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Judd Legum Profile picture
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29 Nov, 13 tweets, 5 min read
1. America is a country where if a man steals thousand of dollars in merchandise from a store it’s front page news but if a corporation steals millions in wages from its employees it’s basically ignored

I have the receipts.

Follow along if interested.

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
2. In June, a reporter tweeted a cellphone video of a man in Walgreens filling a garbage bag with stolen items. According to San Francisco's crime database, the value of the merchandise stolen in the incident was between $200 and $950.

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
3. This single incident generated 309 media stories between June 14 and July 12. It continues to garner coverage today, including in the New York Times, USA Today, and CNN

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
4. The incident is frequently presented as "proof" that there are no consequences for shoplifting. But the man in the video, Jean Lugo-Romero, was arrested about a week later.

Lugo-Romero faces 15 charges and is currently incarcerated without bail.

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
5. Just a few months earlier, in November 2020, Walgreens paid a $4.5 million settlement to resolve a class-action lawsuit alleging that it stole wages from thousands of its employees in California.

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
6. How much coverage did Walgreens massive wage theft generate? There was a single 221-word story in Bloomberg Law, an industry publication. And that's it.

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
7. While Lugo-Romero is behind bars, no one at Walgreens has had to take personal responsibility for stealing millions from its employees.

Stefano Pessina, Walgreens' CEO during most of the alleged wage theft saw his compensation rise from 7.1M to 17.5M

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
8. Failure to pay minimum wage is just one type of wage theft. A 2017 study of 10 states estimated that wage theft just for failure to pay minimum wage was $15 BILLION ANNUALLY

THIS IS MORE THAN THE VALUE OF STOLEN GOODS IN ALL PROPERTY CRIMES

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
9. Shoplifting is just a fraction of property crimes since more than half of the value of stolen property comes from theft of vehicles and currency.

Nevertheless, media coverage of shoplifting vastly exceeds media coverage of wage theft.

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
10. A search of United States publications in the Nexis news database reveals 11,631 stories mentioning shoplifting so far in 2021. Over the same period, the same outlets published just 2,009 stories mentioning wage theft.

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
11. For continuing coverage of wage theft and more accountability journalism, subscribe to my newsletter, Popular Information.

This is coverage you aren't going to find elsewhere.

And it's free to sign up!

popular.info/subscribe
12. The federal government also has basically given up on policing wage theft.

In 1948 there were 1,000 investigators to protect 22.6 million workers

Today, there are 765 federal investigators to protect 143 million workers

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…
13. While Walgreens workers in CA were able to file a class-action lawsuit and recover some of their lost wages, that is not an option available to millions

Corporations require employees to sign away their access to courts as a condition of employment

popular.info/p/a-tale-of-tw…

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More from @JuddLegum

Judd Legum Profile picture
1 Dec
1. In Tennessee, a complaint was filed alleging that a book on MLK violated a new law banning Critical Race Theory

I've found out a lot more about the people behind the complaint, their vision for history education, and the impact on teachers

popular.info/p/moms-for-lib… Image
2. The complaint about the MLK book was filed by Robin Steenman, chair of the Williamson County chapter of Moms For Liberty.

But Steenman does not have any children in Tennessee public schools.

How do I know?

popular.info/p/moms-for-lib…
3. In deleted tweets from August 2020 obtained by popular.info, Steenman said she would "never" send her kids to public schools and described public school teachers as "brainwashing assholes."

popular.info/p/moms-for-lib… Image
Read 10 tweets
Judd Legum Profile picture
30 Nov
1. As the 2022 games near, the International Olympic Committee (@Olympics) are in "active collaboration with Chinese authorities" to coverup the censoring and disappearance of Peng Shuai, the tennis star who accused a top Chinese politician of rape

popular.info/p/olympic-spon…
@Olympics 2. Complicit in all of this are the 14 primary Olympic sponsors. Despite requests for comment, all the sponsors have remained silent on the IOC, the Chinese government and Peng.

popular.info/p/olympic-spon… Image
3. Someone who has not been silent is @naomiosaka, who has been an outspoken advocate for Peng

Osaka recently signed an endorsement deal with @panasonic, an Olympic sponsor

@panasonic said it partnered w/Osaka because she "takes social issues seriously"

popular.info/p/olympic-spon…
Read 7 tweets
Judd Legum Profile picture
29 Nov
A Tennessee chapter of "Moms for Liberty" filed a complaint with the Tennessee Department of Education alleging that assigning 2nd Graders a book about MLK Jr's March on Washington violated the state's new law banning Critical Race Theory
The Tennessee Department of Education declined to "investigate" but for a technical reason. The complaint dealt with curriculum during the 2020-21 school year and not the current school year.

tennessean.com/story/news/edu…
So Moms for Liberty could refile the complaint and they might be successful next time. Their issue with the MLK book are two images that are historically accurate.

This is what these anti-CRT bills are about.
Read 6 tweets
Judd Legum Profile picture
23 Nov
UPDATE: A judge has overturned Strickland’s conviction. He will soon be released after serving 43 years for a crime he did not commit.

The last time he was free he was 18 years old.
Missouri, unlike other states, provides NO COMPENSATION for exonorees.

Strickland, whose health has declined and uses a wheelchair, has no resources.

The Midwest Innocence Project has set up a fundraiser: gofundme.com/f/help-kevin-s…
Strickland has spent 15,487 days behind bars.

He was 18 when he was first arrested and is now 62.
Read 4 tweets
Judd Legum Profile picture
23 Nov
1. A new bill would subject Ohio to a more extreme abortion ban than Texas.

It would outlaw all abortions.

It may even prohibit certain kinds of birth control.

The sponsors of the bill are backed by prominent corporations.

Follow along if interested.

popular.info/p/these-corpor…
2. Major corporate contributors to the sponsors of Ohio's extreme abortion ban:

@Nationwide
@GetSpectrum
@firstenergycorp
@GM
@DukeEnergy
@pfizer
@AnthemInc
@UnitedHealthGrp
@JNJNews (Johnson & Johnson)
@ATT

popular.info/p/these-corpor…
3. The Ohio bill would ban all abortion.

It defines an "unborn child" as "an individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth."

This definition is so broad, it could prohibit common forms of birth control

popular.info/p/these-corpor…
Read 9 tweets
Judd Legum Profile picture
22 Nov
1. You've probably heard a lot about Kyle Rittenhouse in the last few days.

But how much have you heard about Kevin Strickland?

He's been behind bars for 43-years for a crime the COUNTY PROSECUTOR now says he didn't commit.

Follow along if interested.

popular.info/p/the-43-year-…
2. Strickland was convicted on three counts of murder for a 1978 triple homicide and sentenced to 50 years w/o the possibility of parole

There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime

His conviction was based almost entirely on one eyewitness

popular.info/p/the-43-year-…
3. That witness, Cynthia Douglas, recanted her identification.

On February 4, 2009, Douglas sent an email to the Missouri Innocence Project with the subject "Wrongfully charged."

popular.info/p/the-43-year-…
Read 15 tweets

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