Workers Rights and Jobs

Universal Basic Income: Left or Right?

May 3, 2018 Daniel Raventós and Julie Wark, Counterpunch.org Educate! New Economy, Universal Income, Workers Rights and Jobs

Universal basic income, a regular unconditional cash payment to the whole population is increasingly being discussed in social, political, academic circles and among citizens in general. People are championing it from right and left. But, if it’s being pushed from both ends of the political spectrum, what’s its secret? Is it so amazingly convincing that all differences between political extremes are abolished? Hardly. More like it, the fact that basic income is being hailed from such different political positions muddies serious debate and is downright bewildering for a lot of people. And, on the left, a lot of other people, saying that they’re no suckers, opt for a knee-jerk, total rejection of basic income because they see it as just another right-wing con.

‘We’ll Shut Down Economy’

May 3, 2018 Naziziphiwo Buso, Heraldlive.co.za Resist! Class Struggle, Minimum Wage, South Africa, Workers Rights and Jobs

South African Federation of Trade Unions (Saftu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has threatened to shut down the economy if the proposed national minimum wage is implemented. Vavi was speaking at a May Day rally at the Lilian Ngoyi Sports Centre in Kwazakhele, Port Elizabeth. “We need a total shutdown of this economy for a minimum of two days. We want to occupy every city,” he said. “We won’t move until they withdraw this attack on workers.” Saftu is demanding a living wage of at least R12 500 a month, while the proposed minimum wage is R3 500 a month, or R20 an hour. “If the economy is going through hell, let the economy go through hell for everyone,” Vavi said.

Workers, Activists Mark May Day with Defiant Rallies

May 3, 2018 Staff, Thenationalherald.com Resist! Activists, Class Struggle, May Day, Rally, Workers Rights and Jobs

Thousands of Greeks are marching through central Athens in at least three separate May Day demonstrations. Museums were also shut while ferries remain were tied up in port and public transport operated on a reduced schedule in strikes marking labor day. Police said at least 7,000 people were at the first demonstration in Athens, which was organized by a communist party-led union. The protesters marched by parliament and headed up a major avenue to the United States Embassy. Another four demonstrations were planned in Greece’s second largest city of Thessaloniki in the north. Trains, the suburban railway, urban trolleys and ferries to and from the islands suspended operations for the day, while buses and the Athens metro system were operating on reduced schedules

Only 1 In 3 Americans Work Full Time

May 2, 2018 By Matt Bruenig, Peoplespolicyproject.org Educate! Class Struggle, Full Employment, Workers Rights and Jobs

In last week’s discussion of the job guarantee, a lot was said about the “dignity of work” and other things of that sort. I’ve mostly avoided that topic because I am more interested in technical details than philosophical concepts at this point in my life. But the questions of work — whether it is good or bad, fulfilling or alienating, dignified or exploitive — are nonetheless interesting ones that I think are worthy of some intraleft debate. My view on work is generally negative. Work swallows up your time, tends to subordinate you to others, and is usually not very fun. For the time being, work is a necessary evil because we need the things it produces, but it would be nice to keep it to a minimum and have more leisure.

Worker Rights For Cannabis Trimmers

April 28, 2018 By Donnell Alexander, Capitalandmain.com Create! Marijuana, Workers, Workers Rights and Jobs

Matilda reclines on a Northeast Los Angeles couch she’s paid $25 to sleep on for one night. The young woman, who earlier in the day had returned to the U.S. from Mexico, talks about her job as a cannabis trimmer. Matilda—not her real name—gives a heads-up on her epilepsy, and through the night she’ll make a number of unusual, loud sounds in her sleep. Matilda has worked most in Mendocino on trimming jobs good and bad. At most black-market marijuana grow operations, she’s found there are guns. She grew used to the constant, noisy whirr of the high-powered generator that powered the lights growing the plants. The bad gigs are the grows where weapons are numerous and the bosses are stressed out and high. She left one trimming gig where the volume of open gunplay made her uncomfortable, and moved to another one in the Emerald Triangle–– Northern California‘s Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity counties –– that featured consistent pay.

Massive Minimum Wage Study: Few Downsides, Gains For Low-Wage Workers

April 7, 2018 Cody Fenwick, Alternet Educate! Minimum Wage, New Economy, Workers Rights and Jobs

new study on the minimum wage confirms previous research that found the policy raises wages for low-income workers without reducing total employment. The paper may finally start to convince conservative critics of the minimum wage to reconsider their views. "[R]aising the minimum wage increases earnings growth at the bottom of the distribution, and those effects persist and indeed grow in magnitude over several years," the authors write. At the same time, there's little indication that other people will lose their jobs as a result of the minimum wage—the outcome conservatives always warn about. The authors go on to note that "a large increase in minimum wages would blunt the worst of the income losses during the Great Recession," though it would not completely reverse the effects.

Solar Foundation Presents Solar Jobs Maps, Local Data

April 3, 2018 John Weaver, Pv-magazine-usa.com Create! Solar Energy, Workers Rights and Jobs

The U.S. lost just under 10,000 solar jobs in 2017 versus 2016. And while it is difficult to say exactly what caused each job loss, analysts state that a majority came as a result of the “hangover” following the boom in installations in 2016 in advance of the expected drop-down of the U.S. Investment Tax Credit (ITC). However, the Section 201 tariffs and in particular the uncertainty in the Section 201 process have also been factors. And despite predictions of U.S. job growth by Suniva and SolarWorld, the U.S. has seen announcements of less than 500 new jobs in solar cell and module manufacturing. The report showed that California lost more than 13,000 total solar power jobs – a total greater than the decline in the entire nation. In fact, if the jobs lost in California, Massachusetts and Nevada were excluded, the United States would have seen a net increase of 8,600 jobs.

Kentucky Teachers Shut Down Schools Over Pensions

April 1, 2018 Travis Waldron, Huff Post Resist! Education, Strike, Workers Rights and Jobs

Public schools closed in at least 25 Kentucky counties on Friday as teachers staged a quasi-strike after legislation was passed that would overhaul the state pension system. Kentucky teachers called in sick or absent to protest the legislation, which passed mostly along party lines on Thursday night. The closures affected schools across the state, including in its two largest school districts: Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville and Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington. More than one-third of all school employees in Lexington called out of work.

Economic Democracy: Remaking The Economy Into ‘Our’ Economy

April 1, 2018 Marshall Steinbaum, Eric Harris Bernstein, John Sturm, the Roosevelt Institute Create! Antitrust, Economic Democracy, New Economy, Workers Rights and Jobs

We need economic democracy. As workers, as consumers, and as citizens, Americans are increasingly powerless in today’s economy. A 40-year assault on antitrust and competition policy—the laws and regulations meant to guard against the concentration of power in private hands—has tipped the economy in favor of powerful corporations and their shareholders. Under the false assumption that the unencumbered ambitions of private business will align with the public good, the pro-monopoly policies of the “Chicago School” of antitrust lurk behind today’s troubling trends: high profits, low corporate investment, rising markups, low wages, declining entrepreneurship, and lack of access to unbiased information. Market power and lax competition policy ensure our economy serves the few over the many.

Germany’s 28-Hour Workweek

March 28, 2018 Loren Balhorn, Jacobinmag.com Create! Exploitation, Germany, Labor, New Economy, Workers Rights and Jobs

German metalworkers’ union IG Metall made international headlines last month after a twenty-four-hour “warning strike” compelled employers to sign a deal with the union giving its members the right to a twenty-eight-hour workweek. The deal — which covers 900,000 workers in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg — is seen as a landmark in European labor relations, granting workers who want to reduce their working hours the right to do so for a two-year period. It came after 15,000 workers in eighty companies downed tools as part of a campaign for a better work-life balance and also included a substantial pay raise. But is it too good be true? Jacobin’s Loren Balhorn sat down with German labor sociologist Klaus Dörre to find out more about the strike, what the workers really gained, and what it might say about the German labor movement’s future.

Tipped Workers Win With Spending Bill

March 28, 2018 By Negin Owliaei, Inequality.org Create! Class Struggle, Labor, Workers Rights and Jobs

President Trump signed a massive omnibus spending bill on Friday, ensuring that the lights will stay on in the federal government for another six months. But the bill does more than just allocate funds. Tucked 2,000 pages into the text is a provision that will protect tipped workers from getting their gratuities skimmed by their employers. The provision is a response to a proposed rule from the Department of Labor, which would have undone years of precedent that gave workers the tips they earned. The controversial proposal would have let employers take ownership of the tips paid to workers who made a full minimum wage (as opposed to the tipped minimum wage). Supporters said the rule was meant to allow for tip pooling to reduce inequality between restaurant workers in the line of service and those in the back of the house.

Del Monte’s Pay Ratio Is Largest To Date At 1,465:1

March 13, 2018 By Brian Wakamo, Inequality.org Educate! Class Struggle, Exploitation, New Economy, Workers Rights and Jobs

Del Monte Produce, makers of the beloved fruit cups present in every elementary school, paid their CEO 1,465 times more than their typical employee last year. CEO Mohammad Abu-Ghazaleh made $8.5 million, while their median employee, located in Costa Rica, made $5,833. Del Monte had to reveal this astounding information as the result of a new regulation requiring publicly held firms to report their CEO-worker pay gaps. Corporations fought tooth and nail for nearly eight years to squelch this regulation — to no avail. Now, the American public will finally know more about the companies that dominate their lives. We’ll now be able to know the gap between what top executives make, what their typical employees make, and, in some cases, more information on the location of their employees.

The West Virginia Option

March 12, 2018 Joe Burns, Portside.org Organize! Labor, Strikes, Teachers, Unions, West Virginia, Workers Rights and Jobs

The ongoing teachers’ strike in West Virginia is remarkable in many ways. Thousands of public workers are engaged in a grassroots rebellion, defying restrictions on their right to strike. They’ve forced the state’s Republican governor to grant concessions, carrying on despite an announced deal by union officials. They’ve inspired other workers to think anew about militant action, both in West Virginia and outside the state. All of this is fitting at a time when anti-union forces are trying to turn back the clock on collective bargaining rights. The modern public employee union movement was born of struggle — the product of a great strike wave in the 1960s and 1970s. The school personnel strike in West Virginia represents a return to those militant days.

YMCA Childcare Workers Just Went On Strike. Here’s Why.

March 9, 2018 Rebecca Burns, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Labor, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

When Vivian Clark got a job with a Chicago-area Head Start program 15 years ago, it seemed like the “stepping stone” her family had been waiting for. Her son, then aged 9, had already gone through the federally funded preschool program when Clark was offered a job as a part-time administrative assistant for a Head Start program administered by the YMCA. In addition to providing early education and social services for low-income children, many Head Start agencies have expanded their focus into providing education and job opportunities for parents, often as employees of the program. Though grateful for the opportunity, Clark had to live with a glaring contradiction: The anti-poverty program provided her with a job, but it barely paid her minimum wage. When she started the job, she says she made $7.50 an hour.

5 Reasons Mexican Workers Would Cheer The Demise Of NAFTA

March 9, 2018 By Manuel Perez-Rocha, Fpif.org Educate! Labor, Mexico, NAFTA, Workers Rights and Jobs

Mexicans have plenty not to like about Donald Trump: his racism, his wall, his tirades against immigrants. But if there’s a disruption provoked by Trump we should actually embrace, it’s the renegotiation of NAFTA—or even the trade pact’s possible end. Along with Mexico’s upcoming presidential elections on July 1—in which center-left candidate Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (AMLO, as he is popularly known) is the clear front runner—the possible unraveling of NAFTA has the country’s business elite and political establishment freaking out. While AMLO sees the renegotiation of NAFTA as an opportunity for meaningful changes that would benefit the majority of Mexicans, Mexican negotiators from the ruling establishment party have been very busy trying to secure a deal before the vote, in order to keep the status quo as intact as possible.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources