labor

The Expendables: How the Temps Who Power Corporate Giants Are Getting Crushed

Michael Grabell ProPublica
In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away. Some vans are so packed that to get to work, people must squat on milk crates, sit on the laps of passengers they do not know or sometimes lie on the floor, the other workers’ feet on top of them.

labor

A vision on the verge of realization

Carla D. Washington The Hill
Tuesday marked the 75th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which ended some of the worst abuses of American workers by establishing the 40-hour work week, restricting child labor, setting a minimum wage and requiring overtime pay for hours worked beyond 40 in a given week. When will home care workers receive these most basic labor protections?

Minimum Wage: Catching up to Productivity

John Schmitt Democracy
Between 1979 and 2012, after accounting for inflation, the productivity of the average American worker increased about 85 percent. Over the same period, the inflation-adjusted wage of the median worker rose only about 6 percent, and the value of the minimum wage fell 21 percent. As a country, we got richer, but workers in the middle saw little of the gains, and workers at the bottom actually fell behind.

Does Raising the Minimum Wage Cost Jobs?

Dave Johnson Our Future
A quick point on whether the minimum wage “costs jobs.” Here is the reality: The minimum wage is now the lowest it has been in decades. In fact, 40% Of Americans Now Make Less Than 1968 Minimum Wage, if that wage had kept pace with productivity increases.

labor

NYC Fast-Food Workers Fight Back Against Super-Sized Corporations

Peter Rugh The Indypendent
The ongoing organizing effort of fast-food workers has highlighted the highly exploitative conditions faced by those at the deep fryers and cash registers of America’s most profitable fast food outlets, which include Burger King, McDonald’s, Dominos, Pizza Hut and KFC. The actions and considerable media attention has also begun to chip away at the conventional image of a fast-food worker as someone who bears her servitude with a youthful grin.

labor

Low Wage Workers Turning to Voters for Pay Raises

Wesley Lowery Los Angeles Times
When organizing drives prove unsuccessful, some groups of low-wage workers are using ballot initiatives to take their case to the voters. And they've been winning.

Tidbits - March 14, 2013

Portside
Readers Comments on: Wealth Equality; Robert Reich on raising the minimum wage; Unions and evictions; Wither the Socialist Left? - another response to Mark Solomon; LA School Board election and Big Money; Hugo Chavez: Lest We Forget; Guns, the NRA and Newtown; Why not better unions; Philip Bonosky Memorial April 21 in New York; Francisco Aruca R.I.P.; Robin Hood rides again - April 20 - Washington; The Literary Left - Tribute in honor of Alan Wald - March 21 - Ann Arbor

Corporate-Approved State Bills Kick Low-Wage Workers While they're Down

Michelle Chen In These Times
President Obama called for a modest raise in the federal minimum wage to $9, and several Democratic legislators have upped his bid with a proposed increase to $10.10. But an insidious effort to lower the wage floor is already underway much closer to the ground - in the state legislatures. Among the proposals are measures to undercut minimum wages for teenage workers, restrict overtime pay and repeal or ban local laws to improve working conditions.
Subscribe to Minimum Wage