Just weeks after Washington lawmakers allowed a $600-a-week boost in payments for millions of unemployed workers to expire, the economy is already starting to feel the pain. The number of workers lining up for jobless aid has been rising. The retail and delivery sectors, which especially benefited from laid-off Americans spending the extra cash, have …
Economy hurting after Congress fails to act on stimulus Read More »
We are in a moment of great uncertainty. The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent unemployment crises are making all workers take a second look at their employment situation. As millions of workers lose their jobs, others are fighting for protection, safety and rights at work?—?and some are even unionizing. That includes us, the staff at the National Domestic Workers …
We Organize Domestic Workers. Here’s Why We Decided We Need a Union, Too. Read More »
The drop in overall employment that white-collar industries have seen in five months is already on par with or worse than the hits they took during the Great Recession. The coronavirus recession that began as a short-term shutdown devastating low-wage workers is now bearing down on white-collar America, where employers have been slower to rehire …
‘Not just a low-wage recession’: White-collar workers feel coronavirus squeeze Read More »
As Postmaster General Louis DeJoy slows down mail delivery to help Donald Trump accomplish his goal of undermining mail-in voting and to continue the decades-long Republican war on the U.S. Postal Service, postal workers have sounded the alarm. “You don’t just go and tell management, ‘Hey, I saw that. That’s not allowed,’ ” Scott Adams, an …
Postal workers are speaking out to save our democracy, this week in the war on workers Read More »
In addition to safety measures, some unions are pressing for police-free schools, canceling rents and mortgages, and bans on new charter programs and standardized testing. Teachers won newfound respect at the start of the pandemic as parents learned just how difficult it was to teach their kids at home. But teachers unions now risk squandering …
Teachers unions test goodwill with strike threats, hardball negotiations Read More »
Republican and Democratic legislators alike say they don’t understand why Florida hasn’t acted yet. TALLAHASSEE — Although Florida has some of the lowest unemployment payments in the nation, Gov. Ron DeSantis remains undecided about whether to ask for the stripped-down federal benefits recently authorized by President Donald Trump. Eleven states have applied for a $400 …
Florida may turn down Trump’s plan to increase jobless aid Read More »
States have been processing roughly 1 million new unemployment applications each week since mid-March. The number of workers applying for unemployment benefits jumped to 1.1 million last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the first time in two weeks that new claims have gone up. States have been processing roughly 1 million new unemployment applications …
One of the industries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic is also one of the industries on which others rest, often invisibly. Without child care, parents struggle to do their own jobs. And child care is in a major crisis. One in five child care jobs has disappeared since February. Those losses are a jobs crisis for women, and …
One in five child care workers has lost their job during the pandemic Read More »
Postal workers say DeJoy’s policies would make it nearly impossible to cope with sweeping changes that are affecting their jobs every day. Jonathan Smith, a Black mail-processing equipment mechanic who joined the U.S. Postal Service in 1988, remembers his grandfather being so proud of his career at the agency that he wore his uniform even …
Postal Service cuts imperil ladder to middle class for many Black Americans Read More »
Voting in America, compared to many other countries, is not easy. That’s always been true. Donald Trump’s relentless effort to undermine the vote in November, in this case by crippling the postal service and trying to make it impossible for ballots to be counted on time, is surely corrupt. But, the undermining of the vote …
Working Life Episode 195: How to Steal an Election 101; Haitian Garment Workers Rise Up Read More »
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.
