BuSINESS
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2019:: LATIMES.COM/BUSINESS
C
DOW27,681.24▲ 6.44 S&P5003,093.08 7.90▲▲NASDAQ8,475.31 40.80 GOLD$1,461.30 2.90▼ OIL$57.24 0.09▲EURO$1.1024▼ .0024 U.S. T-NOTE(10-yr.)1.93% 0.01▲Kevin Kiprovski had a
lofty title, “expeditions asso-
ciate,” and a fun job — he got
to demo Google virtual reali-
ty gear to young students.
When visiting schools, he
wore a gray T-shirt with a
cartoon whale and a Google
logo.
But sometimes the com-
pany’s reputation made
things awkward. Once, a
teacher confronted Kiprov-
ski. “How do you feel walking
in here, showing stuff, when
you know you’re making so
much more than all of us?”
he recalled the teacher ask-
ing.
“I had to tell her,” he said,
“I only make $40,000 a year.”
He left out another revealing
detail: Kiprovski didn’t actu-
ally work for Google.
He worked for Vaco Nash-
ville, one of several staffing
and contract firms Google
uses. Kiprovski resigned in
October and sent a blister-
ing internal email criticizing
the disparities of Google’s
two-tiered workforce. While
Google’s use of contract la-
bor has received more atten-
tion in the last year, the com-
pany continued to take steps
that meant contractors “are
left out of conversations that
affect our lives,” Kiprovski
wrote.
His email traveled widely
within Google, which is reel-
ing from internal turmoil
over labor issues and how
much say its gigantic staff
should have over the compa-
ny’s direction.
More than half of
Google’s workers are tempo-
rary, vendor or contract
staff, known as TVCs. This
shadow workforce misses
out on many of the famous
benefits and perks that have
burnished the internet gi-
ant’s reputation as one of theGoogle’s shadow workers toe an awkward line
Beneath the veil
around contractors’
employment status,
ambiguities and
inequities abound.
By Mark Bergen
and Ellen Huet
KEVIN KIPROVSKI worked for Vaco Nashville, a staffing and contract firm used by Google. When he re-
signed, he sent a blistering internal email criticizing the disparities in Google’s two-tiered workforce.Kevin Kiprovski[SeeGoogle,C5]The owner of Sears and
Kmart is closing almost a
third of its remaining stores
just months after buying the
struggling retailer out of
bankruptcy.
Transform Holdco’s
shutdown of 96 locations will
leave just 182 outlets for the
company, which was once
the nation’s biggest depart-
ment store chain. The mer-
chant “has faced a difficult
retail environment and
other challenges” and is
“pruning operations that
have struggled due to in-
creased competition and
other factors,” Transform
said in an emailed state-
ment late Thursday.
The company is getting
$250 million of new capital
from its owners, led by Eddie
Lampert’s hedge fund ESL
Investments Inc., along with
a third-party investor.
Some observers were not
optimistic that the move
would save the chain.
“This is an acceleration of
the death march that Eddie
Lampert began when he
combined Sears and Kmart
over a decade ago,” said
Burt Flickinger, managing
director of the retail advis-
ory firm Strategic Resource
Group. “It is a classic illus-
tration of how most Wall
Street types have a deficient
understanding of what’s re-
quired for a Main Street re-
tail company to be effective.”
The announcement
shows that Sears, which nar-
rowly escaped liquidation
after its 2018 bankruptcy, is
withering as consumers
move on from the chain,
Flickinger said. Lampert
bought Sears’ assets out of
bankruptcy earlier this year,
expressing faith in its future
and vowing to preserve jobs,
but it’s still facing the same
fundamental problems that
led it to seek court protec-
tion last year.
“We will endeavor to cre-
ate and deliver value
through a strategic combi-
nation of our better perform-
ing retail stores and our
service businesses, brands
and other assets, and expect
to realize a significant return
More
Sears,
Kmart
closures
Owner Transform
Holdco will shut 96
stores, leaving just 182.
Shoppers have moved
on, experts say.
bloomberg
[SeeRetail,C4]In a letter sent to federal
lawmakers, an online mer-
chant has accused Ama-
zon.com Inc. of forcing him
and other sellers to use the
company’s expensive logis-
tics services, which in turn
forces them to raise prices
for consumers.
The 62-page document
lays out an antitrust case
that emphasizes harm to
consumers — the traditional
basis for such cases in the
U.S. Until now, antitrust ex-
perts have suggested that
Amazon was not vulnerable
to such an argument and
that regulators would need
to find another way if they
wanted to restrain the com-
pany’s growing market
power.
The complaint, based on
an analysis of thousands of
Amazon transactions over
several years involving more
than 100 products, turns all
of that thinking on its head.
It accuses Amazon of “tying”
its marketplace and logis-
tics services together, an an-
titrust violation in which a
company uses dominance in
one market to give itself an
advantage in another mar-
ket where it’s less estab-
lished. The letter refers to
previous Supreme Court
rulings on tying, including
one against Kodak in 1992
that said the photocopier
manufacturer violated an-
titrust laws by forcing cus-
tomers who bought its
machines to also use its
parts and repair services.
“When it comes to Ama-
zon’s dealings with third-
party merchants, some of
the conduct actually does
lend itself to antitrust scru-
tiny,” said Hal Singer, an an-
titrust expert and George-
town University adjunct pro-
fessor retained by the mer-
chant to work on the
analysis. “If you can connect
the conduct to some mea-
surable harm, in this case in-
creased prices, that gets you
into the antitrust ballpark.”
Amazon, in an emailedSELLER
LAYS O U T
A CASE
AGAINST
AMAZON
Letter alleges retail
site pushes merchants
to use its logistics
services, possibly an
antitrust violation.
By Spencer Soper[SeeAmazon,C6]California’s nearly $50-billion agri-
culture industry is recruiting record
numbers of seasonal farmworkers from
Mexico as it confronts a years-long labor
shortage exacerbated by the Trump ad-
ministration’s crackdown on undocu-
mented immigration.
Recruitment of seasonal foreign
workers soared to a record 20,905 so far
this year — with hiring still underway
for the winter desert season, according
to a Times analysis of federal labor data.
That’s more than double the number of
workers recruited just four years ago,
and an 11-fold increase across eight
years.
Once a minor player in the H-2A
niche, California now ranks fourth
among recruiting states, behind top-
ranked Florida, North Carolina and
Washington, respectively, according to
federal records.
The trend, evident since before Pres-
ident Trump was elected, is driven by a
mix of demographic and political forces.
The farm labor population in the U.S. is
aging faster than the general labor
force, while record low unemployment
has opened up more lucrative jobs in the
service and construction industries, la-
bor expert say. Meanwhile, the Trump
administration’s crackdown on un-
documentedA WORKER culls lettuce in Salinas, Calif. The shift to contracted seasonal workers has created ten-
sions in fields between local hires and the visa holders, and produced a rise in allegations of wage abuse.Gary CoronadoLos Angeles TimesWage abuse cases are
growing like weeds
Rise in visa hiring brings an uptick in fines, settlements
WORKERS PICK strawberries in Santa Maria. Recruitment of
seasonal foreign workers hit a record 20,905 so far this year.Al SeibLos Angeles TimesBy Geoffrey Mohan[SeeFarmworkers, C4]