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In the days before a recent ballot referendum in Seattle that would determine the future of social housing in the city, large tech companies spent big. Amazon and Microsoft, both of which are headquartered in the Seattle metropolitan area, each donated $100,000, and opponents of a tax to fund social housing spent a combined $780,000 in the lead-up to the February 11 vote. Despite this, the vote on a corporate tax to fund the citys social housing authority won, with 63% of voters supporting it. In 2023, voters had already resoundingly approved the social housing authority, agreeing that a new entity would be created to acquire and construct mixed-income housing and keep it permanently affordable and under the citys ownership. But this February, voters were asked to return to the polls to determine how to fund the authorityor whether it would be funded at all. The first question on the ballot asked if voters approved of funding the new authority using payroll taxes. Next, voters had to choose whether they wanted a new 5% payroll tax on individual compensation above $1,000,000, paid by companies, or to use an existing payroll tax that mostly funds affordable housing. The new tax could bring in $52 million of funding each year for social housing. The second option would appropriate $10 million a year for five years that had already been set aside. The citys big tech companies had no interest in paying a new tax. In addition to contributions from Amazon and Microsoft, Seattles Chamber of Commerce donated $40,000 and T-Mobile donated $20,000 to derail an additional tax on companies. But according to Tiffani McCoy of House Our Neighbors, a Seattle nonprofit that has been one of the lead supporters of the social housing authority, the influx of spending actually hurt Big Techs case. Frankly, Amazon donating was a godsend for us, McCoy says. We capitalized on the fact that Amazon and Microsoft were dumping in $100,000, and we made clear to voters that these corporations dont want you to have social housing. McCoy says the campaign to fund the social housing authority with a corporate tax sent mailers, paid for digital advertising, and made social media posts that played up the tech companies donations. Supporters also held a rally in front of Amazons Seattle headquarters. Theres a lot of resentment toward tech billionaires who are part of the Trump regime here in Seattle, she says. The win suggests a way forward for organizers on the local level to take the housing crisis into their own hands. Persistent federal inaction and recent drastic attacks to HUD have provided motivation. We needed to Trump-proof our housing sector, McCoy says. And I think that helps because theres mass opposition to what hes doing. The vote also showcased a groundswell of resentment toward Big Tech that has been percolating among voters. The authority will initially be modest in its ambitions, as it wont have funding to develop housing anywhere near the scope or scale of the private market. The plan is to build or preserve 300 units a year, once funding comes in, according to the social housing development authoritybut it will own those units and will be able to issue its own debt. The first step, proponents say, is to make sure the money actually comes through. What will Seattles social housing authority do? The initial ballot referendum to build a social housing authority in Seattle passed in February 2023 with 57% of the vote. It created a public development authority, a type of government-owned private entity that can take out debt by issuing bonds. The term social housing has been used broadly in recent years to refer to types of housing that are not subject to the speculative market, including public housing, forms of subsidized affordable housing, and housing owned by community land trusts. Seattles referendum referred to social housing as publicly owned and financed mixed-income housing intended to be permanently affordable. According to the housing authoritys charter, that means it will acquire or build housing and rent it to people making between 0% and 120% of the area median income, with rents never exceeding 30% of a tenants income. The median income for a family of four in Seattle is about $160,000, according to the Seattle Housing Authority. That means families in properties owned by the authority could be paying between $0 and about $4,700 a month, depending on their income. Since the authoritys properties are not meant to be resold, it could provide a modicum of stability to lifelong renters as they age. Market-rate properties are meant to increase in value every year, but seniors with fixed incomes dont see their pay increase as they age. For decades, working Americans in general havent seen their pay increase significantly. The authoritys charter also creates a mediation provision for tenants to prevent evictions: According to the charter, residents MUST be afforded opportunities for restorative justice conflict resolution prior to being subject to eviction procedures. Theres not the pressure of somebodys investment that is in cross purposes to their ability to stay there, says Julie Howe, a Seattle Social Housing board member. The authority will issue its own debt in the form of bonds and create a revolving loan fund, lending itself money for construction and acquisition that would be paid back through rents, with higher rents subsidizing lower rents. Debt is a large and under-discussed factor in the cost of housing, as developers often price units to pay back loans. By using its own funds for construction, the authority will be able to reduce interest payments that can cause rents to balloon. The authority will be governed by a board with 13 members, including 7 appointed by the Seattle Renters Commission, an advisory board that consults with the mayor and city council. They will be mainly focused on the authoritys fiscal responsibilities and making sure it remains aligned with its mission. While public housing is notoriously underfunded in the United States, the result of a bipartisan aversion to government-owned housing, McCoy says the mixed-income approach that Seattle is taking with its own development authority might prove more sustainable, as it doesnt require as much direct subsidy. The authoritys approach is also less convoluted than building housing using Low Incom Housing Tax Credits, which requires multiple layers of financing on top of the federally issued credits. But there still needs to be a dedicated revenue stream to staff the development authority, to purchase and construct housing, and to issue bonds. The state law establishing public development authorities does not allow them to impose taxes. And the 2023 ballot referendum was limited to creating the authority; a dedicated funding stream was always going to require a second ballot measure. Some opponents of the social housing authority, which includes not just big tech but affordable housing developers, believed that the new ballot measure was an opportunity to relitigate whether the authority should be established at all. Theyre really looking for a do-over, McCoy said prior to the February vote. Taxing the wealthy Rather than opposing the authority outright, opponents opted to put option 1B on the ballot to essentially recreate the affordable housing system that exists in Seattle, with no new funding. That option would have effectively made the social housing development authority moot: the citys affordable housing fund that it would have pulled from can only go toward people making 80% of the area median income or lower, which means that the authority would not be able to cross-subsidize rents. According to Howe, the board member, this would have put the agency in conflict with affordable housing developers who rely on the existing funding stream. That would essentially go against how we were founded, Howe says. Suresh Chanmugam, a tech worker organizing with the group Tech for Housing, says tech companies dont mind Washington having one of the most regressive tax codes in the nation. Because the state has no income tax, most taxes are derived from consumer sales and property, regressive taxes where poorer people have an effective tax rate much higher than the wealthiest. Chanmugam believes rich companies use the lack of an income tax as a pretext to pay their employees less than they would in other states. He says that dozens of members of the Tech for Housing coalition knocked on doors, tabled at farmers markets and phone banked across the city. When people hear, Hey, do you want to tax companies to fund social housing?, people say yes, because theres near universal appeal in Seattle for making big businesses pay their fair share in taxes, Chanmugam says. He says he personally spoke to about 300 voters while canvassing and only received pushback from one or two people. It makes sense that tech workers have opposing priorities to their employers: While tech workers are typically high earners, many would benefit from the social housing authority, which would ensure that people making 120% of AMI, or around $190,000 for a family of four, would pay only 30% of their wages toward rent in units it owns. That would greatly offset any pass-through cost put on their wages by tech companies. According to campaign finance records, Microsoft and Amazon were tied for the highest donations to the campaign for option 1Busing existing taxat $100,000 each. Its not the first time that spending from tech companies has backfired in Seattle. In 2019, Amazon and the Chamber of Commerce supported a slate of City Council candidates, most of whom lost. The corporate tax was also opposed by the mayor; ads for option 1B, which would use existing funds, had pictures of his face on it. One opposition mailer included the mayors face and signature and the message, I strongly urge you to vote for Prop 1B. We need to build and operate social housing the smart way. 1B uses existing city funds, and has all the voter accountability and transparency that 1A doesnt have. The mailer notes that 1A builds homes for the poorest city residents. Only two current city council members support the corporate tax, according to McCoy. Our city council has taken a very reactionary turn, McCoy says. But the campaign used the political opposition to their advantage, citing the mayors stance in opposition mailers and messaging. Money being held up Despite the measures success, supporters say the city is still lagging on funding the authority. The new payroll tax is retroactive to January 1, 2025, but the city told supporters of the corporate tax the system to bill for it will take a year to build out, so that money wont be available for the authority until early 2026. In the past, the city has used an interfund loan, borrowing money from its existing funds to process a new tax right away. McCoy says the city didn’t initially appear willing to take similar measures to pay for the social housing authoritythough the mayors office later contacted the authority to discuss a bridge loan. A spokesperson for the mayors office says the city offered the loan to the authority to keep it afloat until the payroll tax revenue comes in next year. We have not determined the amount of the bridge loan yet, and any funding would require approval from the Citys Debt Management Policy Advisory Committee and the City Council, the spokesperson said in an email. Additionally, the original February 2023 ballot measure required the city to pay for staff for the authority for 18 months, but supporters say the city has only paid for 12 months. The spokesperson at the mayors office says that the city had disbursed all $850,000 of its contractually obligated startup costs, with the final payment on March 4. Roberto Jimenez, CEO of Seattle Social Housing (SSH), told Shelterforce Next City, The mayor interprets the charter and contract differently than does SSH. I believe we will reach agreement. Jimenez says his recent conversation with the mayors office was positive. He says the authority has already started looking at opportunities to purchase housing. That includes real estate deals that have stalled because buyers have had trouble accessing financing. He says construction is getting harder to do because of rising interest rates and the uncertainty of Trumps tariffs. But ideally, the authority will be in a position to build small and midsize housing that larger developers now avoid because larger multifamily buildings are more financially feasible. But first the money needs to arrive. Things could happen very quickly if the money gets freed up, he says. The challenge that were facing right now is we dont have the resources to hire staff yet, and we dont have the resources to really pursue analysis of these real estate options. Despite the hostility to the social housing development authority and its funding mechanisms from the political class, voters have now affirmed that they want it, twice. I think people dont ned to be afraid of it, Jimenez says. I think its an alternative form of housing that makes a lot of sense and has worked around the world. And its becoming much more utilized in the U.S. over the last couple of years. Youre going to see a lot more of it. By Roshan Abraham, Next City This story was originally copublished by Next City and Shelterforce.
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E-Commerce
When Formula 1 superstar Lewis Hamilton announced in December that he would be leaving the Mercedes team for Ferrari after 246 Grands Prix, 84 victories, and 6 drivers championships in 12 seasons, much of the focus was on Hamilton’s future plans. Just as compelling was the empty seat Hamilton was leaving at Mercedes. His departure triggered an intense internal process for the automakerthe search for a successor. Many of the discussions and debates that resulted in Mercedes choosing young Italian driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli played out over messaging app WhatsApp. That process is now the subject of a new one-hour documentary on Netflix called The Seat, dropping on May 5. Directed by Kyle Thrash, and produced by RadicalMedia, its also a WhatsApp commercial. The Meta-owned app is a producer, and created the project with its content partner Modern Arts. WhatsApps global head of marketing, Vivian Odior, says the company decided to create the doc in order to fully show how the app is often part of critical inflection points in its users lives. When it comes to telling those stories, we believe in giving the space to properly unpack the role we play and share the full story of our user base, says Odior. We dont believe we should be limited by ad formats. Storytelling allows us to occupy a unique position in the hearts of users and pushes beyond the functional role we play. This isnt some ad-tiered piece of content. Its a legitimate addition to the streamers F1 library. Many marketers will be shaking with jealousy or excitement, inspired to make their own move into entertainment. But be forewarned, creating content that can go head-to-head with other films and TV is not for the faint of heart, nor is it for those searching for a formula. Even WhatsApp knows this is a unique brand opportunity. Make your own luck WhatsApp has long been a brand partner to the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team, and last year Modern Arts created a short film on Hamilton called Push Push. It chronicled the ups and downs of his racing career, as well as his personal struggles with dyslexia and bullying, woven into a conversation he has with a group of teens today about their own lives. That helped build the relationship and trust with Mercedes to make The Seat possible. Modern Arts has a track record of telling compelling stories around the platform, like its award-winning, 26-minute doc We Are Ayenda, about WhatsApps role in helping the Afghanistan Womens Youth National Football Team escape the Taliban. Zac Ryder, the agency’s cofounder and co-chief creative officer, says that made it a lot easier to start figuring out a story to be told around privacy with the Mercedes team. It just so happens that not only is WhatsApp a sponsor of the team, but the entire Mercedes team literally runs on WhatsApp, Ryder says. You very rarely ever send an email. It’s all done on WhatsApp. They have hundreds of WhatsApp groups, and that’s how their entire team is organized, from little details around traveling to big things like engineering and car designs. It’s all shared across WhatsApp. In theory, this sounds like a formula for the greatest product demo video ever made. But Formula 1 teams are known to be about as forthcoming with secrets as the Pentagon. Ryder says Mercedes saw the value in giving the film access to its internal process, with the goal of helping F1 fans fall in love with Antonelli, a relatively unknown 18-year-old driver. For WhatsApp, the goal was to tell a privacy story by showing how well it functions in high-stakes situations. Our job was to figure out how those two things can coexist to make something that was going to be compelling, Ryder says. No one formula Its a unique situation for a brand to have its product at the center of a major sports story. Ryder says the strategy quickly became to make the project revolve around trust. The Mercedes team was trusting its F1 drivers seat to Antonelli, but in the process it was also showing its trust in WhatsApp as a communications platform. In a typical commercial edit, marketers will obsess over how many times the product is mentioned, or the product appears, or the logo is flashed. Modern Arts CEO Brooke Stites says the film is not about that because the brand and its product are so intertwined with the story itself. As a marketing investment, Stites says the film cost about as much as it would to make and buy ad time for a 60-second commercial. Here, the entire budget went into the production because being on Netflix means there isnt the need to pay for advertising space on TV and online. It’s a totally different model, says Stites. It’s not cheap, but it’s what you’re going to spend on a 60-second spot that you then have to spend 10 times more to buy places that force people to watch it. Everyone who watches F1 content on Netflix is going to get served our film. The Seat is not a paid advertising arrangement with Netflix; it was acquired by the streamer in the same way other film and television content is acquired. Other major streamers were vying for the film, but Netflix’s connection to the long-running docuseries Formula 1: Drive to Survive made it the ideal home. For some time brands and ad agencies have been putting make a film for Netflix in their marketing briefs, but the reality is, its not that simple. Stites says there are some critical ingredients a project needs in order to get anywhere near Netflix or any other top-tier streamer. You have to have an amazing story and quality of craft, she says. All these streamers are looking at it and asking, Is this something that’s adding value to my audience? Is this something that my viewers are going to actually want to engage with? That was a big part of the F1 piece. For other brands interested in this type of storytelling, Stites has a piece of advice: Tell a compelling story that involves your brand, dont just tell your brand story. Every brand wants to tap into culture. To tell stories people really want to hear, you need to find the stories in culture that authentically include your brand instead of trying to force-feed your brand into culture. We’re not telling a story about WhatsApp. It’s not about the brand, says Stites. Stories involving brands already exist in culture that are really actually very interesting, and people are willing and wanting to engage with them. Tell a story that people are going to care about, versus starting from a place of Le’s tell a brand story.
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E-Commerce
President Donald Trumps first 100 days of his second term in office have been marked by whipsawing tariff policies; declarations that handicap his own goals; confusion as federal workers are fired, rehired, and fired again; and government officials quitting. In other words: chaos. And the next 100 days will likely be full of chaos, too. Some of this is intentional, like the rapid clip of executive orders, DOGE’s assault on federal workers, and the spate of illegal deportations. This flooding the zone” strategy was developed by Trumps first-term adviser Steve Bannon, who has remarked on Trump’s ability to overwhelm Democrats and the media with an onslaught of actions. This bombardment of activity, much of which is unconstitutional, has made it difficult for lawmakers and courts to keep up with Trump. But when they’re able to, theyre often ruling against him, showing that Trumps directives crumble under the law. In February, over one 90-minute span, three separate federal judges delivered legal setbacks to Trumpblocking the administration from freezing federal grants and loans, ordering the administration to pay foreign aid-related money it owed, and halting Trumps executive order suspending refugee admissions and funding. In just the past week, judgesboth liberal and conservativeruled against Trump in 11 different lawsuits. And these are just some of the setbacks. Outside of the courts, when Trump gets pushback, he has backtracked on his comments or switched course. Trump threatened to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, but when that prompted a major stock sell-off, he told reporters he had no intention of doing so. After issuing 145% tariffs on China, spurring concerns about a recession, he told reporters that 145% is very high and it wont be that high, and that the tariffs will come down substantially. The Trump administration took aim at Harvard University, threatening to cut off federal funding and investigating them for permitting antisemitism. When the elite university stood up to himsaying no government should dictate what private universities can teach, who they can hire, or what topics they can pursuethe administration once again walked back their comments; it blamed a mistake for setting off that confrontation. There’s been disarray and turnover among government officials, too. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been caught in multiple controversies for his use of Signal to discuss military attacks. Last week, Hegseths chief of staff left that role following “friction” between him and other senior advisers, and also after facing questions about how the Pentagon is being managed under Hegseth. Some longtime government workers have also resignedincluding a Treasury Department official, a director at the Food and Drug Administration, and the acting Social Security Administration commissionerin protest of the Trump administrations actions, including those of DOGE. (More than 20 DOGE workers have also resigned.) Others have been forced out or fired by the administration, though some of those action were unlawfulincluding Trump’s termination of National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox. Turnover was also a hallmark of Trumps first term: By 2018, just 14 months into his first term, Trump had replaced four Cabinet members, outpacing any first-term president in the past 100 years. By 2019, he fired his third national security adviser, another record. He also ran through multiple communications directors, including Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted just 10 days. Per the Brookings Institution, the total first-term turnover of his A-team (including senior advisers) reached 92%. Trumps actions have also seemed to run counter to his own purported goals. By clawing back renewable energy projects, hes hurting his own aim of increasing American energy production. By stoking fears of a recession with his economic actions, he’s made it less profitable for oil companies to boost production, despite his “drill, baby, drill” goal. Trump is also frequently contradictory; in just one example, he released an Earth Day statement about reducing global emissions, while also advocating for the increased use of coal and hobbling climate action broadly. Trump’s “flood the zone or shock and awe strategies are intended for maximum chaos, aimed outward to disarm and overwhelm his opposition. But other examples show a different kind of chaos, an internal disorder he perhaps can’t quite control. Already, Trump’s approval rating has fallen to 39%, down from 45% in February, and Americans feel worse about the economy now than they did a month ago. Almost half of poll respondents would give him a failing grade for his fist 100 days. Though the Trump administration has largely followed the policies outlined by Project 2025, it has also been clear that Trump will waver on some things in the face of opposition. One former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) communications worker said in a recent press briefing that the administration will measure the uproar to canceled government contracts, and if there’s enough blowback, they’ll end up approving the funding. Trump’s relationships with wealthy advisers have also influenced his actions, like when he shilled for Tesla on the White House lawn. All this makes it even harder to know what to expect in the next 100 days, or six months, or three years. “A lot of this is not really an agenda, and more sort of random impulses by individuals, said Jesse Young, former chief of staff to climate envoy John Podesta, during that same press briefing. He doesnt really seem particularly well coordinated. Young pointed to how the State Department recently fired Pete Marocco, a Trump appointee who was in charge of dismantling USAID, as an example of this lack of coordination. That firing caused blowback against Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had clashed with Marocco. Some say Rubio disliked Marocco’s “bulldozer” style, while Marocco allies say Rubio was obstructionist. Per Politico, Marocco’s firing was described by one White House official as the first MAGA world killing from inside the White House. What that means for the future of the foreign aid isn’t clear, but it hints at how senior leaders under the Trump administration may find themselves fired or caught in scandal, or may resign because of internal conflicts. And that means more chaos going forward. The agenda and the policy of the administration will shift a lot as they lose people, Young says. Its just going to be enormously unpredictable.
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E-Commerce
Since its inception in 1965, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has enforced antidiscrimination laws and acted as the first line of defense for Americans who experience workplace discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion, age, disability, or sexual orientation. Even while facing a shrinking budget and staffing constraints, the agency has managed to secure significant payouts for workers who have been the target of discrimination. In 2024, the EEOC recovered nearly $700 million for about 21,000 workers, a sum far beyond its $455 million budget. The past year also saw an uptick in the number of discrimination charges fielded by the EEOC, an increase of about 9% from the year prior to over 88,500 charges. Over the past few months, however, President Trump has taken multiple steps to undermine the authority and independence of the EEOC. Presidents typically allow commissioners of federal agencies to serve out their terms, regardless of their political affiliation. But just days into his presidency, Trump fired two EEOC commissionersJocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows, who was chair of the agency under President Bidenbefore their term limits were up. In doing so, he eliminated the Democratic majority and left the agency without a three-person quorum. (Samuels has filed a lawsuit contesting her termination.) Without a quorum, the EEOC cannot vote to issue new regulations or guidance or revise existing regulations or guidance. The agency also cannot pursue certain types of litigation or systemic cases of discrimination. A new acting chair Andrea Lucas, the new acting chair of the EEOC and a conservative voice known for her criticisms of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the workplace, has furthered the president’s anti-DEI agenda since being instated. Former EEOC officials like Jenny Yang, a partner at workers rights law firm Outten & Golden and onetime EEOC chair, have been alarmed by Trump’s influence over the agency’s priorities. It’s really an unprecedented and quite radical shift from pursuing the historic mission of the EEOCwhich was to advance equal opportunity for everyone and to ensure employers prevent and remedy discriminationto one that is really turning our civil rights laws on their head and targeting employers for taking efforts to prevent discrimination, Yang says. [The EEOC is] seeming to suggest that its mission is actually only focused on some workers that have the kinds of claims that this administration thinks are worthy. (The EEOC did not respond to a request for comment for this story.) As she stepped into the role of acting chair in January, Lucas suggested that the EEOC had not thoroughly investigated certain types of discrimination. I look forward to restoring evenhanded enforcement of employment civil rights laws for all Americans, she said in a statement. In recent years, this agency has remained silent in the face of multiple forms of widespread, overt discrimination. Lucas went on to note that her priorities would be in line with Trumps executive orders and would include rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination and defending the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including womens rights to singlesex spaces at work. Alleged overreach Lucas has executed on those priorities in the months since, issuing a document on DEI-related discrimination that defines what constitutes an unlawful DEI initiative and addressing questions like whether a DEI training could create a hostile work environment. In a particularly controversial move, Lucas sent letters to 20 law firms in March asking for details on their DEI-related employment practices, specifically flagging diversity fellowships and employee resource groups in some cases. Yang and other former EEOC officials have described this move as a clear overreach and beyond the scope of a commissioners authority, even outlining their concerns in a letter addressed to Lucas. (A group of law students has also brought a lawsuit against the EEOC over its inquiries to law firms.) It was really just stunning and frightening to see such a blatant disregard of Title VII statutory language because the commission only has authority as enumerated by Congress, Yang says. The commission’s authority stems from opening an investigation of a charge. But there’s no authority to ask employers for sensitive information not through the charge process. Part of the reason for that, she points out, is a confidentiality provision that ensures privacy as the EEOC collects information related to the charge. While the EEOC may have lacked the authority to send those letters, four law firms have already reached settlement agreements with the agency in response to the inquiries, even promising to drop the term DEI and committing to merit-based employment practices. It seems like these letters were really an attempt to intimidate the firms into voluntarily dropping any efforts that they might have been engaged in to advance equal opportunity in the workplace, says Katie Sandson, the senior counsel for education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center. Shifting agency priorities Beyond explicitly targeting DEI programs, multiple reports indicate that the EEOC has already started deprioritizing charges related to gender identity. EEOC employees have reportedly been instructed to classify charges of gender identity discrimination as low priority, a category typically intended for charges that lack merit. The agency is also reportedly dismissing lawsuits that involve discrimination against transgender and gender-nonconforming workers, citing Trumps executive order that recognizes only two biological sexes. Other reports have found that EEOC judges are being asked to stop hearing cases that involve allegations of discrimination over gender identity. A number of EEOC employees have reportedly left the agency since Lucas took over, according to The New York Times, in part due to concerns that the agency has been politiized; some employees, like administrative judge Karen Ortiz, have publicly pushed back on the new directives and refused to stop evaluating cases. A new executive order handed down by Trump just last week could put more pressure on the EEOC to dismiss certain cases outright, Yang says. The order challenges the theory of disparate impact liability, which refers to when someone is treated differently on the basis of protected characteristics like race and genderthe concept behind countless discrimination cases. Trump instructed the EEOC to take appropriate action on all investigations or suits that involve a theory of disparate impact. It could be a criminal background screen, pay equity issue, or hiring discrimination, Yang says. It’s likely, based on that executive order, that all of those pending charges are just going to be dismissed rather than investigated, and that will have a significant impact on many workers. A changing footprint Workers who turn to the EEOC could also face more hurdles if the agency shuts down eight field offices that have been marked for lease termination by the Department of Government Efficiencya concern that Democrats in Congress have also raised in a letter to Lucas. Field offices play a really important role in the EEOC, Sandson says. For many workers, theyre the first point of contact with the EEOC in their own communities, and it’s where they go when they want to pursue an action. They investigate these cases, they do intakes, they do outreach and education events. Closing those offices would just be another action that would really undermine the EEOCs ability to serve workers across the country. The EEOC is often the sole option for workers who face discrimination on the job, particularly those in low-wage jobs who cant afford to hire a lawyer on a contingency basis. But that could change if the agency is now deprioritizing certain types of employment discrimination. “Many workers will have no recourse,” Yang says. “The private bar can step in, in some cases, but there are many other workers who won’t be able to vindicate their rights. Laws require enforcement to have meaning, and this is just a giant step backwards for equal opportunity. I worry that many workers won’t know where to go.”
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E-Commerce
Floor tiles designed to block cellphone signals. Special window film to ruin the photos of overhead drones. A bevy of hidden electronic jamming devices. This might sound like the arsenal of a high-tech spy, but its actually just a few of the trappings required to keep a conclave secret in 2025. In the wake of Pope Franciss death and funeral this weekend, the Catholic Church is now in a high-stakes race to prepare for the papal conclave, the traditional ceremony that will determine the next pope. On May 7, around 135 Roman Catholic cardinals will be sequestered in the Sistine Chapel for a series of ballot votes to decide who will inherit leadership of the churcha process that can take anywhere from two days to several weeks. The conclave is designed to be a highly secretive process, wherein the outside world is entirely ignorant to the discussions happening inside the Sistine Chapel, and the cardinals themselves likewise have no connection to the outside world. However, with all of the technology available in 2025 (like drones, AI, and advanced microphones), maintaining that secrecy is much more difficult than it was in 2005, when cellphones were first banned. It doesnt help that thousands of conclave followers are turning the event into a gambling opportunity, betting their hard-earned cash on the events outcome and making the public even more ravenous for a glimpse inside the chapel walls. To prepare for this highly publicized event, the Vatican is currently in the process of a design overhaul of the Sistine Chapel to host its temporary residentsand to keep information tightly contained. View of the Vatican City and Rome from the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. [Photo: Grzegorz Galazka/Archivio Grzegorz Galazka/Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images] Jamming devices, armed guards, and high-tech floor tiles Right now, much of what we know about the Vaticans conclave security measures comes from reports on the last conclave back in 2013. That year, fears surrounding potential leaks through hidden devices or internet signal were a serious concern, especially after an unfortunate incident in 2005 when a German cardinal reportedly accidently leaked the conclaves papal choice before the official announcement. To prevent any similar oversights in 2013, the Vatican disabled its internet signal by using jamming devices that prevented messages from any device transmitting information in or out of the chapels walls. There was a rumor that the jamming devices were placed in the floorboards, which was ultimately dispelled by the Reverend Thomas Rosica. They won’t work if you put them there, Rosica told reporters. Instead, he said, the jamming devices were installed high up on the walls, like a shield on an airplane. At the time, veteran Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli, who is currently the editorial director of the Holy See publication Vatican News, reported that the Vaticans anti-bugging technology took the form of a Faraday cage inside the Sistine Chapel, the Santa Marta residence, and Synod Hall, where pre-conclave meetings took place. A Faraday cage is a kind of enclosure that prevents the transmission of electromagnetic waves by surrounding a targeted area with an electrically conducting material. Further security measures at the last conclave included privacy film on all windows to prevent any drone photography, rigorous checks for hidden devices inside the chapel and on the cardinals themselves, and an elite force of guards armed with heavy weapons. This time around, information on the Vaticans security plans is not yet widely available. However, there is one detail thats already emerged. According to an interview with NPR religion correspondent Jason DeRose today, The floor being installed in the Sistine Chapel right now has special cellphone-blocking technology to keep inside information in and outside information out. Fast Company has reached out to the Vatican for more information on new security measures, and will update this story accordingly. Because insight on the cardinals decision cannot be transferred to the public via the internet, they will instead use a tried-and-true method: smoke. Each day that the cardinals do not reach a decision, black smoke will issue from a chimney at the Sistine Chapel. When the choice is made, the smoke will be white. Per a report from the Associated Press, the Vatican is currently working on installing a new chimney to ensure that all of the cardinals ballots are properly burned. Meanwhile, a second chimney installed beside it will issue the ceremonial black or white smoke.
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E-Commerce
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