Kari Lydersen

Supreme Court’s E-Verify Decision Devastating for Employers, Immigrant Workers

Leave a Comment / Farm Workers, immigration, Migrant Workers, Supreme Court / By max cyril

Immigrants rights advocates and employers, including farmers, are lashing out at the Supreme Court’s May 26 decision upholding Arizona’s right to demand employers use the controversial e-Verify system, which is meant to confirm whether someone is in the country legally. The decision also allowed Arizona to continue the so-called “business death penalty,” which entails denying …

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American Workplaces are Safer…But Not for Everyone

Leave a Comment / immigration, workplace safety / By max cyril

U.S. workplaces are getting safer, according to national Department of Labor statistics for the past two decades. But immigrant workers in the most dangerous occupations have not shared in the increased safety, according to statistics and a recent report by seven worker centers nationwide. On March 9 Arise Chicago Worker Center released their study, done …

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Temporary Workers on the Auction Block? And the Complicated Economics of Immigration

Leave a Comment / immigration, Migrant Workers / By max cyril

Immigration reform experts propose tying system to labor market, and creating govt.-run auction for temp workers…While also touting economic benefit of immigrants. DALLAS, TEXAS—Do immigrant workers—specifically, undocumented workers—contribute value to the economy through their labor, taxes and Social Security contributions? Or are they a net drain on government services and a big depresser of wages? …

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Wal-Mart Warehouse Workers File Class Action Wage Theft Lawsuit

Leave a Comment / Employment, job satisfaction, labor, Wal Mart / By max cyril

CHICAGO—After three months of working in a Wal-Mart warehouse in the Chicago suburbs last fall, Robert Hines was fed up with getting paid much less than he had been promised by the company Reliable Staffing, which hired temporary workers to unload containers. But the final straw came when he wasn’t paid at all for seven …

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Warehouse Workers Allege Wage Theft, Demand Pay Stubs

Leave a Comment / discrimination, Employment, equal pay, Retaliation, Wal Mart, workplace issues / By max cyril

Employees will march into Reliable Staffing office to demand billing records, highlight mistreatment When Reginald Burnett started working in a warehouse unloading trucks of goods destined for Wal-Mart, he said he was told he’d make at least $10 an hour. But he soon realized that figure hinged on unloading a truck in three hours. Depending …

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Another Proposed Chicago Wal-Mart Sparks Opposition

Leave a Comment / Wal Mart / By max cyril

Six years ago, Wal-Mart’s efforts to build its first store within the Chicago city limits sparked a city-wide furor and debate over the big box giant’s labor and community practices…and led to the passage of a historic living wage “Big Box Ordinance” heralded as a national model. But the ordinance was vetoed by Mayor Richard …

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The Truth About Public Employees, the New Convenient Scapegoats

Leave a Comment / Public Workers / By max cyril

It’s become a common refrain: public employees from teachers to parking meter attendants to firefighters to nurses are bleeding state and local budgets dry with exorbitant wages and pensions. As recent news reports and communiqués by conservatives have pointed out, a portion of public sector employees do earn what many middle- and working-class Americans would …

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A Day in the Life of a Warehouse Warrior

1 Comment / economy, Jobs / By max cyril

It’s a stifling hot day in June, and Tory Moore, 37, is pounding the pavement outside a currency exchange in Bolingbrook, a Chicago suburb. Wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words Warehouse Workers for Justice, sweating but full of energy, he paces back and forth while mopping his face with a yellow washcloth, looking …

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Driving ‘Mobile Sweatshops,’ Cabbies Become A New Face of Movement

Leave a Comment / Workplace Conditions / By max cyril

Cab drivers earn as little as $4 an hour, regularly work 12-hour days six days a week, suffer debilitating work-related health problems and are mistreated and gouged by customers, city regulators and leasing companies. Yet most feel such a sense of pride and community in the occupation that they don’t even consider switching professions. This …

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American Apparel Stripped of 1,800 Workers – to What Effect?

Leave a Comment / immigration, sexual harassment / By max cyril

The firing of 1,800 apparently undocumented workers at American Apparel’s Los Angeles garment factory, forced by a federal investigation, is an example of the Obama administration’s new approach to workplace enforcement, which avoids the Bush administration’s militarized raids. Unlike other companies targeted for immigration enforcement, American Apparel’s factory boasts positive working conditions and relatively high …

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