Michelle Chen

When Safety Becomes Voluntary: Workplace Self-Policing Program Under Scrutiny

What’s the value of a worker’s life? According to the calculus of corporate efficiency, it’s often still cheaper to put workers at risk than to spend money to protect them. And the federal government generously rewards those who have perfected this cost-containment strategy in industries where workplace hazards are just part of business as usual. …

When Safety Becomes Voluntary: Workplace Self-Policing Program Under Scrutiny Read More »

Citing ‘Tradition,’ Big Ag Fights Reforms for Child Farmworkers

Advocates push for stronger protections during National Farmworker Awareness Week “[When I was 12] they gave me my first knife. Week after week I was cutting myself. Every week I had a new scar. My hands have a lot of stories.” –17-year-old boy who started working at age 11 in Michigan (Human Rights Watch) America’s …

Citing ‘Tradition,’ Big Ag Fights Reforms for Child Farmworkers Read More »

Even With Daisey’s Lies Peeled Away, Apple’s Rotten Core Exposed

Apple’s brand glared in the media spotlight this past week, after the public learned that performance artist Mike Daisey’s theatrical rendering of the struggles of Apple factory workers contained false claims—painfully exposed on an episode of the radio program This American Life. But if one fundamental truth has emerged from the scandal surrounding Daisey’s dramatic fudging, it’s …

Even With Daisey’s Lies Peeled Away, Apple’s Rotten Core Exposed Read More »

Workers Hold Key to Reigniting Egypt’s Revolution

To commemorate the first anniversary of the overthrow of the dictatorship, activists in Egypt called for a general strike earlier this month. But compared to the massive uprising of 2011, the response on the ground was muted. The military regime that has succeeded Hosni Mubarak was predictably dismissive of the anti-government “plotters,” and even activists acknowledged what …

Workers Hold Key to Reigniting Egypt’s Revolution Read More »

While Washington Dithers, Labor Brings Jobs and Equity Home

The 2012 campaign trail is already littered with silver bullets and peppy slogans about boosting America out of its unemployment slump. But for the most part, the plans that politicians have trotted out–from Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 mantra to the GOP’s latest corporate welfare formulas, to Obama’s limp blend of free-trade policies and woefully inadequate stimulus–stick …

While Washington Dithers, Labor Brings Jobs and Equity Home Read More »

In the Wake of Oslo Attacks, a Path Forward for Labor?

“For all dead comrades, not a minute’s silence, but a life of struggle.” —Olav Magnus Linge, Norway’s Socialist Youth The labor movement has always derived its power from its ability to mobilize people as a collective whole. But that potential to catalyze social action, and to resonate across lines of color and nationality, is precisely …

In the Wake of Oslo Attacks, a Path Forward for Labor? Read More »

Too Big to Sue? High Court Thwarts Wal-Mart Gender Discrimination Case

As legions of Walmart workers shuffled into work on Monday, the Supreme Court smacked down a major class-action lawsuit that might potentially have shifted the legal landscape on women’s rights in the workplace. The gender-discrimination lawsuit against the world’s most notorious retail giant had been pending for years. Now the Court’s majority opinion has declared that, in …

Too Big to Sue? High Court Thwarts Wal-Mart Gender Discrimination Case Read More »

Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Revisted: Labor’s Revolution Betrayed?

It’s time to return to Downtown Cairo. There are signs that the romance of the Arab Spring is already cooling off. Many activists who braved beatings and arrests to oust a dictator fear their civil society’s rebirth may be smothered before taking its first breath.  A proposed ban on strikes appears to expand the rollback …

Egypt’s Tahrir Square, Revisted: Labor’s Revolution Betrayed? Read More »

Scroll to Top

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.