Tag: Wages

Twenty Days Of Underground Protests

Ukraine – “This is not a strike, but a protest action.” Yuriy Samoilov, chairperson of the Krivoy Rog (Kryvyi Rih) organization of the Independent Trade Union of Miners of Ukraine, prefers to clarify this point when talking about the underground protest of local miners. Workers of the privatized Krivoy Rog Iron Ore Plant (KZhRK) are afraid to officially call their actions a “strike” because of pressure from the Ukrainian authorities.

Protesters remember the sad experience of striking uranium miners when the leaders of the movement were put on trial.

Become A Socialist With This CEO Pay Calculator

You’ve probably heard, anecdotally, that Jeff Bezos earns your salary in some absurdly short amount of time—but do you know exactly how short? Well, now there’s a tech CEO salary calculator from SimpleTexting that can give you the infuriatingly precise answer. You can also use it to figure out how quickly Elon Musk could pay off your mortgage, or that Mark Zuckerberg could pay off the average American’s $35,359 in student debt in 8 1/2 minutes. Does Jeff Bezos make enough to cover your living expenses in more or less time than it would take you to pledge yourself to the fight to burn capitalism to the ground?

CEO Pay Socialism Wages wealth inequality

Corporations Now Love ‘Black Lives’—But What About Their Own Black Workers?

Never underestimate US business community’s capacity for hypocrisy.

That’s one of the lessons to be drawn from the explosive reaction to George Floyd’s murder. As demonstrators began flooding streets, corporate PR departments flew into rapid response mode, issuing a flurry of agonized, apologetic pledges to do more to combat racism and inequality.

Such statements may, on a personal level, be sincere: the depth of righteous pain and anger expressed by African Americans has induced widespread soul-searching, even in executive suites. Yet this high-profile hand-wringing is used to uncouple the outpouring of outrage from capitalist practices that are now, and always have been, at the intertwined roots of racial and economic injustice.

Black Working Class Strikes Wages Workers Rights and Jobs

Essential Sanitary Workers Strike For Hazard Pay And PPE

The severe outbreak of COVID-19 in southern Louisiana was the last straw for a group of sanitation workers who pick up trash in eastern New Orleans. Last week, they walked off the job and went on strike, demanding hazard pay and a $15 living wage.

Without “hoppers,” as the workers are known, garbage would pile up on the streets and contribute to the spread of disease and other public health problems. However, the group of hoppers in New Orleans say their employers did not provide them with hazard pay or sufficient personal protection equipment as COVID-19 shut down the city. Technically employed by a subcontractor and working for a private disposal firm, the hoppers say were paid as little as $10.25 an hour, with no benefits such as paid sick leave, for lifting 250,000 pounds of waste per week — an essential public service.

COVID-19 Essential worker PPE Wages

Peru: Unions Protest Against Government’s Economic Measures

Labor Unions in Peru are protesting against a new economic measure from the government that seeks to cease work until the COVID-19 pandemic dissipates.

Peruvian President, Martin Vizcarra, announced on April 12 the implementation of the measure as his administration faces the COVID-19 impact. The “perfect suspension” states that those who are unable to work because of the virus can stop working for up to 90 days, but their employers are not required to pay them for the time they are unemployed. Despite the economic issues, workers remain under contract with consequent obligations.

According to Geronimo Lopez, General Chief of Peruvian Unions, “This government does not respect the space of social dialogue; we the workers are taking on and carrying this crisis of the COVID-19. In the face of this, we are going to take action to fight, a nationwide demonstration”.

COVID-19 Peru Wages Worker Rights

“Everyone Deserves A Cost-Of-Living Adjustment”: Interview With UCSC Striker Yulia Gilich

Santa Cruz, CA – Graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) at the University of California in Santa Cruz (UCSC) are fighting for a livable wage. A year of unsuccessful attempts to encourage their employer to re-negotiate a fairer contract, including a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to their pay, has escalated into a full labor strike. In turn, dozens of workers have been fired by the university in retaliation for the Pay Us More UCSC campaign.

California Class Struggle Cost of living Higher Education Student Activism Wages

CEOs Make More In First Week Of January Than Average Salary – Pay Ratios Are The Solution

The typical FTSE 100 CEO will have earned as much as the average UK worker earns in a year by 5pm on January 6 2020 – £29,559 for 33 hours of work, according to data compiled by the High Pay Centre think tank. By the close of the year, the same CEO would have earned £3.46 million – roughly 117 times the average wage in the UK. This is a staggering differential. If you believe that excessive executive pay is a problem, this statistic illustrates the point perfectly.

Bosses CEO Wages Workers

Raising The Minimum Wage By $1 May Prevent Thousands Of Suicides, Study Shows

A new study suggests that raising the minimum wage might lower the suicide rate — especially when unemployment is high — and that doing so might have saved tens of thousands of people from dying by suicide in the last quarter century. The minimum federal minimum wage is $7.25, though many states have set it higher. Between 1990 and 2015, raising the minimum wage by $1 in each state might have saved more than 27,000 lives, according to a report published this week in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

New Economy suicide Wages

On Those Questionable US Wage Stats…Again

In recent months, various independent business and research sources have been raising questions about the accuracy of US official job and wage statistics. Several more sources have joined the discussion, questioning the oft-cited official—and widespread mainstream press reported–3.1% annual rise in US wages the past year. As many have indicated, the 3.1% grossly over-estimates recent wage increases in the US for several important reasons.

Wages Workers Rights and Jobs

Airline Catering Workers Protest On Busy Travel Day

Thirty-nine people were cited by police for failure to disperse Tuesday evening at Philadelphia International Airport as part of a nationwide push during Thanksgiving week to win higher wages and more affordable health care for the low-wage workers who prepare airline meals.

The protests, which occurred at 17 airports, were the latest in a series of public actions by service workers union Unite Here to pressure American Airlines to help give workers better wages and benefits in their current contract negotiations.

The workers — 400 in Philadelphia and 20,000 nationwide — are employed by subcontractors, but Unite Here has adopted a common labor strategy by targeting American Airlines: It’s an acknowledgment of who holds the economic power.

Health Care Wages Worker Rights and Jobs

More Than 15,000 Indiana Teachers Walk Off Job

More than 15,000 Indiana teachers rallied Tuesday at the Indianapolis State Capitol building against low pay and the bipartisan attacks on public education. Teachers and educators walked off the job in defiance of state laws preventing them from going on strike, which forced more than half of the state’s 300 school districts to close.

The mass demonstration of teachers in Indiana—formerly governed by current US Vice President Mike Pence—joins the growing global revolt of teachers against attacks on public education, social inequality and the social crisis educators confront daily in their classrooms.

Teachers across virtually every continent have struck or carried out mass demonstrations in the last two years. Earlier this month, Dutch teachers facing high burnout rates carried out a one-day strike action and shut down 4,000 schools in defiance of their own unions.

Education Strike Teachers Wages

Vote Yes: A Historic CUNY Labor Contract

Adjuncts across the country have been organizing in recent years, at universities like Tufts, George Washington, and many more. They are fighting for better pay, job security, benefits, and other improvements to working conditions. Though adjuncts have long been organized at CUNY, they have faced an uphill battle as decades of austerity have been foisted on the country’s largest urban university by powerful political and financial forces. Yet this round of bargaining represents a significant reversal of the inequality between full- and part-time faculty that has characterized the work life of 12,000 CUNY adjuncts.

Wages Workers Rights and Jobs

Efforts To Claw Back Stolen Wages Painfully Slow, As California Employers Who Cheat Workers Often Get Away With It

In February, when California labor officials announced the biggest wage theft case against a private company in state history, they made sure to include a warning for all bosses: “Stealing earned wages from workers’ pockets is illegal in California and this case shows that employers who steal from their workers will end up paying for it in the end,” said Labor Secretary Julie Su in a press release announcing nearly $12 million in citations against RDV Construction, Inc. RDV has appealed the penalties.

California Exploitation Wages Workers

In Stockton, Early Clues Emerge About Impact Of Guaranteed Income

A totaled car. A mother with cancer. Two kids at home, with field trips and Quinceañera outfits and football gear to pay for. Rent bills of $1,250 due each month. Two jobs—one part-time—both paying around $15 an hour, supplemented by unpredictable child support payments. Lorrine Paradela used to lie awake at night, thinking through all her expenses and income streams, struggling to breathe from the stress of it all. Now, Paradela says, she’s started sleeping again.

Guaranteed income Inequality Wages

Paying The Boss 1,000 Times More Than A Worker Encourages Corporate Recklessness

Back in the 1960s and into the 1970s, few American corporate chief executives pocketed more than 40 or 50 times what they paid their workers. That divide looks quaint by today’s standards, but back then business analysts like the famed Peter Drucker considered even those gaps much too wide. Drucker called for CEO-worker pay ratios no wider than 20 to 1 or 25 to 1. Average Americans today, according to Harvard Business School researchers, consider an even narrower margin — no more than 7 to 1 — to be ideal.

Bosses Profit Wages