I do not live in Scranton, Pennsylvania, nor do I know the political leanings of the mayor or the city council; however, I do know that their actions, cutting the wages of city employees to minimum wage, are shameful. By the way, that wage cut applies to firefighters and police officers as well as a …
Should a firefighter or police officer be paid more than minimum wage? Read More »
House Democrats earlier this month proposed increasing the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour, which would catch the minimum wage up to the buying power it had in 1968. The proposal hasn’t gone anywhere, though, since Republicans who control the House of Representatives oppose any increase. Asked by a constituent at a Fourth of …
GOP Rep. Tells Constituent Who Asks About Raising The Minimum Wage To ‘Get A Job’ Read More »
A group of House Democrats recently proposed legislation that would raise the federal minimum wage to $10 an hour, roughly where it would have to be to match the peak buying power the wage reached in 1968. Cities and states across the country are taking action on their own, raising their minimum wages in an effort to …
Two sides of the planet. Two different systems. Two different realities for workers–and, therein, lies the lesson: economies are about power, and values. Over in the U.S., if you are a waiter in the food industry, you are screwed, as Mark Bittman outlined in his column a few days ago, on the backs of a …
Two Worlds: Waiters Who Starve, And Those Who Don’t Read More »
See, this is a good example of how the conventional wisdom we hear day after day warps the brain. More people are, in fact, being pushed into minimum wage jobs: The number of workers in New York state earning minimum wage has increased sharply since the start of the recession, one of the driving factors …
CHICAGO—Among various policies that former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has touted as proving he fought for the common man was a 2006 bill that raised the state minimum wage automatically each year through 2010. Several days after Blagojevich was convicted on 17 federal corruption charges, minimum wage workers in Illinois began July 1 without any increase …
Exactly four years ago, hardworking folks across the country finally got a pay raise ten years in the making. One of the first laws I helped pass, just a couple of months after joining the Senate, was the Fair Minimum Wage Act. And it became law four years ago today. Passing that law was a promise …
Four Years Ago Today, Hardworking Families Finally Got a Little Help Read More »
San Francisco workers yesterday kicked off a new citywide campaign to combat wage theft and rallied to mobilize support for a proposed new anti-wage theft law. Wage theft is a $30 billion a year problem nationally and in the Bay Area, workers in the restaurant, construction, caregiving, manufacturing industries are victims. Tiffany Crain, from the activist …
Most workers have seen notices about their right to a minimum wage or safe workplace posted in the company break room or elsewhere on the job. Employers are required to post those notices by federal law. But there is no requirement for employers to post any sort of notice about workers’ rights under the National …
Proposed NLRB Rule Requires Employers to Post Workers’ Rights Read More »
Should we tear down the city’s middle class? Or work to turn lousy jobs into good ones? That’s the policy choice facing New York’s city and state leaders. So far, their decisions aren’t encouraging: for years New York has failed to use its economic development programs to promote the creation of good, family-supporting jobs. Now …
New York’s Lousy Jobs (And How We Can Make Them Better) 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.
