October 12, 2019

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Business October 12, 2019

Yoga Instructors Are Unionizing

NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with yoga instructor Markella Los about forming the first yoga union in the United States.



SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:

Yoga is a very big business in this country. Americans spend billions of dollars annually on yoga classes, but many instructors say they’re not getting their fair share. So next week, more than a hundred yoga teachers who work for the YogaWorks chain in New York City will vote on whether they will certify as a union. They want better pay, benefits and job security. And they’re backed by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. To learn more about this, we called Markella Los. She’s a yoga instructor in New York City who’s involved in this union organizing. Markella, welcome.

MARKELLA LOS: Hi Sacha. Thanks for having me on.

PFEIFFER: Could you give us a sense of what are the kinds of work conditions for yoga teachers that motivated this unionization movement?

LOS: One of the biggest issues that we face as yoga teachers at YogaWorks but also in the industry as a whole is the lack of job security. We are at-will employees, which means that we could be let go at anytime for any reason with zero severance. We also don’t have any benefits. So even though our job is physically demanding and sort of emotionally and mentally demanding, we don’t have any benefits that other workers typically have.

And we also really want to have a voice on the job. As the ones on the ground, we have a lot of valuable information to share, both in terms of what our students need but also in terms of being, like, stewards of this practice. And so we really want to be able to stand up for the integrity of what we do, our work.

PFEIFFER: What kind of response have you received from YogaWorks in your effort to unionize?

LOS: The initial response we got was not exactly what we were hoping for. The emails that we got were actually full of quite a bit of misinformation and what I’ve come to see as, you know, a pretty typical union-busting tactics – telling us that we’d have to pay really high dues, that there would be a flat rate, that we’d lose all power. Since then, there’s been a changeover in the CEO position. And his tone so far seems to be different. He seems to be taking a different approach. But we have yet to see what actually happened. So, you know, the proof will be in the action. And also, the offer to recognize us still stands, and he hasn’t taken us up on that either. So we’ll see.

PFEIFFER: Markella, how many yoga instructors are involved in this unionization effort?

LOS: Our group of yoga teachers that gets to vote next week is about 120. Our current unionization effort only affects the four YogaWorks studios in New York City. So it’s not like an – a whole industry-wide thing at the moment, but we are hoping to at the very least get the conversation going, which we’ve already been pretty successful at and hopefully sort of, like, pave the way for other people to figure out in what way they can use their collective voice.

PFEIFFER: There’s an irony that if a wellness industry, at least from the point of view of its workers, is not being that mindful of the wellness of its workers. Do you view it that way in terms of pay and benefits?

LOS: That’s so well-said. That’s been a really big part of this. You know, we offer so much to our students. And we’re members of our community. And we’re not asking for the moon. We really just want to feel like we’re also taken care of so that we can continue to take care of other people. And in order to really provide the service that we’re providing, we need some basic security and some basic rights.

PFEIFFER: That’s Markella Los. She’s a yoga instructor for YogaWorks in New York City, and she’s part of the push to unionize yoga instructors there. Markella, thank you.

LOS: Thank you so much.

PFEIFFER: We reached out to YogaWorks for a comment, but the company has yet to respond.

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Sports October 12, 2019

Eliud Kipchoge Dashes Past 2-Hour Marathon Barrier In Assisted Event

Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge celebrates after busting the elusive two-hour barrier for the marathon Saturday in Vienna.

Alex Halada/AFP via Getty Images


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Alex Halada/AFP via Getty Images

Three-time Olympic medalist Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run a marathon in under two hours, clocking in at 1:59:40 as he passed the finish line Saturday morning in Vienna, Austria.

“It has taken 65 years for a human being to make history in sport, after Roger Bannister made history in 1954,” Kipchoge, who’s Kenyan, said in an interview with NTV Kenya shortly after the race.

Bannister broke the 4-minute mile record at an athletic meet in Oxford in May 1954.

“No human is limited,” Kipchoge said.

Kipchoge, the reigning Olympic marathon champion, was already a leading figure in the race to break the 2-hour mark, which the race’s organizer, chemicals company Ineos, called “the last great barrier of modern athletics.”

The ability of a human to run that fast wasn’t even considered possible until the 1990s In 1991, Dr. Michael Joyner published a paper that estimated the fastest time for a human to run a marathon at 1:57:58.

“It’s validating to me, but Mr. Kipchoge did all the running,” Joyner said in a phone interview with NPR.

A short distance before the end of the 26.2 miles, a mere 20 seconds before the fabled two hours were up, Kipchoge pointed at the roaring crowds on either side of him, beating his chest as he crossed. He embraced his wife, Grace Sugutt, before his team piled in on a tidal wave of admiration.

Today we went to the Moon and came back to earth! I am at a loss for words for all the support I have received from all over the world.

Thank you to all who gave me the opportunity. Asante. pic.twitter.com/0HTVBjB6YY

— Eliud Kipchoge (@EliudKipchoge) October 12, 2019

“Today we went to the Moon and came back to earth! I am at a loss for words for all the support I have received from all over the world,” Kipchoge tweeted.

A video posted on Twitter by the National Olympic Committee for Kenya showed the crowd in Eldoret, Kenya – Kipchoge’s hometown – cheering and jumping as his record time was announced. According to Citizen Digital, a Kenyan news organization, Kipchoge will have a street named after him in Eldoret when he returns.

On the Hauptallee, a stretch of tree-bordered road that runs through Prater park, where the course was set, teammates lifted Kipchoge up on their shoulders, draping a Kenyan flag around his shoulders.

In several interviews, Kipchoge has compared his attempt to beat two hours to the effort that goes into putting a man on the moon.

Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge’s sub-two-hour time, although unofficial, is another achievement in the world of marathon running for the Olympic gold medalist.

ALEX HALADA/AFP via Getty Images


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ALEX HALADA/AFP via Getty Images

Kipchoge, 34, had come to dominate the world of marathon running, winning the Chicago Marathon in 2014, the Berlin and London marathons in 2015, and the London Marathon in 2016.

He competed in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, snagging the gold medal in the marathon.

The following year, 2017, saw Kipchoge win another Berlin Marathon and participate in Nike’s Breaking2 event, a marathon held on a Formula One racetrack in Monza, Italy. It was the first marathon Kipchoge ran where he sought to break the two-hour mark, assisted by a team of pacesetters who acted as a windshield running in a V-formation around him. The assistance would mean that, if he beat two hours, the record would stand as unofficial.

On May 6, 2017, he crossed the finish line in Monza 25 seconds past the two-hour mark.

Undeterred, in 2018 Kipchoge won the London Marathon, then turned around and competed in the Berlin Marathon later that year.

At the time, the men’s marathon world record was 2:02:57, held by fellow Kenyan marathoner Dennis Kimetto. Kipchoge beat that time by a minute and 18 seconds, coming in at 2:01:39. He now held the men’s world record for the first time in his life.

If he had stopped then, he would have gone down as one of history’s best marathoners. But the glory of the record in Berlin meant that legendary sub-2-hour record, which had eluded him a year before, was back in his sights.

Saturday’s feat that tested the upper limits of physical prowess, however, will not be officially recognized as a world record by the International Association of Athletics Federations, much like the Breaking2 event. The race, held in Prater park in the heart of Vienna, was not an open event, the course in the park was evened ahead of time and Kipchoge had a team of 41 pacesetters with him, running in rotating teams of seven.

“Remember, the 41 pacemakers are among the best athletes ever, in the whole world,” Kipchoge said. Among them was Matthew Centrowitz, who earned a gold medal for the U.S. in the men’s 1500 meters at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Kipchoge was also guided by an electric car that projected a green laser, moving at the pace needed to beat two hours, according to the IAAF.

Kipchoge’s shoes were also the subject of much interest. He tied on Nike’s new model of the NEXT% shoe, equipped with a carbon-fiber plate.

Dr. Joyner said it is all about maximizing the runner’s energy economy.

“There’s less energy loss with each foot strike. They’ve tuned it so that the recoil properties of the shoe optimize the ability of the runner to apply force to the ground.”

Between the shoes, the pacers, the closed race and the electric car, Joyner said that the phrase “assisted” in conjunction with Saturday’s marathon needs to be put in context, especially in comparison to Roger Bannister’s mile 65 years ago.

“Bannister had two pacers, the track at Oxford had been recently refurbished, Bannister was a medical student working on maximum human performance, and his shoes had special ultralight spikes,” Joyner said. “I see many parallels between him and Mr. Kipchoge.”

What an epic achievement! So inspirational ? @EliudKipchoge ?? #NoHumanIsLimited @INEOS159 #ineos159 #ineos159challenge pic.twitter.com/zLpzXQhvWs

— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) October 12, 2019

“Hearty congratulations @EliudKipchoge. You’ve done it, you’ve made history and made Kenya proud while at it. Your win today, will inspire tens of future generations to dream big and to aspire for greatness. We celebrate you and wish you God’s blessings.” – President Kenyatta

— State House Kenya (@StateHouseKenya) October 12, 2019

The lack of sanction has, however, not deterred Kipchoge’s supporters. He’s now trending on Twitter, and many professional runners and other athletes have voiced their support, like four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome. According to The Associated Press, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta called Kipchoge shortly after the race.

“You’ve made history and made Kenya proud while at it,” Kenyatta tweeted.

Alexander Tuerk is an intern at Here and Now.

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Health October 12, 2019

Heads Up: A Ruling On The Latest Challenge To The Affordable Care Act Is Coming

The latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act, Texas v. Azar, was argued in July in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Attorney Robert Henneke, representing the plaintiffs, spoke outside the courthouse on July 9.

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Gerald Herbert/AP

A decision in the latest court case to threaten the future of the Affordable Care Act could come as soon as this month. The ruling will come from the panel of judges in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard oral arguments in the Texas v. Azar lawsuit.

An estimated 24 million people get their health coverage through programs created under the law, which has faced countless court challenges since it passed.

In court in July, only two of the three judges — both appointed by Republican presidents — asked questions. “Oral argument in front of the circuit went about as badly for the defenders of the Affordable Care Act as it could have gone,” says Nicholas Bagley, a professor of law at the University of Michigan. “To the extent that oral argument offers an insight into how judges are thinking about the case, I think we should be prepared for the worst — the invalidation of all or a significant part of the Affordable Care Act.”

Important caveat: Regardless of this ruling, the Affordable Care Act is still the law of the land. Whatever the 5th Circuit rules, it will be a long time before anything actually changes. Still, the timing of the ruling matters, says Sabrina Corlette, director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University.

“If that decision comes out before or during open enrollment, it could lead to a lot of consumer confusion about the security of their coverage and may actually discourage people from enrolling, which I think would be a bad thing,” she says.

Don’t be confused. Open enrollment begins Nov. 1 and runs at least through Dec. 15, and the insurance marketplaces set up by the law aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

That’s not to underplay the stakes here. Down the line, sometime next year, if the Supreme Court ends up taking the case and ruling the ACA unconstitutional, “the chaos that would ensue is almost possible impossible to wrap your brain around,” Corlette says. “The marketplaces would just simply disappear and millions of people would become uninsured overnight, probably leaving hospitals and doctors with millions and millions of dollars in unpaid medical bills. Medicaid expansion would disappear overnight.

“I don’t see any sector of our health care economy being untouched or unaffected,” she adds.

So what is this case that — yet again — threatens the Affordable Care Act’s very existence?

A quick refresher: When the Republican-led Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, it zeroed out the Affordable Care Act’s penalty for people who did not have health insurance. That penalty was a key part of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the law in 2012, so after the change to the penalty, the ACA’s opponents decided to challenge it anew.

Significantly, the Trump administration decided in June not to defend the ACA in this case. “It’s extremely rare for an administration not to defend the constitutionality of an existing law,” says Abbe Gluck, a law professor and the director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale University. “The administration is not defending any of it — that’s a really big deal.”

The basic argument made by the state of Texas and the other plaintiffs? The zero dollar fine now outlined in the ACA is a “naked, penalty-free command to buy insurance,” says Bagley.

Here’s how the argument goes, as Bagley explains it: “We know from the Supreme Court’s first decision on the individual mandate case that Congress doesn’t have the power to adopt a freestanding mandate, it just has the power to impose a tax.” So therefore, the argument is that “the naked mandate that remains in the Affordable Care Act must be unconstitutional.”

The case made by the plaintiffs goes further, asserting that because the individual mandate was described by the Congress that enacted it as essential to the functioning of the law, this unconstitutional command cannot be cut off from the rest of the law. If the zero dollar penalty is unconstitutional, the whole law must fall.

Last December, a federal judge in Texas agreed with that entire argument. His judgement was appealed to the panel of judges in the 5th Circuit. Even if those judges agree that the whole law is unconstitutional, that would not be the end of the story — the case will almost certainly end up before the Supreme Court. It would be the third case to challenge the Affordable Care Act in the nation’s highest court.

So if the ruling will be appealed anyway, does it matter? “It matters for at least two reasons,” Bagley says. “First of all, if the 5th Circuit rejects the lower court holding and decides that the whole law is, in fact, perfectly constitutional, I think there’s a good chance the Supreme Court would sit this one out.”

On the other hand, if the 5th Circuit invalidates the law, it almost certainly will go the Supreme Court, “which will take a fresh look at the legal question,” he says. Even if the Supreme Court ultimately decides whether the ACA stands, “you never want to discount the role that lower court decisions can play over the lifespan of a case,” Bagley says.

The law has been dogged by legal challenges and repeal attempts from the very beginning, and experts have warned many times about the dire consequences of the law suddenly going away. Nine years in, “the Affordable Care Act is now part of the plumbing of our nation’s health care system,” Bagley says. “Ripping it out would cause untold damage and would create a whole lot of uncertainty.”

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