In Brampton, Ontario, a small team of young organizers has begun taking on the businesses that exploit them, one case at a time. The Naujawan Support Network, a collective of international students and migrant workers from Punjab, India, has won back more than $200,000 Canadian ($154,000 U.S.) in stolen wages in just over a year. …
International Students in Ontario Are Fighting Wage Theft—And Winning Read More »
CHULA VISTA, CALIF.—“Who are we?” Teamsters! ?“What do we want?” Contract! ?“When do we want it?” Now! The sanitation workers of Teamsters Local 542 were still in good voice three weeks into their strike, which began Dec. 17, 2021, even as Republic Services started bringing in nonunion out-of-staters as garbage piled up. Republic had refused the Teamsters’ demands for so long that the city …
Sanitation Workers Win Raise After Going on Strike—With Community Support Read More »
Working people across the United States have stepped up to help out our friends, neighbors and communities during these trying times. In our regular Service + Solidarity Spotlight series, we’ll showcase one of these stories every day. Here’s today’s story. The Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association (MEBA) is raising the alarm about New York City’s ability …
At the core of President Biden’s American Families Plan is an understanding that workers are paid too little in market wages and that government has a responsibility to change that. If President Biden’s American Families Plan becomes law as he proposed it, my grand-niece Harri will finally have a ?“modest yet adequate” standard of living based on a new commitment …
How the Potency of Social Wages Can Beat Back Neoliberalism Read More »
It’s Oct. 29, and it’s Latina Equal Pay Day. That means that on this day, the typical Latina has been paid as much since Jan. 1, 2019 as the typical white man was paid between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2019. That’s because Latinas are paid just 54 or 55 cents on the white man’s dollar overall. It’s a particularly grievous injury …
COVID-19 highlights gross inequality on this Latina Equal Pay Day Read More »
The minimum wage in the United States hasn’t budged in 11 years. Whether it should was a hotly contested question during Thursday’s final presidential debate. President Donald Trump asserted that increasing the minimum wage would crush small businesses, many of which are already struggling as a result of the pandemic, arguing that the decision should be …
Increasing the minimum wage would help, not hurt, the economy Read More »
The increased media coverage of the plight of the more than 2 million farmworkers who pick and help produce our food—and whom the Trump administration has deemed to be “essential” workers for the U.S. economy and infrastructure during the coronavirus pandemic—has highlighted the difficult and often dangerous conditions farmworkers face on the job, as well …
How much would it cost consumers to give farmworkers a significant raise? Read More »
A new study from the Midwest Economic Policy Institute (MEPI) released exclusively to Wisconsin Public Radio finds the repeal of Wisconsin’s prevailing wage laws has resulted in lower wages for construction workers in Wisconsin, despite having no statistically significant impact on the cost of public construction projects. Prevailing wage laws set minimum pay requirements for wages …
Here is something we can all agree on I think—drug companies are blood-sucking, greedy cheats who cannot be trusted with the health and welfare of tens of millions of people. Am I right? And that’s even more true as we watch the global scramble to be the first company to profit big-time from a vaccine …
The 23rd season of the WNBA tips off in a little over a month, and it looks to be a momentous one for the leagues’s athletes. On court, the 12 teams and 144 players will be looking to capitalize on last year’s blockbuster season, which saw a healthy increase in ratings, a new franchise in …
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.
