layoffs

Bay Area Transit Unions Join Forces to Win Safety Protections and Beat Back Layoffs

Transit workers have been hit hard by the pandemic. Last year at least 100 from the Amalgamated Transit Union and 131 from the Transport Workers lost their lives to Covid-19. Before Covid, transit unions in the Bay Area—six ATU locals, and one local each of TWU and the Teamsters—often faced their individual struggles in isolation. …

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New York City fast food workers to get a major new job protection, this week in the war on workers

The New York City Council voted to dramatically strengthen protections for fast food workers with two bills this week, both supported by Mayor Bill de Blasio. The really big deal bill would ban fast food restaurants from firing workers without just cause—that means workers could only (“only”) be fired for performance issues or other serious problems, not just …

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Big corporations suck the marrow out of the COVID-19 economy, leaving devastation behind them

What’s the use of a crisis if big corporations and wealthy people can’t use it to make more money, preferably at the expense of those with less than them? I ask you!  Well, by that standard, the coronavirus pandemic has worked out quite well. A large majority of the biggest publicly traded companies were profitable …

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Union urges Small Business Administration to take a close look at hotel chain’s post-PPP layoffs

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was supposed to keep small businesses from laying off workers during the coronavirus pandemic. (Disclosure: Kos Media received a Paycheck Protection Program loan.) It hasn’t always worked out that way. Trump and Kushner businesses got loans, as did predatory payday lenders, but many of the businesses that needed the loans most were left out.  UNITE HERE, …

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The next blow for businesses: Tax hikes that threaten more layoffs

Businesses across the nation could soon face state tax increases to pay for the surge in Americans filing for unemployment benefits this year, further straining employers at a time when many are fighting for survival. Massachusetts, New Jersey and Alabama are among the states looking at tax hikes that could cost employers billions of dollars. …

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U.S. workers filed 881K claims for jobless benefits last week

More than 880,000 people filed new applications for unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. The numbers are not directly comparable to previous weeks because of a change the Labor Department made in how it calculates the claims, which are seasonally adjusted. The number appears lower than the previous week’s 1 million claims, …

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A gap in federal unemployment benefits is now unavoidable. Here’s why.

State offices will need weeks to reprogram their systems to account for an extension of the $600 weekly federal payments that expire on Saturday. Tens of millions of laid-off American workers will go weeks without federal jobless aid — because Congress hasn’t renewed the benefits in time for overwhelmed state unemployment systems to adjust their …

A gap in federal unemployment benefits is now unavoidable. Here’s why. Read More »

Unions warn small business rescue changes will weaken paycheck protection

Mnuchin touted the program during a congressional hearing as having kept “tens of millions of employees connected to their jobs.”  Labor groups are warning that newly enacted changes to a popular small business lending program will make the $670 billion relief effort less about protecting workers’ paychecks than protecting businesses. The bipartisan bill signed into …

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Field Museum Workers Say It’s Time for the CEO to Start Making Sacrifices, Too

Facing devasting pay cuts and layoffs amid the Covid-19 crisis, workers at Chicago’s Field Museum are organizing to demand greater transparency and equitable sacrifice from upper management. “We fear these cuts will disproportionately impact staff of color and those already paid the least,” Field Museum workers explain in a petition that has now garnered over 1,700 signatures. …

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Madeline Messa

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.