Workers Rights and Jobs

Imagining A World With No Bullshit Jobs

August 10, 2018 David Graeber And Chris Brooks, Roarmag.org Create! Class Struggle, Jobs, New Economy, Unions, Workers Rights and Jobs

In this interview about his latest book, David Graeber discusses the role of unions, the challenges posed by automation and “the revolt of the caring classes.” Is your job pointless? Do you feel that your position could be eliminated and everything would continue on just fine? Maybe, you think, society would even be a little better off if your job never existed? If your answer to these questions is “yes,” then take solace. You are not alone. As much as half the work that the working population engages in every day could be considered pointless, says David Graeber, Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics and author of Bullshit Jobs: A Theory.

Creating Pension Plan Chaos For Teachers, Firefighters, And Cops

July 31, 2018 By Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org Educate! Teachers, Workers Rights and Jobs

A single butterfly flapping its wings, chaos theory tells us, can wreak social havoc. Those flaps could alter the course of a tornado two weeks later. A big deal if your home happens to be in that tornado’s new course. Now if a single butterfly could wreak such havoc, imagine the damage a few flaps by America’s super rich could wreak. We don’t have to imagine, suggests a new report from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. We just have a trace the recent history of America’s pension funds for state and local government employees. Our story starts decades ago, in the middle of the 20th century, an era in the United States much more equal than today. One prime driver of that greater equality: high taxes on high incomes, as high as 91 percent on joint return income over $400,000.

How European Workers Coordinated This Month’s Massive Amazon Strike—And What Comes Next

July 30, 2018 Rebecca Burns, Inthesetimes.com Resist! Amazon, Class Struggle, Europe, Labor, Strikes, Workers Rights and Jobs

As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ net worth topped $150 billion last week, making him the richest man in modern history, thousands of Amazon workers across Europe went on strike. The work stoppage, which lasted three days at some facilities, was one of the largest labor actions against Amazon to date, and the first to receive widespread coverage in the U.S. media. But the strikes and protests in Spain, Germany and Poland were just the latest in an escalating series of actions against Amazon in Europe, where workers belonging to both conventional unions and militant workers’ organizations are forging a transnational movement against the internet juggernaut. In Germany, which is Amazon's second-biggest market after the United States, workers at the company’s fulfillment centers waged the first-ever strike against Amazon in 2013.

As Prevailing Wage Laws Are Being Threatened, New Research Explains Their Importance

July 27, 2018 By Filiberto Nolasco Gomez, Workdayminnesota.org Strategize! Labor, Legislation, New Economy, Wages, Workers Rights and Jobs

The repeal was originated and pushed by Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) through the ballot committee Protecting Michigan Taxpayers. ABC represents mostly non-union contractors. Opponents of Michigan’s repeal(link is external) say that it will erode safety and training standards and hurt the construction industry’s ability to attract and retain skilled workers. Proponents of repeal claim it will save the state hundreds of millions of dollars every year. The savings are expected to come directly from the wages of the construction workers who currently earn Michigan’s prevailing wages. Interviewed in the website Crain’s Detroit Business(link is external), Michigan State University economist, Charles Ballard, is skeptical of the claim that repealing prevailing wage saves money.

Teamsters Union Blackmails UPS Workers: Approve Contract Or Your Wages Will Be Cut

July 24, 2018 Will Morrow, Wsws.org Resist! Class Struggle, Labor Unions, UPS, Workers Rights and Jobs

The Teamsters Union is seeking to blackmail UPS workers into voting for its sellout contract proposal by threatening that a “no” vote will result in an even worse offer. A UPS worker provided the World Socialist Web Site with a letter sent out to all New York state UPS Teamster members by Local 687 president Brian Hammond. The letter, dated July 16, includes the following threat: “Health and pension—the company has agreed to pay the full amount needed to the health and pension fund of $5.28 over the life of the agreement. They will do this only if we pass our supplement [agreement] the first time. If not, the extra amount will come from your wage increase like before. Currently FT [full-time] employees have $1.95 per hour diverted to pension. I do not want to see that number increase!”

UPS And Teamsters In Collusion Against The Workers

July 23, 2018 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG Radio. Podcast Labor, UPS, Workers Rights and Jobs

UPS workers are in a critical struggle with both their employer and their union, the Teamsters, which are pushing a poor contract on them. Like many workers in the United States, UPS workers are facing low wages and cuts to health care and other benefits. Although UPS workers nationwide voted by over 90% to go on strike, they are being told that the new five-year contract is a “done deal.” Rank and file workers are doing all they can to reach workers and let them know that this is not the case. They can still reject the contract and keep fighting for a better one.

Heat Wave Safety: 130 Groups Call For Protections For Farm, Construction Workers

July 19, 2018 Georgina Gustin, Insideclimatenews.org Resist! Climate Change, Exploitation, Farm Workers, Workers Rights and Jobs

Parts of the country are expecting another round of searing, potentially record-shattering heat in the coming days, and many farm and construction workers will be out in it—with no federal heat stress standards directing their employers to offer them water, rest or shade. Despite recommendations going back more than 40 years, the federal government has repeatedly failed to set a heat stress standard for American workers. On Tuesday, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, along with United Farm Workers Foundation and Farmworker Justice, joined more than 130 public health and environmental groups in submitting a petition to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration calling for the agency to require employers to protect their workers from heat by imposing mandatory rest breaks, hydration and access to shade or cooled spaces, among other measures.

Walmart Hopes To Track Employees’ Every Move With New Checkstand Surveillance Tech

July 17, 2018 By Elliott Gabriel, Mintpressnews.com Educate! Exploitation, Surveillance, Walmart, Workers Rights and Jobs

Walmart’s move is just the latest in the rolling-out of surveillance technology across workplaces in the United States, which merges the use of technology for generating metrics with spying technology that further creeps into the lives of already hard-pressed, cash-strapped workers. Big-box retailing behemoth Walmart, which employs one of the United States’ largest workforces, has never been known for being a friendly corporation to employees. With its anti-worker environment, hard-nosed opposition to unions, and reputation for destroying small business in markets it grows to dominate, the company has become synonymous with the heartless, calculating reputation of corporate culture and its total disregard for people’s dignity.

Grand Theft Paycheck

June 13, 2018 By Phil Mattera, Inequality.org Educate! Class Struggle, Labor, Wages, Workers Rights and Jobs

For the past two decades, Walmart has repeatedly been accused of compelling workers to perform certain tasks off the clock and has paid numerous fines for those practices. It is often suggested that the retailer is an anomaly, acting more like a fly-by-night sweatshop than a corporate giant. I recently completed a research project showing that, on the contrary, off-the-clock work, denial of overtime pay through misclassification and other forms of wage theft are pervasive in American big business. After digging through court records for much of the past year, I found more than 1,200 successful wage and hour lawsuits against hundreds of the country’s largest employers. These collective action suits have yielded some $8.8 billion in settlements and verdicts in the period since 2000.

Teen Voices In The Fight To Raise The Minimum Wage In Massachusetts

May 24, 2018 By Jessicah Pierre, Inequality.org Organize! Class Struggle, Labor, Minimum Wage, Workers Rights and Jobs

Norma Meza is an 18-year-old student at Charlestown High School in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Growing up, she watched her mother battle health issues such as kidney failure, lupus, and ulcers. Despite working full-time, her mother struggled financially to keep the family afloat. Norma knew as early as 14 years old that she would have to get a job to help her mother pay the bills and put food on the table. Since then she’s worked a number of jobs to help contribute to her family’s income while gaining important work skills. “I’ve worked as an office assistant and learned in the process how to answer phone calls, assisting families who spoke Spanish,” said Norma. “After that I worked as a camp counselor for 2 years where I learned leadership, communication skills, and how to be a role model.”

UM Lecturers Fight For Higher, Equal Pay

May 19, 2018 Nicquel Terry, Detroitnews.com Resist! Education, Higher Education, Wages, Workers Rights and Jobs

Dearborn — Lecturers at the University of Michigan are calling on school officials to raise their wages, saying they have been underpaid for years and threaten to go on strike if the school rejects their request. The Lecturers’ Employee Organization — which represents 1,700 non-tenure lecturers at the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses — says it has been bargaining for a new contract with the university since October, and its contract expires May 29. The union members gathered at the Dearborn campus on Thursday to display unity before going to the University of Michigan Board of Regents’ meeting to speak out. Union leaders say many lecturers on all three campuses are not making enough to support a family and have to work additional jobs for more income. They also want equal pay rates at all three campuses. Ann Arbor lecturers are paid higher salaries.

University Of California Workers Start 3-Day Strike Over Pay

May 14, 2018 Olga R. Rodriguez, Apnews.com Resist! Class Struggle, Strikes, University of California, Workers Rights and Jobs

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Thousands of custodians, security guards, gardeners and other service workers at University of California campuses started a three-day strike Monday to address pay inequalities and demand higher wages. Strikers gathered at sunrise on the 10 campuses throughout the state, wearing green T-shirts and carrying signs that call for “equality, fairness, respect.” The strike was called last week by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, which represents 25,000 service workers, after the union and the university could not agree on a new contract and mediation efforts failed. Another 29,000 nurses, pharmacists, radiologists and other medical workers heeded the service workers’ call for a sympathy strike and will join the walkouts Tuesday and Wednesday, which is expected to disrupt thousands of surgeries and other appointments.

Everyone Can Have Their Own Job Guarantee

May 11, 2018 By Matt Bruenig, Peoplespolicyproject.org Create! Labor, Workers Rights and Jobs

Before getting into his piece, it is helpful to again restate my main criticism of the job guarantee (JG) idea, the one I have been making for three years now (over and over and over and over). My main criticism of the idea is that the kinds of jobs that are appropriate for the program are not very good jobs and that advocates consistently claim that they will be able to do jobs that they can’t actually do. This criticism is aimed at the canonical JG proposal that says that the program’s intent is to set a fixed minimum wage and act as an employer of last resort (ELR) for the bottom of the labor market. Importantly for this post, the fixed minimum wage is key to the canonical JG’s design because it allegedly allows private employers to hold down the inflationary wage demands of their own workers by being able to hire out of the JG labor pool with ease.

No Loopholes, No Exceptions

May 9, 2018 Penelope Kyritsis, Opendemocracy.net Resist! Farmworkers, Sexual Violence, Women, Workers Rights and Jobs

For decades, domestic workers and farmworker women have been systematically excluded from labour protection laws and have faced extensive barriers to justice for sexual harassment, among other forms of abuse. Most have no human resources department to turn to, and are not covered by Title VII, the federal anti-discrimination law that prohibits sexual harassment, as the law currently only applies to workplaces with 15 employees or more. Since most workers in the care sector are the only or one of just a few employees in their workplace, they – along with independent contractors – fall beyond the purview of this federal labour protection instrument. “It’s happening to us because we are invisible workers,” said Teresa Arredondo, farmworker leader from Alianza de Campesinas.

How Wall Street Bought Toys ‘R’ Us And Left 30,000 People Without Jobs

May 7, 2018 Leticia Miranda, Buzzfeed.com Educate! Wall Street, Workers Rights and Jobs

When the last Toys ‘R’ Us store closes its doors once and for all, the company's top executives will have pocketed some $8.2 million in retention bonuses for sticking around long enough to liquidate the company. Wall Street firms that loaded Toys ‘R’ Us with debt when they bought it in 2005 will have collected millions in fees from the company, even if they ultimately lost the majority of their investment. And employees like Ann Marie Reinhart, who worked as a supervisor at Toys ‘R’ Us for 29 years, will walk away with nothing. Reinhart, 58, was a full-time supervisor at a Toys ‘R’ Us store in Durham, North Carolina, until she was laid off when her store closed in early April. Because Toys ‘R’ Us didn’t give her or her coworkers any severance, Reinhart is looking for a job and getting by on the wages her husband earns delivering auto parts.

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