Frito-Lay workers in Topeka, Kansas, have been on strike since Monday over low pay and forced overtime. Some workers have been forced to work 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, for weeks on end due to short staffing. They want to see that change. “Nobody I know loves Frito-Lay enough that they want to live …
For the first time practically in recorded memory, the Labor-HHS-Education budget, which includes OSHA, MSHA and NIOSH, was passed and signed into law before the beginning of the new Fiscal Year — October 1st. The final OSHA budget actually contains a $5 million increase over FY 2018 and $8.8 million over the President’s FY 2019 …
FY 2019 OSHA Budget Is Here: Good News, But More Work to be Done Read More »
On January 5, the Department of Labor (DOL) quietly took a step to bolster the legal power of bosses over their workers by reissuing 17 previously withdrawn opinion letters. Developed at the end of George W. Bush’s final term, the letters had been withdrawn by the Obama administration, which discontinued the practice of issuing opinion …
This week, dairy workers are using an annual ice cream giveaway day by Ben and Jerry’s to bring awareness to the long, hard hours and low wages that many in the industry face. In the state of Vermont and across the country, dairy workers and supporters of migrant farmworkers rallied outside the ice cream company’s …
Dairy workers call on Ben and Jerry’s to give them better hours and fair wages Read More »
In November, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced fines against businesses with workers who were killed when they were pulled into a wood chipper, burned in a refinery fire and crushed in collapsing grain bins and construction trenches. In all, OSHA issued 33 enforcement news releases that month, and over 50 more from Dec. 1 …
Labor Department goes silent on workplace safety enforcement under Trump Read More »
Andrew Puzder, Donald Trump’s nominee for labor secretary, is uniquely unqualified for that job. As secretary, he’d be charged with enforcing health and safety, overtime and other labor laws. But as CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr., he’s made his considerable fortune from violating these very same laws, according …
Workers Say Trump’s Labor Secretary Nominee Is a Habitual Violator of Labor Law Read More »
Are you an employee? It seems like a simple question that must have a simple answer for most people. But definitions in different laws and rulings enforcing the laws vary. And that variation provides an opening for a growing number of employers to cheat governments of taxes and workers of income, benefits and protections by …
The California Supreme Court is expected to render a decision in the Brinker v. Superior Court case later this year that will answer critical legal questions about the meal and rest break rights of hourly workers in California. At issue in the case is when and under what circumstances workers are entitled under California law …
California Supreme Court Set To Address Workers’ Meal And Rest Break Rights Read More »
No doubt following up on Charlie Sullivan’s post on unpaid law student internships, Steven Greenhouse at the New York Times has a story on the more general use of these internships. It’s obviously been an issue for some time, but the bad economy has given employers more incentives to pinch pennies and made interns more …
Workers employed in low-wage and poorly regulated industries (most prominently restaurants, residential construction, domestic cleaning, and mechanics) are confronted with staggering exploitation as employers look to cut corners in today’s recession. Such exploitation includes health and safety violations, discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, firing for participating in union activity, and wage theft—failure to pay workers for …
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.
