The Chicago City Council has approved a bill to raise the city’s minimum wage to $13 an hour by 2019. The proposal, put forward by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, will give Chicago the second highest minimum wage in the nation, behind Seattle’s $15, set to take effect by 2018. Approved by a vote of 44-5, the …
Chicago Raises Minimum Wage to $13 by 2019, But Strikers Say It’s Not Enough Read More »
No one should have to choose between their job and the health of their pregnancy. Peggy Young was forced to do just that in 2006 when she became pregnant and her employer, UPS, refused to accommodate her with light duty as her doctor recommended. She was forced to take unpaid leave and go without her employer-provided health …
Rally Urges Court to End Pregnancy Discrimination Read More »
Common wisdom that women do not make it into upper management positions because they choose to have children and focus on their families is wrong, new research indicates. A survey conducted by the Harvard Business School has found that personal choices are not responsible for women’s struggle to find a work-life balance. The study showed …
Women Aren’t Leaving The Work Force To Have Kids, It’s Leaving Them Read More »
I regularly hear consumer and workers’-rights advocates say this crazy thing to me: “the cases on forced arbitration are so bad, they can’t get any worse.” Um, wrong. A Missouri Court of Appeals recently issued a decision that bears me out on this point, in Johnson v. Rent-A-Center. In this case, an 88-year-old “neighborhood staple”, …
What was so unusual about the recent battle at the New England supermarket chain Market Basket? Well, to begin with, workers staged a mass, sustained walkout. Also, they were neither union members nor striking in conjunction with any union campaign. Oh, and the movement received widespread community support, including a consumer boycott. The company had …
Anti-poverty aid programs are nothing more than a bribe to keep low-income people from getting married or going to work, according to a new U.S. Congressman from Wisconsin. “When you look at that amount of money, which is in essence a bribe not to work that hard or a bribe not to marry someone with …
Newly-Elected Congressman: Anti-Poverty Programs Are ‘A Bribe Not To Work That Hard’ Read More »
On Tuesday evening, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the Retail Workers Bill of Rights, the country’s first-ever legislation aimed at improving life for retail employees. The new rules will require retail chains that have 11 or more locations across the country and employ 20 or more people in San Francisco to provide …
City Passes Historic Retail Workers Bill Of Rights Read More »
In a society that blurs the lines between corporations and people, perhaps it was inevitable that some employers would blur the lines between people and inanimate objects. Even so, it is shocking to learn that in a growing number of low wage industries, employers treat part time employees as fungible, disposable assets, instead of human …
Low wages & unpredictable schedules: A toxic combination for part time employees Read More »
Obamacare enrollment season is here again, and people with insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces are being urged to look at their options. It’s been a year since the exchanges originally opened. Despite spectacularly incompetent website design and poor management by the federal and many of the state exchanges, most of the glitches were …
Employers Keep Shifting Costs to Workers Under Obamacare Read More »
For many companies, non-compete agreements are used to protect trade secrets, business plans and intellectual property. But why is Jimmy John’s, a sandwich chain, requiring its low wage workers to sign non-compete agreements? These agreements do not allow employees to work for a competing sandwich shop for a period of two years following their employment …
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.
