The House voted Thursday to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a bill to protect workers trying to unionize, increase penalties on employers who break labor laws to prevent workers from unionizing, and weaken some state-level anti-union laws. “Good labor laws do more than just right the wrongs waged against unions and their members. …
House Democrats just passed an important blueprint for strengthening unions and building worker power. If signed into law, the labor law reforms within the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would amount to the biggest change to the rules governing employers and workers in generations. Among other major features, it would bolster workers’ ability …
House Passes Bill to Dramatically Strengthen the Power of Unions Read More »
“What if a bakery kept its heart and soul, but always remained open to new ideas?” asks the website for Tartine, the world-renowned Bay Area bakery. Elsewhere on the site, the bakery boasts of “Production at a human scale.” Today, the humans who produce Tartine’s award-winning bread and pastries have a new idea of their own: a union. The …
“Let’s Get This Bread”: Bay Area Tartine Bakery Workers Move to Unionize Read More »
Principles Workplace law is clear: An employer may not unlawfully discriminate against an employee by compelling her to participate in a religious practice selected by the employer as a condition of employment. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,[1] prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on religion. Many states provide similar protections …
Donald Trump continued the campaign against public education as a public good in his State of the Union address, with a reference to “failing government schools” and a push for a federal education privatization plan in the form of “Education Freedom Scholarships.” That’s a giant voucher program that would give tax credits to people who give money …
Trump attacks public education and pushes school privatization in State of the Union Read More »
In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Trump extolled the “blue-collar boom” in the economy along with his purported “great American comeback.” He made this claim based in part on two recent signature trade deals—the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and a “phase one” deal with China. Unfortunately, both agreements will likely to lead to …
Donald Trump Flat Out Lied About the Economy In His State of the Union Read More »
A militant caucus within the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers is showing how, with rank-and-file leadership, unions can be a powerful force for fighting deep-rooted environmental injustice. Nearly 24 years ago, students at Franklin Learning Center sounded the alarm about asbestos and lead in their school, blocking traffic and interrupting a Board of Education meeting to demand repairs and …
A Rank-and-File Teachers’ Movement Takes On Philadelphia’s Toxic Schools Read More »
Our latest roundup of worker wins begins with organizing efforts at a publishing giant and includes numerous examples of working people organizing, bargaining and mobilizing for a better life. The end of 2019 saw a flurry of wins for working people, so this is the second in several posts that will cover the victories of …
Union membership continuing to tick down year by year doesn’t just affect unions. It leads to rising economic inequality, the Economic Policy Institute reminds us. The share of workers covered by a union bargaining agreement is less than half of what it was in 1979, and “Research shows that this de-unionization accounts for a sizable share of the growth …
Australia’s bushfire crisis has killed tens and incinerated an area two-thirds the size of Illinois. The resulting blanket of smog reduced air quality in the nation’s capital, Canberra, to third worst among all major cities. But the latest manifestation of the climate crisis has hurt an already hard-done by group: gig workers delivering food for Uber Eats. While state governments have …
Why Many Uber Drivers Couldn’t Afford To Stay Home During Australia’s Fires 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.
