Labor Rights

Former Amazon Employee Set For Hunger Strike At Seattle HQ

November 24, 2014 Lanre Bakare and Oliver Laughland, www.theguardian.com Resist! Labor Rights, Protest

A former Amazon employee embroiled in a legal battle with the online retailer is set to go on hunger strike in an attempt to force the company to change business practices which he calls “deceptive and fraudulent”. Kivin Varghese plans to start his vigil on Tuesday outside Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle in order to raise awareness of what he alleges are poor business practices and employee treatment by the company. “I think if Amazon customers took a few minutes to look at this and see how Amazon treats employees they’d be shocked,” he said.

Miners Shot Down: Blood On Whose Hands?

November 17, 2014 Tom Gardner, www.thinkafricapress.com Educate! Labor Rights, Mining, police brutality, South Africa

Interviewed by Rehad Desai in his new documentary, Miners Shot Down, Marinovich’s words form part of a forensic case built up over the course of the film that forcefully indicts the police, the government and the Lonmin mining company for their respective roles in the most deadly display of state violence witnessed in post-apartheid South Africa. It may have been rank-and-file police officers pulling the triggers, but, Desai’s film concludes, it is those at the top – “those who pulled the strings” – who bear greatest responsibility. “Heads need to roll at a very high level,” agues Ronnie Kasrils, a former minister for the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and outspoken critic of President Jacob Zuma’s government. To date, not one policeman has been charged for what took place at Marikana, victims have been both blamed and put on trial, and suspicions of a cover-up stubbornly linger.

1 Million Workers Guaranteed Right To Sick Leave

November 5, 2014 Annie-Rose Strasser, www.thinkprogress.org Create! Elections, Labor Rights, Paid Sick Leave

Last night, four places in the United States voted over whether or not employers should be required to give paid sick leave to employees. All four approved the idea. Massachusetts was the biggest win for paid sick leave advocates — the state is just the third in the nation to require employers grant people such paid time off, following California and Connecticut. The state was joined by three major municipalities: Trenton, NJ; Montclair, NJ; and Oakland, CA (though the state has a paid sick leave law, Oakland’s will expand on it). All told, the laws will impact more than one million workers. These latest votes follow a recent uptick in guaranteed paid time off for the sick, which has found its way into law by any number of means, including ballot initiative, city ordinance, or legislation.

Strikers Close Costa Rican Port

October 30, 2014 Weekly News Update, www.weeklynewsupdate.blogspot.com Resist! Costa Rica, Labor Rights, Strike

A longstanding dispute over the privatization of the port at Limón on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast led unionized dockworkers at the port’s Limón and Moín terminals to walk off the job on Oct. 22 for the second time in two years [see Update #1134]. The open-ended strike left three ships stranded at the two terminals, which handle some 80% of Costa Rica's foreign trade. Facing his first major labor crisis since he took office on May 8, President Luis Guillermo Solís, of the center-leftCitizen Action Party (PAC), responded quickly. He sent some 150 police officers to take control of the terminals late on Oct. 22; 68 people were arrested in the operation.

Chipotle Accused Of Stealing From Its Workers

October 28, 2014 Bryce Covert, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Fast Food, Labor Rights, Law

Chipotle Mexican Grill is being sued by workers in Colorado and Minnesota who accuse it of violating labor laws by purposely underpaying them. In a September 22 complaint in Colorado, the chain is accused of having “devised and implemented general policies and practices to deprive its hourly paid restaurant employees of the compensation to which they are entitled.” The practices allegedly include making employees work off the clock without pay through a number of mechanisms, one of which was using devices that automatically punched them off the clock even as they kept working. The attorneys for the different workers decided to collaborate when they realized all the workers were reporting the same problem.

Women Lead Sanitation Strike In China

October 17, 2014 Yi Xi, www.labornotes.org Resist! China, Labor Rights, Privatization

For two weeks, sanitation workers gathered daily on the lawns of Guangzhou’s Higher Education Mega Center—a complex of ten universities serving 200,000 students that has taken over Xiaoguwei island—in the latest of a series of Guangzhou sanitation strikes. The strike erupted August 26 after the sudden replacement of a contractor jeopardized the jobs of 212 sanitation workers, jobs many had held for a decade. By the time it came to an end September 9, workers had won an agreement that included severance pay of 3,000 yuan (about $489 U.S.) per year of service. Tensions are still simmering over whether the new company will rehire all veteran workers as promised. But although the dispute isn’t settled yet, its significance is clear.

‘Not On The Menu’ Rally – Sexual Harassment & Low Wages

October 16, 2014 Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, www.rocunited.org Resist! Human Rights, Labor Rights, Minimum Wage, Restaurant Industry, Women's Rights

New York, NY — Yesterday, dozens of restaurant workers, women’s rights activists, and supporters gathered for a rally calling for the elimination of the subminimum wage and requiring the restaurant industry to pay one, fair wage directly to their employees. Last week, a report released by ROC United and Forward Together, The Glass Floor, revealed that nearly all female restaurant workers — up to 90% — report experiencing some form of sexual harassment, with tipped workers being the most vulnerable. “I was a restaurant worker over 30 years ago, and here’s the tragic story: absolutely nothing has changed,” said Eve Ensler, founder of V-Day and One Billion Rising. “The wage hasn’t changed, the sexual harassment hasn’t changed, the outfits I was forced to wear hasn’t changed, the abuse hasn’t changed. . .

Fear And Fair Cannot Coexist…

October 16, 2014 Coalition of Immokalee Workers, www.ciw-online.org Organize! Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Food and Agriculture, Labor Rights, Mexico

For the sake of Mexico’s workers, one can only hope that last month’s massacre sparks a social movement equal to that of the Civil Rights movement in this country that can challenge the rule of corruption and end the senseless violence of the decade-old drug wars. But until then, Mexican farmworkers will remain powerless to address the abuse and exploitation they face in the fields, and Florida tomatoes will be the only truly fair product on the market. Ultimately, it was the economic power of tourism that dragged Florida into the 20th century. The competition for the country’s growing tourist dollars in the 1960s was enough that Florida could no longer abide the shame of “Florida Terror” headlines in northern papers. Let’s hope that competition from the Fair Food Program likewise helps prod Mexico’s tomato industry to realize that the country’s violence and corruption is holding it back, and that real, sustainable economic growth can only come with peace, transparency, and lasting social justice.

Who Are The Prison Profiteers?

October 12, 2014 Rick Riley, www.atlantablackstar.com Educate! Labor Rights, Prison Industrial Complex

Prison labor in the United States is referred to as insourcing. Under the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC), employers receive a tax credit of $2,400 for every work-release inmate they employ as a reward for hiring “risky target groups.” The workers are not only cheap labor, but they are considered easier to control. They also tend to be African-American males. Companies are free to avoid providing benefits like health insurance or sick days. They also don’t need to worry about unions, demands for vacation time, raises or family issues. Here are some of the biggest corporations to use such practices, but there are hundreds more...

It’s Easy To Make Day Laborers’ Lives Better, Washington D.C.

October 10, 2014 Lydia DePillis, www.washingtonpost.com Educate! D.C., Labor Rights, Washington, Washington D.C.

Protecting day laborers from contractors who might cut corners on safety or short them on pay, with a fledgling group called Trabajadores Unidos de D.C. – United Workers of D.C. The group, sparsely funded by the city and a local charity, takes on everything from helping undocumented immigrants get drivers licenses to ensuring they are protected in the workplace at a time when the country’s immigration laws remain deeply unsettled. Griffiths walks through the parking lot, handing out bottles of water, as worried faces ease into big smiles when they see him. He checks in, and hears their troubles. One guy says he was beaten up by a gang on the street the other day, and they stole his money. To Griffiths, that’s an opportunity: Immigrants who are victims of violent crimes can get a U Visa, which allows them to work in the U.S. for four years.

Restauranteurs Ban Tipping, Pay Living Wage

October 4, 2014 Bryce Covert, www.nationofchange.org Create! Labor Rights, Living Wage, Restaurant Industry

A new restaurant in Philadelphia won’t allow customers to tip its waitstaff. Instead, it plans to pay employees a living wage with generous benefits. Chef Brian Oliveira and co-owner Cristian Mora of Girard Brasserie and Bruncherie, set to open at the end of the month, told ThinkProgress that while wages will vary depending on workers’ experience, they will average about $13 an hour. “On all our other interviews we had said $11,” Mora said, “but we are going to do better than that.” On top of that, all employees — whether full time or part time — will get four paid vacation days for every six months they work as well as some paid sick days that haven’t been determined yet. The restaurant will also pay 100 percent of the cost of health care benefits.

America’s Most Invisible Workforce Is One We Need Most

October 2, 2014 Ai-jen Poo, www.theguardian.com Organize! Labor Rights, Living Wage

There are at least 3m care workers across the United States. They help our loved ones eat and bathe while providing emotional support and human connection. These workers also take care of us – making it possible to go to work every day knowing our loved ones are in capable hands. Yet in return for the life-sustaining supports that care workers provide, we have failed to care for them. Care workers earn, on average, less than $10 per hour. They rarely receive paid vacation or sick days. Most workers are subject to termination without notice or severance pay; many without citizenship status fear they can do nothing to improve their situations.

Corporate Anti-Union Strategy In America

September 29, 2014 Jack Rasmus, www.zcomm.org Educate! Capitalism, Labor Rights, Labor Unions

Labor Day 2014 in the U.S. has come and gone and it should be obvious to all but those with self-imposed historical myopia that American unions and workers are now well into a fourth decade of a strategic retreat. Retreat is not synonymous with defeat, of course. Resistance and fight-back continues to occur along several fronts—low wage workers’ attempts to unionize, immigrant workers’ protests, minimum wage fights, and scattered islands of resistance by teachers and public workers. But the private sector trade union movement, as well as the vast majority of the still unorganized working class, continues to show little signs of organized resistance in the face of a still growing overtly anti-union and anti-worker offensive by corporate America.

Brands Pledge To Raise Cambodian Garment Workers’ Wages

September 29, 2014 Bryce Covert, www.thinkprogress.com Organize! Cambodia, Capitalism, Labor Rights

Eight major clothing brands, including Swedish H&M and Spanish Inditex, which owns Zara, British New Look, and Irish Primark, have sent a letter to the Cambodian deputy prime minister saying they will pay more for goods sourced there in order to help raise pay for the country’s garment workers. “Workers in all production countries have the right to a fair living wage,” the letter states. “As responsible Business’ [sic] our purchasing practices will enable the payment of a fair living wage.” The letter also calls on the government to establish a monitoring and policing system to ensure workers actually get any higher minimum wage to “create a competitive advantage for the factories that comply with the new minimum wage” and the installation of a yearly collective bargaining process for the workers.

L.A. City Council Approves Minimum-Wage Hike

September 27, 2014 David Zahniser, Emily Alpert Reyes, www.latimes.com Organize! Labor Rights, Los Angeles, Minimum Wage

Big hotels in Los Angeles will soon be required to pay at least $15.37 an hour to their workers — one of the highest minimum-wage requirements in the country. The City Council voted 12 to 3 on Wednesday to impose the higher wage on large hotels, delivering a huge victory to a coalition that included organized labor, more than a dozen neighborhood councils and the ACLU of Southern California. Lawmakers cast their vote despite warnings from business advocates, who said the measure would trigger job losses at hotels stretching from Harbor Gateway to the San Fernando Valley. Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, predicted that other cities would follow L.A.'s lead, much as they did after passage of the city's landmark 1997 "living wage" ordinance mandating higher pay for employees of many city contractors.

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