low-wage

Dueling accounts of a hotel job fair offer a choice: Blame lazy workers, or lousy jobs

As [more] states cut off added federal unemployment aid to millions of workers, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are on the spot with dueling takes on the effects of the cut-offs. The picture you get of the situation in Missouri—one of the earliest states to end the benefits, on June 12—is very different depending which newspaper you’re …

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Work then, work now, and organizing to win: Five books about labor in the United States

As the Trump administration redoubles decades of Republican efforts to beat U.S. workers and their unions into fearful submission, it’s worth thinking about where we’ve come from, how workers fought for some of the rights we now take for granted—and some of those we’re in danger of losing—as well as where we’re going, and how to make …

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The Blue-Collar Hellscape of the Startup Industry

On November 13, Marcus Vaughn filed a class-action lawsuit against his former employer. Vaughn, who’d worked in the Fremont, California factory for electric automaker Tesla, alleged that the manufacturing plant had become a “hotbed for racist behavior.” Employees and supervisors, he asserted, had routinely lobbed racial epithets at him and his fellow Black colleagues.  Vaughn …

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Black Women’s Equal Pay Day shows how far from equality we are and how slow progress is

July 31 is Black Women’s Equal Pay Day. That means that this is the day in 2017 when black women have finally caught up with what white men were paid in 2016. Thanks, wage gap! While we often hear the (accurate as far as it goes) statistic that women are paid 80 cents on the dollar …

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Paid family leave policies show corporate America’s disdain for low-wage workers and their babies

Becoming a parent is one more aspect of life poisoned by economic inequality in the United States, with people who are paid more than $75,000 a year twice as likely to get paid leave as people who are paid less than $30,000. And even companies that have touted their parental leave programs leave many of …

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Important Study Looks At Silicon Valley’s “Invisible” Low Wage Workers

“We knew the tech industry was booming, but we weren’t seeing that translate into an abundance of jobs for our communities – until we looked at the low-wage jobs in contracting industries. Those are growing fast, just like tech profits are. It’s no wonder that one in three working households in Silicon Valley can’t make …

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Ahead of Pope Francis Visit, Bernie Sanders Joins Low-Wage Worker Strike in Washington, D.C.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) threw down the gauntlet for Congress and President Obama Tuesday morning, joining hundreds of low-wage contract workers from federal buildings who are striking in advance of Pope Francis’ visit to Washington, D.C. Speaking to the assembled workers at a nearby Catholic Church, Sanders urged U.S. lawmakers to take seriously the pontiff’s …

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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.