Portside

USPS forced out 44,000 workers injured on the job. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says the effort, part of a five year program, violated the law. But the Postal Service has fought its workers’ claims since 2007.

Racial discrimination manifests itself in the workplace through unequal treatment. Even when black women have good jobs and benefits, they often are expected to do more than white colleagues, constantly facing assumptions that they are unqualified. The ramifications of work-life imbalance are stressful for women with resources, but for black women and their children, it can be deadly.

For some occupations, putting oneself in harm’s way is an explicit part of the job description.

For some occupations, putting oneself in harm’s way is an explicit part of the job description.

On September 3, 1991, the Imperial Food Products plant in Hamlet, North Carolina burst into flames. Twenty-five people died, trapped behind the locked doors of the red-brick factory. Most of the victims were women; many were women of color, most were single moms. Another sixty people were injured, and the blast left more than fifty children orphaned. Local officials called the fire an accident, but the women and men who worked at Imperial had been made vulnerable by the factory’s owners as well as public policy.