walmart launched a second round of cuts. 

 

As word spread, first on social media and then in local and national news outlets, outraged customers began calling Walmart to complain. Tens of thousands of people signed petitions. Facebook groups sprang up with names like “Team Adam” and “Save Lesley.” A second-grade class in California wrote letters to Walmart’s CEO on behalf of Adam Catlin, a disabled greeter in Pennsylvania whose mother had written an impassioned Facebook post about his plight. Walmart said it has offered another job to Catlin. 

 

In Galena, Ill., hundreds of customers plan to attend an “appreciation parade” for Ashley Powell on her last day of work as a greeter. 

 

“I love it, and I think I’ve touched a lot of people,” said Powell, 34, who has an intellectual disability. 

‘What am I going to do?’

 

In Vancouver, Wash., John Combs, 42, who has cerebral palsy, was devastated and then angered by his impending job loss. It had taken his family five years to find him a job he could do, and he loved the work, coming up with nicknames for all his co-workers. 

“What am I going to do — just sit here on my butt all day in this house? That’s all I’m going to do?” Combs asked his sister and guardian, Rachel Wasser. “I do my job. I didn’t do anything wrong.” 

 

Wasser urged the retailer to “give these people a fair shake. … If you want to make your actions match your words, do it. Don’t be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” 

 

With the U.S. unemployment rate for disabled people more than twice that for workers without disabilities, Walmart has long been seen as a destination for people like Combs. Advocacy groups worry the company is backsliding.  

“It’s the messaging that concerns me,” said Gabrielle Sedor, chief operations officer at ANCOR, a trade group representing service providers. “Given that Walmart is such an international leader in the retail space, I’m concerned this decision might suggest to some people that the bottom line of the company is more important to the company than inclusive communities. We don’t think those two are mutually exclusive.” 

 

The greeter issue has already prompted at least three complaints to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as a federal lawsuit in Utah alleging discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Under the federal law, employers must provide “reasonable” accommodations to workers with disabilities. 

 

Walmart did not disclose how many disabled greeters could lose their jobs. The company said that after it made the change at more than 1,000 stores in 2016, 80 percent to 85 percent of all affected greeters found other roles at Walmart. It did not reveal how many of them were disabled. 

 

This time, Walmart initially told greeters they would have 60 days to land other jobs at the company. Amid the uproar, the company has extended the deadline indefinitely for greeters with disabilities. 

 

“We recognize that our associates with physical disabilities face a unique situation,” Walmart spokesman Justin Rushing said in a statement. The extra time, he said, will give Walmart a chance to explore how to accommodate such employees. 

Offers made

 

Walmart said it has already made offers to some greeters, including those with physical disabilities, and expects to continue doing so in the coming weeks.  

 

But some workers say they have been tacitly discouraged from applying for other jobs. 

 

Mitchell Hartzell, 31, a full-time Walmart greeter in Hazel Green, Ala., said his manager told him “they pretty much didn’t have anything in that store for me to do” after his job winds down in April. He said he persisted, approaching several assistant managers to ask about openings, and found out about a vacant position at self-checkout. But it had already been promised to a greeter who doesn’t use a wheelchair, he said. 

 

“It seems like they don’t want us anymore,” said Hartzell, who has cerebral palsy. 

 

Jay Melton, 40, who has worked as a greeter in Marion, N.C., for nearly 17 years, loves church, Tar Heels basketball and Walmart. His sister-in-law, Jamie Melton, said the job is what gets him out of bed. 

 

“He doesn’t have a lot of things he does himself that bring him joy,” she said. Addressing Walmart, Melton added: “When you cut a huge population of people out, and you have written a policy that declares they are no longer capable of doing what they have been doing, that is discrimination.”  
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The Federal Reserve will stop shrinking its $4 trillion balance sheet later this year, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday, ending a process that investors say works at cross-purposes with the Fed’s current pause on interest rate hikes. 

“We’ve worked out, I think, the framework of a plan that we hope to be able to announce soon that will light the way all the way to the end of balance sheet normalization,” Powell told members of the House Financial Services Committee in what were his most detailed remarks to date on the subject. 

“We’re going to be in a position … to stop runoff later this year,” he said, adding that doing so would leave the balance sheet at about 16 percent or 17 percent of GDP, up from about 6 percent before the financial crisis about a decade ago. 

The U.S. gross domestic product is currently about $20 trillion, suggesting the Fed’s balance sheet would be between $3.2 trillion and $3.4 trillion. 

The Fed has been trimming its balance sheet — bulked up by trillions of dollars of bond-buying during the post-crisis years to help keep interest rates low and bolster the economy — by as much as $50 billion a month since October 2017. As recently as a few months ago it had expected to keep shrinking its portfolio for another couple of years. 

New tack

But in a series of meetings that began in November, the Fed has been devising a new approach. With rising demand for currency around the world, and from U.S. banks for reserves held at the central bank, Fed policymakers now believe a big balance sheet is necessary just to ensure it has proper control over the short-term interest rates it sets to manage the economy. 

In addition, Fed policymakers now say balance sheet policy should take financial and economic conditions into account. 

Questions about the plan remain, including whether the Fed will adjust the maturities of its Treasury portfolio, and how it will go about shedding the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) it accumulated during its asset-buying days. 

Powell said the Fed still has a bunch of decisions ahead of it. 

“The one on MBS sales is really closer to the back of the line — really, we have to decide about the maturity composition, things like that, and we’ll be working through that in a very careful way,” Powell said.  “Markets are sensitive to this.” 

Powell’s remarks on the balance sheet came toward the end of more than two hours of testimony before the Democrat-led House panel that includes several new members, including New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

But the Green New Deal advocate and Bronx populist asked no questions during the debate, and much of what Powell said on Wednesday repeated comments made Tuesday to the Republican-controlled Senate Banking Committee, including that the economy is on solid ground and the Fed would be patient on raising rates. 

Inflation goal unchanged

Powell was asked, as he was in the Senate, about the Fed’s plan to rethink its policy framework this year. He assured lawmakers that the Fed is merely trying to refine its approach so it can meet its current 2 percent inflation goal. 

“We are not looking at a higher inflation target, full stop,” he said. 

Powell also repeated his warnings against a failure by Congress to raise the debt ceiling, saying there would be “bad consequences” should the United States default on its debt payments. 

Powell by law appears two times a year before Congress to brief members of the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking Committee on monetary policy and the state of the economy. 
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The top U.S. trade official said Wednesday that a new trade deal with China is not close to being completed.

“Much still needs to be done before an agreement can be reached,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told a congressional panel in Washington. “If we can complete this effort, and again I say if, and if we can reach a resolution on the issue of enforceability, we might have an agreement that enables us to turn the corner in our relationship with China.”

The U.S. and China, the world’s two biggest economies, have been negotiating for months on a new agreement, even as they have imposed hefty new tariffs on billions of dollars of each other’s exports.

Lighthizer said the countries’ negotiators, who have been meeting in Washington and Beijing, “are making real progress.”

President Donald Trump cited that progress Sunday in postponing what would have been a sharp increase in U.S. duties on $200 billion in Chinese imports that would have taken effect Friday.

The most recent U.S. statistics show China last year had a $382 billion trade surplus in deals with the United States through November. Trump is trying to alter trade terms between the two countries to end what the U.S., Japan and European countries contend are China’s unfair trade practices, including state intervention in markets, subsidies of some industries and theft of foreign technology.

China has offered to increase its purchase of American farm products and energy as part of a new trade pact.

Members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, urged Lighthizer to reach a wide-ranging trade agreement.
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Volvo’s electric performance brand Polestar is unveiling a battery-powered compact car touted as a rival to Tesla’s Model 3.

The Polestar 2 is a five-door vehicle with a panoramic glass roof, an all-vegan interior and a battery with enough capacity to drive 500 kilometers under European tests for range measurement, or 275 miles under U.S. testing rules.

With 408 horsepower, it should accelerate from zero to 100 kph (0-62 mph) in under five seconds. Polestar said Wednesday that the car’s U.S. price for the launch version will be $55,500 after tax incentives; later a lower-priced version with less range is envisioned.

The car, to be shown at next month’s Geneva auto show, becomes available in 2020.

Volvo Car Group, headquartered in Goteborg, Sweden, is a subsidiary of Chinese automaker Geely.
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Cameroonian police officers, assisted by members of the country’s elite corps, seized hundreds of containers of fuel illegally transported from Nigeria by suspected Central African Republic rebels in the northern town of Mbe, Cameroon.

Rigobert Ojong, a member of a task force of military, police and civil society members created three weeks ago to stop the illegal fuel trade, said the group received a tip that the fuel was on its way to the C.A.R., where it would be used by rebels fighting the central African state’s government. 

“We have put aside personnel dedicated to this fight, within the framework of this task force, and we have been able to intercept about 1,500 drums of fraudulently imported fuel. If we go by the price in the black market, we are talking about more than 3 billion CFA francs [$5 million] a year,” Ojong said.

Cameroon’s government says an unknown quantity of oil is smuggled from Nigeria through its territory because the border is so porous. The military says it has opened an investigation to track dealers who might be collaborating with rebel groups in the C.A.R.

Alleged corruption

Businessman Patrice Essola, who supplies fuel to the C.A.R. from Cameroon, says illegal trade with C.A.R. rebels is facilitated by corrupt government officials in both countries.

He said the rebels and traffickers work in collaboration with corrupt Cameroonian military officials and C.A.R. border immigration staff to import the fuel from Nigeria. Some of the tankers and trucks that smuggle the fuel are even protected by corrupt officials while in Cameroon and in the C.A.R., Essola added.

Kildadi Taguieke Boukar, governor of the Adamawa region that shares a border with the C.A.R., denies corrupt military officials assist rebels and smugglers, but said investigations had been opened.

Each time the traffickers are arrested, they answer charges in courts of law, Boukar said, but added the task is very, very difficult because Cameroon’s borders with Nigeria and the C.A.R. are very porous. All of the fuel will be taken to C.A.R. authorities, he said.

C.A.R. violence, peace deal

In January, Cameroon said 300 of its citizens had been abducted by suspected C.A.R. rebels within the past two years, along with at least 5,000 cattle. Local border communities asked the government to authorize self-defense groups to be equipped with guns to face rebels who they said continued to cross to their villages for supplies.

The C.A.R. was plunged into turmoil in 2013 when Muslim rebels known as the Seleka seized power in the majority-Christian country. A band of mostly Christian militias, called the anti-Balaka, rose up to counter the Seleka. Thousands of people have been killed in the violence and more than one million are internally displaced. An estimated 570,000 people have fled to neighboring countries, with about 350,000 in Cameroon.

On Feb. 2, the U.N. mission in the C.A.R., known as MINUSCA, and the African Union announced that a peace deal between the C.A.R. government and 14 rebel groups had been reached after sponsored talks in Sudan. They called on the C.A.R.’s neighbors to help bring peace by not allowing their borders to be used for supplies or as a hiding ground for fighters who refuse to respect the deal.
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Kenya’s ride-hailing company ‘Little Cab’ is expanding to Tanzania and Ghana. The company will start offering rides in Tanzania’s commercial capital Dar es Salaam next week and plans to launch in Accra by May. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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Relief swept across world financial markets Monday after President Donald Trump pushed back a March 2 deadline in a trade dispute with China.

 

But the respite might not last.

 

The world’s two biggest economies have squared off over Beijing’s aggressive campaign to turn Chinese companies into world leaders in advanced industries such as robotics and electric vehicles. Both sides have said they’ve made progress but haven’t provided much detail.

 

“Popping the champagne today would be premature,” Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a research note.

 

Daco added that vast differences between the two countries “will prevent a significant de-escalation of trade tensions between the two giants.”

 

In the United States, business groups and lawmakers fear that Trump will settle for a deal that doesn’t require China to change its sharp-elbowed business practices.

 

A look at the dispute:

 

What Are the U.S. and CHINA Fighting About?

 

The United States accuses China of deploying predatory tactics in a headlong push to challenge American technological dominance. These, the U.S. says, include: outright theft of trade secrets, forcing foreign companies to hand over technology as the price of access to the Chinese market, and unfairly subsidizing Chinese tech companies and using regulations to hobble their foreign competitors.

 

The accusations elevate the standoff from a typical trade dispute to a battle over whether the United States or China dominates the industries of the future, the outcome of which has implications for national security.

 

Trump is also obsessed with America’s massive trade deficit with China, $336 billion in 2017 and likely higher last year.

 

Critics complain that the administration has been inconsistent about what it wants — sometimes demanding sweeping changes in Chinese economic policy, sometimes seeming willing to settle for China just buying more American stuff to narrow the trade deficit.

 

Robert Daly, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center think tank, said he would be disappointed if the Trump administration settles only for more exports to China and vague promises to make structural reforms. “The Trump administration could have had that in week one,” Daly said.

 

What’s Happened So Far?

 

In July, the Trump administration gradually began slapping import taxes on Chinese goods to pressure Beijing into changing its policies. It now has imposed 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports and 25 percent tariffs on another $50 billion.

 

Twice, Trump has pushed back plans to raise the tariffs on the $200 billion to 25 percent. He extended a Jan. 1 deadline by three months after meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires Dec. 1. And on Sunday, following meetings last week between U.S. and Chinese negotiators, he delayed indefinitely the tariff hike that was scheduled to kick in at 12:01 EST March 2.

 

The U.S. is also restricting Chinese investment in high-tech American industries and U.S. exports of sensitive technology to China.

 

Meanwhile, the Chinese have punched back by slapping import taxes on $110 billion in U.S. goods, focusing on soybeans and agricultural products in a direct shot at Trump supporters in the American farm belt.

 

Forecasters at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have all downgraded their forecasts for the global economy, citing the heightened trade tensions.

 

Are U.S. and Chinese Negotiators Making Headway?

 

They say they are but haven’t provided many particulars. Trump tweeted Sunday that negotiators had made “substantial progress” on issues including protection of intellectual property, coerced tech transfer, currency manipulation and U.S. access to the Chinese farm and services markets among “many other issues.” China’s official Xinhua news agency echoed that assessment.

 

Trump has said he would likely have to meet one-on-one with Xi — probably late next month at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida — to resolve the thorniest issues.

 

What Happens Next?

 

Trump sees the stock market as a measure of the success of his economic policies. Investors’ view is clear: When U.S.-China negotiations go well, American stocks rise. When talks falter, they drop.

 

So the question is whether Trump, having taken U.S.-China economic relations to the brink, has the patience to hold out in the face of likely stock-market volatility for an enforceable deal that requires China to change its behavior. Or whether he’ll agree to more exports and promises of change.

 

“If the U.S. has already achieved quite a bit, and we are just clarifying the details of substantial Chinese concessions, then that’s not a huge concern,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “But if the U.S. has come away with very little in terms of binding commitments (after dropping the tariff deadline), then the chance of getting more in the coming weeks could be quite low.”

 

Daly at the Wilson Center faulted the administration for not imposing a new deadline. “They are expert at the use of time and delay until conditions have changed and leverage has been lost, to get a better outcome,” he said.

 

Trump has also alarmed Canada and critics by suggesting the U.S. might drop criminal charges against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, in a quest to cut a deal. The U.S. has charged Huawei with lying about violating sanctions against Iran and with stealing trade secrets. Canada arrested Meng Dec. 1 at America’s request and is weighing whether to extradite her to the United States. China arrested two Canadians in apparent retaliation.

 

Former Canadian Ambassador to China David Mulroney tweeted Monday that “it’s now the US that has to hang tough, and not sell out its integrity in Huawei case for a trade deal with China.”
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