The Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in the case of slain Mexican teenager killed by a US Border Patrol agent. The court heard arguments in the family’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling dismissing their case against the agent, Jesus Mesa, who had fired across a concrete spillway into Mexico from the Texas side of the border during the 2010 incident, striking 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca in the face.
The incident took place in June 2010 on the border between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. The Border Patrol said at the time Hernandez was pelting U.S. agents with rocks from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande when he was shot. Witnesses say Sergio and his friends were playing a game of chicken where they would run up the embankment, touch the barbed-wire fence on the U.S. side, and then sprint back. As they were playing, smugglers were nearby, throwing rocks at U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents. At some point, Agent Jesus Mesa, Jr. showed up on a bicycle and detained one of Sergio’s friends. Sergio ran back into Mexican territory and hid behind a bridge pillar. Standing on U.S. soil, Agent Mesa fired at least two shots across the border at Sergio, striking him in the face and killing him.
Following Sergio’s death, his parents, Jesus Hernandez and Maria Bentacour, sued the United States government, Agent Mesa, and Mesa’s supervisors. Their attorneys argue that Sergio—despite being a Mexican national—was nevertheless protected by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, since he was killed by a federal officer who fired from American soil. The U.S. Department of Justice investigated the shooting but decided in 2012 it was “a reasonable use of force or would constitute an act of self-defense.” Federal prosecutors refused to indict Mesa. The Mexican government, on the other hand, charged Mesa with murder, but the United States won’t extradite Mesa so he can face trial.
With criminal prosecution off the table, Sergio’s family sought justice through a civil lawsuit. During arguments, liberal justices expressed concerns over providing no legal relief to the families of people who have been killed in cross -border shootings by U.S. agents, essentially allowing federal officers on American soil to act unlawfully with impunity. During the arguments, conservative justices appeared to lean toward the administration’s concerns while liberal justices voiced worry about leaving individuals with no way to hold federal officers accountable for unlawful conduct. The court has a 5-4 conservative majority.
The dispute hinges on whether the family, despite Hernandez having died on Mexican soil, can seek monetary damages against what they call a “rogue” agent for violating for the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which bars unjustified deadly force as well as Hernandez’s right to due process under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. For the family’s lawsuit to move forward, the Supreme Court would have to widen the scope of its 1971 decision allowing certain suits against federal officials. That case, referred to as the Bivens action, involved a domestic search.
The high court previously considered Hernandez’s case in 2017 but did not decide the central legal question, instead directing the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its ruling that had barred the lawsuit. The 5th Circuit last year again ruled against the family, prompting a second trip to the Supreme Court where they will again decide if the Bivens act should be extended and Mesa held accountable.
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A Milwaukee man faces a felony hate-crime charge for an alleged acid attack on a man who says he was targeted for his Latino identity and left with second-degree burns. Clifton Blackwell, 61, has been charged with first-degree reckless injury in a hate crime using a dangerous weapon. Reckless injury carries up to 25 years in prison and $100,000 in fines. Prosecutors are pursuing hate crime and dangerous weapon enhancements charges which means Blackwell could face stiffer penalties, including up to 10 more years’ imprisonment.
At a news conference the day after the assault, Mahud Villalaz, 42, said he parked his truck outside a restaurant at 8:30 p.m. and began to walk toward it to have dinner when a man at a nearby bus stop approached him and chastised him for parking in a bus lane. Villalaz said, the man asked why he’d “invaded” the United States and said “Why don’t you respect my laws?”
Realizing he was parked too close to a bus stop, Villalaz moved his truck to another spot and headed toward the restaurant. Blackwell re-engaged him saying “Why did you invade my country?” calling Villalaz an “illegal” and cursing at him while telling him to “go back.” He told Blackwell that “everyone comes from somewhere first” and pointed out that “American Indians have been in the country the longest,” court filings state. Villalaz said that’s when Blackwell got angry and tossed the acid, which was in a small silver bottle, in his face. The attack was caught on surveillance video.
Villalaz was taken to the hospital with second-degree burns to his face, cheek and neck, as well as damage to his clothing, according to police. Testing showed that acid caused the injuries. The attack took place just outside the restaurant doors. Witnesses say Villalaz, a regular at the restaurant, burst through the doors crying with his face searing with acid. The restaurant staff tried everything to wash the acid from his face until paramedics arrived.
Villalaz, who says he grew up in Peru and immigrated to the United States as a young man – became a citizen in 2013. He said he felt relieved charges were filed and thankful at the nationwide support he’s gotten. “It’s been nice to know that there are many people here that worry about other people. Not only Latinos … people of all colors. We must unite,” Villalaz said.
During a search of Blackwell’s home, police found hydrochloric acid, four bottles of sulfuric acid and two bottles of drain opener made of lye, according to court documents. Blackwell’s bond has been set at $20,000 on the condition that he wears an electronic monitoring device. He is also forbidden from contact with acids or large batteries. Court records indicate Blackwell has previously been convicted of false imprisonment and pointing a gun at a person.
According to the criminal complaint, on Nov. 19 2006, Blackwell confronted four men, two with rifles, who had come onto his farm tracking deer in the Town of Lawrence. Blackwell pointed a loaded rifle at the men and told them to disarm, then marched them back to his house where he photographed their faces and hunting tags. He told them they were guilty of criminal trespass and called the sheriff’s office but wound up charged himself. Prosecutors dropped one of each of the charges, and Blackwell pleaded no contest to one count each of pointing a firearm and false imprisonment. He was sentenced to 379 days in jail. Blackwell’s mother said he had served in the Marine Corps during the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and had moved back to Wisconsin for treatment for PTSD type problems. Officials with the Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs office in Virginia said it could find no record of Blackwell ever serving in the Marines.
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The FBI has arrested a 27-year-old Colorado man who was allegedly planning to bomb a synagogue in Pueblo. Court documents say Richard Holzer was arrested after he examined fake pipe bombs that had been prepared by co-conspirators who turned out to be undercover agents. His arrest came just two days before his planned bombing of The Temple Emanuel synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado.
“After being contacted by undercover FBI agents posing as fellow white supremacists, Mr. Holzer indicated that he wanted to do something that would let Jewish people in the Pueblo community know that they are not welcome and that, according to him, they should leave or they will die,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado Jason Dunn said.
Undercover FBI agents had been tracking and interacting with Holzer since late September after he came on their radar for continually talking about killing Jews in online forums. The investigation of Holzer began after an undercover FBI agent purporting to be a woman who supports white supremacy contacted him on Facebook in September. Holzer allegedly sent the agent pictures and video of himself with guns and images related to white supremacy.
Agents say Holzer once wrote on Facebook, “I wish the Holocaust really did happen… they need to die.” According to court documents, Holzer messaged the undercover agent about initiating a racial holy war and said with was going to Temple Emanuel “to scope it out.” He told the agent that he planned to poison the synagogue with arsenic-something he claimed to have done before, but ultimately wanted to shut the synagogue down and condemn it.
That agent arranged for him to meet with friends who were actually more undercover agents on Oct. 17 in Colorado Springs. He allegedly talked to them about his plan before volunteering that he could use Molotov cocktails on the building when asked what other methods he was considering to shut down the building. The FBI claims that Holzer was the first person to mention using explosives during the meeting. After they visited the synagogue later that day, the affidavit says Holzer observed that Molotov cocktails would not be enough, and he and the agents then discussed using pipe bombs, which the agents offered to supply.
During a meeting where the agents brought what Holzer thought were live explosives, he described them as “absolutely gorgeous” and said they should go ahead with the attack overnight to avoid police, the court document said. The agents arrested him during that meeting.
The Temple Emanuel synagogue is the second-oldest in Colorado and was completed in 1900, according to Temple Emanuel’s website. It has a congregation of about 30 families and a rabbi from Denver who travels two hours away to Pueblo twice a month.
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After a 40-day strike, a new four-year deal between the United Auto Workers and General Motors was approved. The contract was supported by 57% of the labor union. It includes an $11,000 bonus per member, annual raises and more affordable healthcare. General Motors still plans to close three factories in the United States.
The United Auto Workers union emerged with substantial wage increases of 3 percent in the second and fourth years and 4 percent lump sum payments in the first and third years, similar to what the union obtained in 2015. Even larger gains are in store for those in a category called “in progression,” the lower scale of a two-tier wage system negotiated in 2007 when the Detroit automakers were financially reeling.
Workers hired after that date, about a third of the overall work force, started at about half the pay of veteran employees and had no prospect of reaching the top wage, currently $31 an hour. Over the course of the new contract, the disparity will be phased out, and those with four years’ experience will rise along with more senior workers to the new top level of $32 an hour. In addition to pay increases, G.M. workers will get bonuses of $11,000 for ratifying the contract. They will continue to pay 3 percent of their cost of health care, well below the percentage that G.M.’s salaried workers contribute.
There were also rewards for temporary workers, about 7 percent of G.M.’s union work force, who will have a path to permanent employment after three years. About 900 of them will become full employees in January, the union said, and 2,000 more by 2021.
It also won commitments to new G.M. investments in United States factories. As part of the new contract, the company pledged to invest $7.7 billion in its United States plants, and another $1.3 billion in ventures with partners, providing a measure of job security. G.M. will put $3 billion toward overhauling the Detroit-Hamtramck plant, which had been scheduled to close in January. Three-quarters of the 700 workers there voted in favor of the contract.
At the same time, the agreement allows G.M. to close three idled factories permanently, including one in Lordstown, Ohio, eliminating excess manufacturing capacity at a time when auto sales are slowing. It also puts the company in a more stable position if the economy goes into a recession. The closing of the Lordstown plant was one of the main sticking points for some workers voting against the contract. “We did everything that G.M. ever asked of us at times of concessions,” said Bill Goodchild, a member of Local 1112 in Lordstown. “We feel we deserve a product.”
About 48,000 United Auto workers walked off the job over one month ago, making it the longest national strike at GM by United Auto Workers in nearly 50 years. The contract finally ends a strike that many estimate has cost GM $1.75 billion in losses. “We delivered a contract that recognizes our employees for the important contributions they make to the overall success of the company,” G.M.’s chief executive, Mary T. Barra, said in a statement.
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As the GM strike continues, picketers received some bad news from Tennessee. A striking United Auto Worker union member was hit by a car and killed outside the General Motors plant in Spring Hill where workers were maintaining an active picket line. The UAW said in a statement that 55-year-old union member Roy McCombs “tragically lost his life today on a picket line standing up for a better life for himself and his coworkers.”
McCombs was hit on a bridge outside the GM plant as he was crossing the road to get to the picket line around 6 am. McCombs was transported to a hospital and pronounced dead in the emergency room, said Lt. Jeremy Haywood of the Columbia police department in Columbia, Tennessee. The driver who hit McCombs was cooperating with investigators.
Local 1853 Chairman Mike Herron said, “Sergeant Orlando Cox from the Columbia Police Dept. will be releasing a statement shortly that will describe this event as an innocent tragic accident. He has asked that everyone refrain from going to the South Gate for safety reasons. He requested that any vigils be held at our union hall and not in the vicinity of this accident — to ensure the safety of the participants.”
Herron said the UAW local sends thoughts and prayers to McCombs’ family as well as the driver, “who was on her way to drop off her kids at the day care center located at the south exit when this tragic accident occurred.” All strike activity has ended at the South Gate of the plant and no pickets will be set up there in the future, Herron said. Also, the UAW crisis team has been called in and will meet personally with UAW members that were on the South Gate at the time of the accident as well as McCombs’ coworkers on the third shift.
UAW members at Spring Hill have taken part in picketing as part of the union’s nationwide strike against GM since Sept. 16 though it’s been contentious from the start. Maury County sheriff’s deputies in Tennessee had arrested nine protesters on Sept. 18 when they refused to stop blocking the south entrance to the plant. A 10th arrest came when someone drove recklessly through plant’s entrance, sheriff’s officials said.
A court in Tennessee granted GM’s request to prevent UAW picketers from blocking the entrance to the factory. The order was in effect until Oct. 8. It followed several arrests at the plant since GM’s 46,000 UAW workers went on strike. “After dialogue failed to stop the incidents of harassment, violence and vandalism by a few people, we had to take necessary actions to protect everyone involved,” GM said at the time. The order barred the UAW and its members from blocking entrances, detaining vehicles, creating obstructions on roadways or “assaulting, intimidating, falsely imprisoning, harassing or destroying the property of GM employees” and others at the plant.
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Britain police launched one of the largest murder investigations in decades after the bodies of 39 people were discovered in the back of a tractor-trailer at an industrial park east of London. Emergency services were called to an industrial park in the town of Grays in Essex, 20 miles east of London, at around 1:40 a.m. local time when the vehicle was discovered to have people inside. Thirty-nine people were pronounced dead at the scene.
The victims were found in the refrigerator unit inside the truck. Police confirmed that there were 8 women and 31 men inside the truck. The Essex police department said it was not immediately clear if the victims froze to death or suffocated. A police spokesperson said the truck had a Bulgarian license plate and entered the U.K. in Holyhead, Wales on October 19th. Holyhead is one of the busiest ferry ports in the area with primary service to Ireland. Authorities called such a route into the U.K. “unusual.”
Investigators believe the refrigerated trailer started its deadly journey in Zeebrugge, Belgium to Purfleet, England, where it arrived early Wednesday. Police believe it the tractor traveled from Northern Ireland to Dublin, where it took a ferry to Holyhead in Wales before picking up the trailer at the dockside in England. They have also suggested that two different trucks pulled the semitrailer at different times though it is not clear when the 39 people entered the refrigerated trailer.
Soon after, UK police have charged a 25 year old truck driver with 39 counts of manslaughter and conspiracy to traffic people in connection with 39 deaths in the back of the truck he was driving in southeastern England. Police say Maurice Robinson, 25, of Craigavon, Northern Ireland. He was the first of five people arrested in what is seen as one of the U.K.’s biggest cases of human trafficking.
U.K. police are struggling to identify the victims and said that very few documents were found inside the truck. Authorities said the task is likely to be difficult since human traffickers normally take the passports of their passengers to obscure their identities, stripping them of their names and giving them new documents when they arrive at their destinations. The victims are believed to have come from Asia and autopsies are being performed.
U.K. police say they’ve been in contact with Vietnamese authorities, even though they are not yet certain of the identities of those found dead in the refrigerated truck. The Vietnamese Embassy in London has set up a hotline for families to call about missing family members. The Vietnamese government has also announced its own investigation into the deaths. “The Embassy has sent a team led by the minister-counsellor in charge of consular affairs to Essex, England. They have met with the local police in an effort to verify the identity of the deceased, whose nationality still cannot be confirmed,” according to a statement from an embassy spokesperson.
Each year thousands of migrants die attempting to cross into Europe. Many sink to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea without a trace. Others die on land and mountain routes. The International Organization for Migration estimates that 4,503 people are known to have died worldwide in 2018, with the highest number perishing in the Mediterranean Sea.
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As the GM strike entered its fifth week, the United Auto Workers union announced that picketing workers can expect an extra $25 a week from the union’s strike fund. GM, on the other hand, can expect its dealers to face increased difficulty in sourcing certain replacement parts, while others worry about the prospect of subpar inventory. The UAW’s bargaining team presented a new comprehensive offer to GM as talks continued. In addition to the slightly boosted strike pay, the UAW also lifted the cap on cash earned at outside jobs. Starting Sunday, workers moonlighting at other jobs can keep the full strike payment, regardless of what they made in their alternate gig. Strike payments are typically clawed back on a dollar-for-dollar basis after the worker passes the $250 threshold.
In addition to a host of other issues, health care sits near the top of UAW concerns in this latest round of talks. With GM looking to downsize in an era of shrinking auto sales and economic uncertainty, offering generous health benefits represents a major cost to each company. An agreement was reached between GM and the UAW that keeps the previous health care arrangement intact. The agreement keeps the arrangement where workers cover just 3 percent of their health care costs — an agreement GM briefly abandoned earlier in the bargaining process. The automakers would undoubtedly seek concessions in other areas but unions are not prone to accept concessions lightly.
In the tentative deal with General Motors, the union won on many of its goals, including a path to permanent employment for temporary autoworkers, a faster route to top pay for workers hired after 2007 and a flattened pay structure for permanent employees, who would reach $32.32 per hour by the end of the four-year deal. The biggest obvious loss for the union is the continued closure of the Lordstown Assembly plant in Ohio.
The Lordstown Assembly Plant in Ohio is to remain closed, as will transmission plants in Warren and Baltimore; and a parts distribution center in Fontana, California, will close during the term of the contract. The union said it negotiated assistance packages for workers at Lordstown, Warren and Baltimore transmission plants, including $75,000 payments for eligible production workers and $85,000 for skilled workers who retire. There are also buyout options for those not eligible to retire.
Some other features of the deal include UAW-represented GM workers will get a bonus of $11,000 upon ratification of the deal and temporary workers will get $4,500. GM will invest $7.7 billion in U.S. facilities to create or retain 9,000 jobs. There will be wage increases of 3% in the second and fourth year of the contract, with 4% lump sum payments in the first and third years. Temporary workers, who have been paid $15-$19 an hour with inferior benefits to permanent autoworkers, get a path to a permanent role starting next year. Part-time workers get a path to regular status starting in 2021. These workers also get improved paid and unpaid time off. By September 2023, all permanent manufacturing employees will be at $32.32 per hour.
The tentative deal is far from perfect and the UAW is trying to persuade union workers to accept the deal. Experts said General Motors has lost more than $1 billion in profits, while line workers have lost nearly $750 million in income. With the state of Michigan are losing tax dollars, there’s a growing sentiment that something has to change soon and many hope this deal will finally end the strike.
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Roughly half a million children in the U.S. could lose their eligibility for free school lunches under an administration proposal. Children whose families qualify for food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, can automatically get free breakfasts and lunches at school, but the administration’s new proposal would tighten eligibility for SNAP. The U.S. Department of Agriculture released an analysis this week showing that nearly 3 million people could lose access to food stamps under the proposed rule, including almost 1 million children.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released an analysis that says as many as 982,000 children could be affected by the change. Children whose families lost SNAP benefits would have to submit an application to determine if they qualify for free or reduced-priced school meals. About 45% of them — some 445,000 kids — would still qualify for free meals but about 497,000 kids who currently get free meals — would have to start paying a reduced price of 40 cents for school lunch and 30 cents for breakfast, since they come from families with an annual income of between 130% and 185% of the federal poverty level. Another 40,000 kids who currently get free meals would need to pay the full price because their family won’t qualify for the program anymore.
The National School Lunch Program serves roughly 30 million students, including about 20 million free meals daily. For those who don’t qualify for free or reduced price meals, the average price of lunch was $2.48 for elementary school students in the 2016-17 school year, according to the School Nutrition Association, which represents cafeteria employees and vendors.
According to the USDA, the proposal could cut $90 million annually from the cost of its school lunch and breakfast programs. They noted that the number of children being affected by the proposal could be less because some schools offer free lunches to all students regardless of eligibility. But the schools that offer this program requires 40% of students to be eligible for free meals, and the rule change could mean some schools no longer meet that threshold.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has said tightening access to SNAP would close a “loophole” that allows families receiving temporary assistance benefits to automatically get food stamps too. The USDA is not proposing changes to the income rules for the program. It says it is addressing a loophole that gives eligibility to people who would not have otherwise qualified.
The USDA released the details of its analysis after it was criticized for failing to report the impact its SNAP rule change could have on children’s access to free school meals. The agency has said the change is intended to make eligibility rules more consistent across the country, since states can grant people eligibility if they were enrolled in other assistance programs. Critics argue that the change will increase food insecurity among low-income families and add to states’ administrative costs.
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In Maryland, a self-described white nationalist Coast Guard lieutenant pleaded guilty to four federal weapons and drugs charges, after investigators uncovered his plot to kill high-profile liberal figures, including Democratic lawmakers, media personalities and judges. Fifty-year-old Christopher Hasson was arrested with a stockpile of 15 guns and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, after he used his work computer at the Coast Guard to read the manifestos of mass killers and to research sniper attacks.
Hasson worked as an acquisitions officer and was arrested at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington in February. Investigators said they found 15 firearms, two homemade silencers and more 1,000 rounds of ammunition in his Maryland home, as well as at least 100 pills of the painkiller Tramadol and more than 30 bottles of purported human growth hormone. Two of the four counts in Hasson’s indictment charged him with illegally possessing unregistered and unserialized silencers. He also was charged with possession of a firearm by an unlawful user or addict of a controlled substance, and illegal possession of tramadol, an opioid painkiller.
Inspired by the manifesto of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, Hasson spent hours researching the tactics of domestic terrorists, prosecutors said. “I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on earth,” he wrote on his computer, saying he would “have to take serious look at appropriate individual targets, to bring the greatest impact.” Among the targets on a list found on Hasson’s computer were Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes and Democratic Senator Kamala Harris. Hasson also targeted two Supreme Court justices and two social media company executives and searched online for their home addresses in March 2018, within minutes of searching firearm sales websites, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors wrote that the former Marine considered them “traitors.”
In a 2017 letter he sent to himself as a draft and apparently wrote to a neo-Nazi leader, Hasson identified himself as a white nationalist for over 30 years and “advocated for ‘focused violence’ in order to establish a white homeland,” prosecutors said. He researched how to make homemade bombs and mortars, studied sniper training and used his government computer to search for information about Nazis and Adolf Hitler, prosecutors said.
Federal prosecutors did not file terrorism charges against Hasson. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom indicated the government may seek the maximum sentence of up to 31 years in prison at the sentencing hearing scheduled for January 31, 2020. Hasson’s attorney, Elizabeth Oyer, said she intends to seek a 3.5-year sentence for her client. Oyer said Hasson “was not plotting a terrorist attack or any of the abhorrent acts that the prosecution has repeatedly speculated about but never actually charged. Mr. Hasson never meant any harm to anyone. He deeply regrets the pain and embarrassment that he has caused his family and the U.S. Coast Guard”. Oyer has said prosecutors found no evidence to back up terrorism allegations. She accused them of seeking to punish Hasson for “private thoughts” he never shared.
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On September 15th, nearly 50,000 members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) launched a strike, walking out of over 50 General Motors facilities. Workers say GM continues to deny employees’ demands for fair conditions and compensation despite leading the company to record profits following bankruptcy and a federal bailout. The nearly 50,000 full-time and temporary workers represented by the UAW make up about half of its workforce.GM workers say they are pushing for a more equitable contract that will guarantee better wages for new hires, stronger health-care benefits and more job security. Workers are forgoing their paychecks during the strike, though the UAW will pay them $250 a week from its strike fund.
GM has made over $30 billion in the past six years, since recovering from its 2009 bankruptcy. Although they received profit-sharing checks that totaled $52,500 for the same period, workers want pay raises that will show up year after year. They gave up cost-of-living pay raises and made other concessions to keep the company afloat during its 2009 bankruptcy, and now they want to be repaid. Longtime workers have received only two raises since 2010. Workers hired after 2007 still make less than older workers, and the union wants to erase that gap.
The company is facing a global auto sales slowdown and also says health care costs are too high, and it wants to cut labor costs so they are closer to U.S. factories owned by foreign competitors. Senior GM workers now make around $30 per hour, but with benefits, it adds up to $63 per hour. Total labor costs run an average of $50 per hour at the foreign plants. The car giant has moved to close a handful of production facilities in the United States in recent years despite strong profitability margins. GM made $8.1 billion in profit after taxes last year but announced the closure of four factories, scuttling thousands of jobs. GM says it has offered to make $7 billion in investments and create 5,400 jobs, including introducing electric trucks, opening a battery cell manufacturing site and investing in eight existing facilities.
The strike has effectively halted GM’s production in the US and just a day after the strike, GM responded with a letter announcing they had cut off health insurance for the nearly 50,000 people on picket lines across the country. GM spokesman David Barnas said the decision to cut workers’ health care was a standard practice during stoppages, likening it to the cessation of worker paychecks. A spokesperson for the UAW stated that they would cover the striker’s health-care fees under COBRA in the interim from the pool of money it keeps for strikes. Employee dental and vision plans will not be covered during the strike.
The effects of the strike have been felt quickly, when GM dismissed 1,200 workers from an assembly plant in Ontario, Canada just three days after the strike started. GM has said the temporary layoffs were the result of parts shortages in the United States because of the strike. The factory had produced full-size pickup trucks. Analysts say GM could be losing as much as $50 million to $100 million a day from the stoppage. 
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