The COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout have hammered the Latino community. Latinos make up 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths after adjusting for age, according to the Centers for Disease Control, but only 19 percent of the population. This is the biggest disparity of any major ethnic or racial group. Why the disproportionate impact? The …
Work Is the Reason Latinos Are Getting Slammed So Hard by the Pandemic Read More »
Not long before Donald Trump’s election in 2016, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed suit against California’s farmworker access rule in federal court on behalf of two companies—Cedar Point Nursery in Siskiyou County and the Fowler Packing Company in Fresno. The foundation is a conservative libertarian group that holds property rights sacred and campaigns against racial equity. It fought …
Will the Supreme Court Overrule Farmworker Union Rights? Read More »
As a strike wave sweeps the U.S. healthcare industry amid the Covid-19 pandemic, 700 frontline workers at 11 Chicago-area nursing homes have been on the picket lines since November 23. Primarily Black and Latina women, the striking workers are members of SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana and include certified nursing assistants (CNAs), dietary aides, housekeepers and laundry workers. They are fighting for at least $15 an hour, …
The Covid-19 pandemic has created opportunities for many businesses, as well as for those with bad intentions. It is important for businesses to protect themselves and employees from fraudulent traps during this disruptive period. When work patterns are interrupted, it creates ideal situations for fraudsters to target businesses and the individuals who work in them. …
Work From Home scams: How to Protect Your Employees During Pandemic Read More »
Chad Longpre Shepersky repeatedly took COVID-19 tests—and waited on pins and needles for results each time—during a coronavirus outbreak at Guardian Angels Health and Rehabilitation Center in Hibbing, Minnesota. Longpre Shepersky, a certified nursing assistant (CNA), never contracted the virus. But he watched in agony as dozens of his patients and coworkers fell ill and …
How Americans Can Help the Frontline Workers Battling COVID-19 Read More »
Every Thanksgiving, people across the United States gather with their family and friends to celebrate and eat and be with their loved ones. And at the same time, people across the United States are at work—maybe having rescheduled their holiday meal around their work and maybe having given up the celebration entirely. Well, this year is …
How much rage have you got left after four years of Donald Trump and nine months of coronavirus pandemic? Please set aside some to direct at the United States’ largest retail companies for their treatment of their workers. A Brookings Institution report shows how 13 of the nation’s 20 largest retail chains, with a combined …
‘We went from being essential to being sacrificial, all for the sake of the bottom line’ Read More »
We’re back with Season Four of Working People! In this urgent episode, we talk with Dr. Amir Atabeygi, a physician at MultiCare Indigo Urgent Care in Thurston County, Washington. On November 23, amid a terrifying surge in COVID-19 cases around the country, Dr. Atabeygi joins his fellow physicians, physician assistants, and advanced registered nurse practitioners on the picket line as …
As Covid Surges, Doctors Are Striking Against “Retail Health” Read More »
Unemployment remains high, Republicans allowed expanded unemployment benefits to expire, and retail companies are using that desperation to get vulnerable people to risk their health or their lives for low, low wages. Early on in the pandemic, many retail chains paid their workers some amount of hazard pay. It was usually an inadequate amount and …
Millions of full-time, adult workers in the United States?—?many of them employed by Walmart, McDonald’s and other highly profitable corporations?—?are paid wages so low they’re forced to rely on public assistance to make ends meet. That is the key finding of a newly released report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO). Commissioned by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I?Vt.), the …
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
