Americans want the $600 pandemic unemployment benefit renewed by a huge margin, a new poll from HuffPost/YouGov finds. Continuing the benefits gets 54% support with just 29% of people opposed. What’s incredibly frustrating in the poll, though, is that 39% of people say congressional Democrats are “at least somewhat responsible” for the expanded unemployment lapsing last …
Gwinnett County, Georgia, didn’t even make it to the beginning of the school year before it had serious coronavirus problems amid Gov. Brian Kemp’s push to reopen schools in person. Teachers started in-person planning for the school year on Wednesday. By Thursday, 260 school district employees were out because of positive coronavirus tests or contact with a …
Gwinnett County, Georgia, joins the list of early school reopening COVID-19 messes Read More »
State and local governments have hemorrhaged 1.5 million jobs since February, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reports. Nine states lost more than one in 10 state and local government jobs, and in 17 states, more than 10% of jobs in education were lost. But that’s just a down payment on the carnage that’s coming if Senate …
State and local governments have shed 1.5 million jobs in pandemic Read More »
White House economic advisers and GOP lawmakers including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell contend the extra payment acts as a disincentive for workers to seek new jobs. More than 30 million people are receiving unemployment benefits and new applications for jobless aid have started to rise again. But Republicans want to reduce a $600 enhanced …
Since the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States early this year, frontline workers in sectors deemed “essential” have staged hundreds of strikes, sickouts and other job actions to protest unsafe working conditions. At hospitals, warehouses, meat processing plants, fast-food restaurants, transport and delivery services, and retail and grocery stores, workers have demanded their employers do …
OSHA Is Failing Essential Workers. Why Not Let Them Sue Their Bosses? Read More »
On July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law. This crowning achievement was both the culmination of a decades-long effort to attain guaranteed universal health insurance and the first step in the quest for Medicare for All. In the 55 years since the legislation was signed into law, both programs have proven …
On Medicare and Medicaid’s 55th Birthday, Let’s Expand Benefits—Not Cut Them Read More »
A 17-year organizing campaign in California culminated this week in the successful unionization of 45,000 child care providers—the largest single union election America has seen in years. The campaign is a tangible achievement that brings together union power, political might, and social justice battles for racial and gender equality. Now, the hard part begins. Child …
Child Care Workers Are Now a Mighty Force With a Huge New Union. It Only Took 17 Years. Read More »
The American Federation of Teachers will support its members if they decide to strike over the rush to reopen schools without regard for safety, the union announced Tuesday. The union has been pushing for increased federal funding to help schools reopen safely, but with Mitch McConnell’s Senate taking its sweet time and Donald Trump demanding in-person schooling regardless of …
Major teachers union will back ‘safety strikes’ to block unsafe school reopening Read More »
Despite nationwide shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and working conditions that have often been life-threatening, there have not been major strikes of hospital workers in America since the coronavirus pandemic struck. Until now. More than 700 employees of Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, a regional trauma center in California’s Sonoma County, held a five-day strike …
California Hospital Workers Strike, Fracturing Pandemic’s Uneasy Labor Peace Read More »
Even when people survive COVID-19, their health can be seriously damaged, and their lives changed. We don’t know yet how many people will suffer long-lasting effects, but we can find one sign of how widespread the physical devastation is in federal workers’ claims for disability compensation after they contracted the virus on the job. About …
Thousands of federal workers say they’ve gotten COVID-19 on the job 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.
