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Slavery 21st Century
You thought it was over, think again
august 20, 2018
Slavery did not end it was merely outsourced,
reconfigured, and made politically correct
The Global Slavery Index
published on Thursday by Walk Free Foundation, describes modern slavery as a complex and often hidden crime that crosses borders, sectors and jurisdictions. The US number, the study estimates, is almost one hundredth of the estimated 40.3 million global total number of people it defines as being enslaved.
headlines and issues
*Demanding Wide-Reaching Reforms and an End to Slavery, Incarcerated People in 17 States Plan Prison Strike(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Why the Thrillist strike is so important for digital media unions
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Nike hit with lawsuit from four women who allege gender discrimination
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*UPS Is Flush With Cash. It’s Up to Workers to Demand the Company Cough It Up.
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Millions of government workers paid 'poverty' wages, study says
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Prisoners fighting deadly California wildfires for $1 an hour banned from serving as firefighters upon release(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Haitian Workers Called Slaves and Banned from Speaking Creole Win Big In Settlement from Miami Beach Hotel(ARTICLE BELOW)
*OSHA May Make It Worse For Workers Exposed To The Heat
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump Welcomes Immigrants, but Only if They Can Be Exploited
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Accidents at Amazon: workers left to suffer after warehouse injuries
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*GOP Legislators Blocked a Minimum Wage Raise Impacting Mostly Black Workers, So They Filed a Lawsuit(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Domestic Workers in Seattle Win Most Comprehensive Bill of Rights in the US
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Starbucks, others must pay California workers for tasks done after clocking out: court(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Disneyland agrees to pay its workers $15 an hour
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Corporations and Mainstream Media Trumpet the “Horrors” of Higher Wages
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The Tech Industry’s Push to Hire Autistic Workers Could Be a Recipe for Hyper-Exploitation(ARTICLE BELOW)
*For Many Undocumented Workers, There’s No Such Thing As Minimum Wage
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Two amputations a week: the cost of working in a US meat plant
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Corporate Wage Theft Is on the Rise
(ARTICLE BELOW)
funnies(at the end)
Demanding Wide-Reaching Reforms and an End to Slavery, Incarcerated People in 17 States Plan Prison Strike
BY Julia Conley Common Dreams - truthout
PUBLISHED
August 19, 2018
Incarcerated Americans in at least 17 states will go on strike this coming week, refusing to perform labor and engaging in sit-ins and hunger strikes to demand major reforms to the country’s prison and criminal justice systems.
The Nationwide Prison Strike is planned for August 21, the day Nat Turner led an uprising of slaves in 1831, until September 9, the 47th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion in which more than 40 people were killed.
Organizers of the action, which is endorsed by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak and the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), have released a list of ten demands for improvements to their living conditions, sentencing policies, and laws that allow for prison slavery.
“All persons imprisoned in any place of detention under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing wage in their state or territory for their labor,” reads the list of demands. The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution allows for “slavery or involuntary servitude…as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”
Organizers are also calling for “access to rehabilitation programs” for incarcerated people and an end to “Death by Incarceration,” or life sentences without the possibility of parole.
A spokesperson for the strike called on Americans to support the protest, noting that inmates produce many of the products people use every day in the outside world—including Starbucks packaging, state license plates, and furniture.
“Prisoners want to be valued as contributors to our society. Every single field and industry is affected on some level by prisons, from our license plates to the fast food that we eat to the stores that we shop at,” Amani Sawari told Vox. “So we really need to recognize how we are supporting the prison industrial complex through the dollars that we spend.”
Prisoners have also fought the wildfires raging in California and those that tore through parts of the state last year, earning a stipend of $2 per day plus $1 per hour, and sometimes working 72-hour shifts in order to save the state up to $100 million per year.
The strike comes four months after the deaths of seven inmates in a riot at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, South Carolina. According to one witness who spoke to the Associated Press, prison employees did not attend to injured and dying inmates or attempt to stop the violence.
Organizers are calling on supporters to “Amplify incarcerated voices via social media using the #August21 and #prisonstrike hashtags,” and to contact their election officials to advocate for the inmates’ demands.
Demonstrations in solidarity with the inmates are planned outside prisons in Brooklyn, New York; San Quentin, California; and Bishopville as well as other cities.
A number of Democratic Socialists of America chapters have voiced their support for the strike in recent days.
The Nationwide Prison Strike is planned for August 21, the day Nat Turner led an uprising of slaves in 1831, until September 9, the 47th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion in which more than 40 people were killed.
Organizers of the action, which is endorsed by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak and the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), have released a list of ten demands for improvements to their living conditions, sentencing policies, and laws that allow for prison slavery.
“All persons imprisoned in any place of detention under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing wage in their state or territory for their labor,” reads the list of demands. The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution allows for “slavery or involuntary servitude…as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”
Organizers are also calling for “access to rehabilitation programs” for incarcerated people and an end to “Death by Incarceration,” or life sentences without the possibility of parole.
A spokesperson for the strike called on Americans to support the protest, noting that inmates produce many of the products people use every day in the outside world—including Starbucks packaging, state license plates, and furniture.
“Prisoners want to be valued as contributors to our society. Every single field and industry is affected on some level by prisons, from our license plates to the fast food that we eat to the stores that we shop at,” Amani Sawari told Vox. “So we really need to recognize how we are supporting the prison industrial complex through the dollars that we spend.”
Prisoners have also fought the wildfires raging in California and those that tore through parts of the state last year, earning a stipend of $2 per day plus $1 per hour, and sometimes working 72-hour shifts in order to save the state up to $100 million per year.
The strike comes four months after the deaths of seven inmates in a riot at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, South Carolina. According to one witness who spoke to the Associated Press, prison employees did not attend to injured and dying inmates or attempt to stop the violence.
Organizers are calling on supporters to “Amplify incarcerated voices via social media using the #August21 and #prisonstrike hashtags,” and to contact their election officials to advocate for the inmates’ demands.
Demonstrations in solidarity with the inmates are planned outside prisons in Brooklyn, New York; San Quentin, California; and Bishopville as well as other cities.
A number of Democratic Socialists of America chapters have voiced their support for the strike in recent days.
Why the Thrillist strike is so important for digital media unions
It's another sign that journalists and other digital media staff are willing to go on strike if necessary.
CASEY QUINLAN - -thinkprogress
AUG 15, 2018, 12:59 PM
Workers at Thrillist, a website that covers travel, culture, and food, went on the first known work stoppage at a digital media publication this week. Thrillist’s unionized staff voted to authorize a strike “should we not make sufficient progress at the table.”
On Monday, workers overwhelmingly voted in favor of going on strike, at 91 percent of union members, and they did not report to work. Workers were back on the job on Tuesday but are ready for another work stoppage if necessary.
On Monday, Thrillist workers said their Slack accounts and emails had been deactivated and one worker said their card to get into the building would not work. An hour and a half later, staff had their Slack and email reactivated, according to Splinter.
Thrillist workers voted to unionize last year and are still trying to negotiate a contract with the publication’s parent company, Group Nine Media.
Thrillist staffers said in statement that “livable salary minimums and fair annual increases” are at issue and that Group Nine Media has only put “scant, inadequate economic terms” on the table in response.
In February of last year, workers said that reasons for unionizing included increasing diversity of staff, having “common-sense standards for judging performance,” and more transparency about job responsibilities. Writers Guild of America, East is its collective bargaining representative. The publication had over 80 percent of its writers, editors, and social media staff sign cards choosing Writers Guild of America, East.
But Group Nine Media has resisted unionization efforts, with its founder and CEO Ben Lerer saying he is concerned about “the effect the union would have on our unique culture,” according to Deadspin and made some statements about union contracts that were just plain false. Lerer described unions as necessary for some industries and businesses but suggested that it did not make sense for workers at Thrillist or in journalism, with the “new types of personal career growth that we traditionally have.”
Talking about a “unique” culture and how a particular industry may not benefit from unionization is par for the course for anti-union rhetoric, including in journalism.
Last year, Slate Group Chairman Jacob Weisberg wrote that Slate’s “flexibility and fluidity” would be hampered by unionization, according to Splinter. He added that a union is “filled with bureaucracy and procedure,” and “That world is just not Slate-y….A union fosters a culture of opposition, which is antithetical to our way of doing things.”
Vox Media’s publisher, Melissa Bell, wrote a letter last year in response to unionization at Vox Media. Bell wrote, “… we are still in a precarious industry, and we want to ensure that our business remains strong and competitive by maintaining the flexibility necessary to adapt and innovate. Doing so is imperative to our ability to provide jobs and career paths to employees.”
Last year, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti responded to a question about unions in a companywide meeting. He said he is not against unions personally but does not believe that unionization is right for BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed News media and politics reporter Steven Perlberg tweeted at the time.
But many journalists and other media professionals have decided to unionize precisely because they work in a precarious industry. Journalists are concernedabout low pay and long hours and mass layoffs.
Nastaran Mohit, organizing director of the NewsGuild of New York, told Columbia Journalism Review, “Looking at previously non-union digital publications, I think younger journalists recognize the instability and precarity of the industry, and they see the value of coming together to secure a seat at the table.”
Group Nine Media hired Proskauer Rose LLP, a law firm with 13 offices that represents major sports organizations and had 14 of its lawyers named in a 2018 guide on the top 100 “leading corporate, defense-side employment lawyers.”
A number of digital media outlets began unionization efforts in the past few years, including ThinkProgress, The Intercept, Vice Media, HuffPost, MTV News, The New Yorker, Salon, Los Angeles Times, Jacobin, Fast Company, Mic, The New Yorker, and Gawker, which is now defunct.
Fast Company’s union announced plans to unionize in June and was recognized at the end of July. The New Yorker staff had a similar timeline. It announced plans to unionize in June and and received recognition in July. CNN reported that in their letter to management, New Yorker staff said, “Salaries often vary significantly among people who hold the same position, and we have seen a steady stream of our colleagues leave for jobs that provide more tenable wages. Some of us have worked for years as subcontracted employees, without health insurance and other basic benefits, though we do the same jobs as the staff members who sit beside us.”
In June, Slate staffers said management insisted on an open shop so that union members can decide not to pay union dues and that 94 percent of the unit had signed onto a letter opposing an open shop. Unlike in the cases of The New Yorker and Fast Company, Slate took a lot longer to recognize the union: 10 months.
Thrillist workers said they decided on a work stoppage and called a meeting to authorize a strike now because, after a series of negotiations in July, Group Nine Media appeared to be dragging its feet in negotiations and workers were losing patience. There is a bargaining meeting set for September.
On Monday, workers overwhelmingly voted in favor of going on strike, at 91 percent of union members, and they did not report to work. Workers were back on the job on Tuesday but are ready for another work stoppage if necessary.
On Monday, Thrillist workers said their Slack accounts and emails had been deactivated and one worker said their card to get into the building would not work. An hour and a half later, staff had their Slack and email reactivated, according to Splinter.
Thrillist workers voted to unionize last year and are still trying to negotiate a contract with the publication’s parent company, Group Nine Media.
Thrillist staffers said in statement that “livable salary minimums and fair annual increases” are at issue and that Group Nine Media has only put “scant, inadequate economic terms” on the table in response.
In February of last year, workers said that reasons for unionizing included increasing diversity of staff, having “common-sense standards for judging performance,” and more transparency about job responsibilities. Writers Guild of America, East is its collective bargaining representative. The publication had over 80 percent of its writers, editors, and social media staff sign cards choosing Writers Guild of America, East.
But Group Nine Media has resisted unionization efforts, with its founder and CEO Ben Lerer saying he is concerned about “the effect the union would have on our unique culture,” according to Deadspin and made some statements about union contracts that were just plain false. Lerer described unions as necessary for some industries and businesses but suggested that it did not make sense for workers at Thrillist or in journalism, with the “new types of personal career growth that we traditionally have.”
Talking about a “unique” culture and how a particular industry may not benefit from unionization is par for the course for anti-union rhetoric, including in journalism.
Last year, Slate Group Chairman Jacob Weisberg wrote that Slate’s “flexibility and fluidity” would be hampered by unionization, according to Splinter. He added that a union is “filled with bureaucracy and procedure,” and “That world is just not Slate-y….A union fosters a culture of opposition, which is antithetical to our way of doing things.”
Vox Media’s publisher, Melissa Bell, wrote a letter last year in response to unionization at Vox Media. Bell wrote, “… we are still in a precarious industry, and we want to ensure that our business remains strong and competitive by maintaining the flexibility necessary to adapt and innovate. Doing so is imperative to our ability to provide jobs and career paths to employees.”
Last year, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti responded to a question about unions in a companywide meeting. He said he is not against unions personally but does not believe that unionization is right for BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed News media and politics reporter Steven Perlberg tweeted at the time.
But many journalists and other media professionals have decided to unionize precisely because they work in a precarious industry. Journalists are concernedabout low pay and long hours and mass layoffs.
Nastaran Mohit, organizing director of the NewsGuild of New York, told Columbia Journalism Review, “Looking at previously non-union digital publications, I think younger journalists recognize the instability and precarity of the industry, and they see the value of coming together to secure a seat at the table.”
Group Nine Media hired Proskauer Rose LLP, a law firm with 13 offices that represents major sports organizations and had 14 of its lawyers named in a 2018 guide on the top 100 “leading corporate, defense-side employment lawyers.”
A number of digital media outlets began unionization efforts in the past few years, including ThinkProgress, The Intercept, Vice Media, HuffPost, MTV News, The New Yorker, Salon, Los Angeles Times, Jacobin, Fast Company, Mic, The New Yorker, and Gawker, which is now defunct.
Fast Company’s union announced plans to unionize in June and was recognized at the end of July. The New Yorker staff had a similar timeline. It announced plans to unionize in June and and received recognition in July. CNN reported that in their letter to management, New Yorker staff said, “Salaries often vary significantly among people who hold the same position, and we have seen a steady stream of our colleagues leave for jobs that provide more tenable wages. Some of us have worked for years as subcontracted employees, without health insurance and other basic benefits, though we do the same jobs as the staff members who sit beside us.”
In June, Slate staffers said management insisted on an open shop so that union members can decide not to pay union dues and that 94 percent of the unit had signed onto a letter opposing an open shop. Unlike in the cases of The New Yorker and Fast Company, Slate took a lot longer to recognize the union: 10 months.
Thrillist workers said they decided on a work stoppage and called a meeting to authorize a strike now because, after a series of negotiations in July, Group Nine Media appeared to be dragging its feet in negotiations and workers were losing patience. There is a bargaining meeting set for September.
Nike hit with lawsuit from four women who allege gender discrimination
Ex-employees say firm violated state and US equal-pay laws and fostered work environment that allowed harassment
Edward Helmore in New York and agencies
the guardian
Fri 10 Aug 2018 13.28 EDT
Four women who used to work for Nike have filed a federal lawsuit against the company, alleging it violated state and US equal-pay laws and fostered a work environment that allowed sexual harassment.
The suit, filed on Thursday in Portland, is among the first to hit the company following complaints about alleged pay disparities and bad managers made public earlier this year, according to a report from the Oregonian/OregonLive.
Nike responded by ousting at least 11 executives in March and April. Last month, the company’s top human-resources executive Monique Matheson acknowledged that Nike had failed to promote enough women.
She wrote to staff to say the company wants “to create a culture of true inclusion. As part of our plan, we need to improve representation of women and people of color.”
The memo, obtained by the Wall Street Journal, added: “While we’ve spoken about this many times, and tried different ways to achieve change, we have failed to gain traction – and our hiring and promotion decisions are not changing senior-level representation as quickly as we have wanted.”
The company acted quickly on Matheson’s admission of the Nike’s gender-equality shortcomings, lapses that came to light just months after chief executive Mark Parker said in a statement in March that said the company had received complaints of inappropriate behavior.
“When we discover issues, we take action. We are laser-focused on making Nike a more inclusive culture and accelerating diverse representation within our leadership teams,” Parker wrote.
In July, after a review of compensation practices, Nike said it would give competitive pay-adjustments to 10%, or about 7,000 staff out of 74,000 employees around the world.
But in the complaint, attorney Laura Salerno Owens says Nike continues to have a “good-old-boy’s culture” in which women enter the company with lower pay, and receive smaller raises and bonuses.
“Women came into the company paid less than men, then they are ranked more harshly and, as a result, got smaller raises and bonuses,” she told the Oregonian/OregonLive.
The plaintiffs seek unspecified monetary damages, and a court order requiring Nike to pay its employees fairly without regard to gender.
Nike declined comment on the lawsuit.
The suit, filed on Thursday in Portland, is among the first to hit the company following complaints about alleged pay disparities and bad managers made public earlier this year, according to a report from the Oregonian/OregonLive.
Nike responded by ousting at least 11 executives in March and April. Last month, the company’s top human-resources executive Monique Matheson acknowledged that Nike had failed to promote enough women.
She wrote to staff to say the company wants “to create a culture of true inclusion. As part of our plan, we need to improve representation of women and people of color.”
The memo, obtained by the Wall Street Journal, added: “While we’ve spoken about this many times, and tried different ways to achieve change, we have failed to gain traction – and our hiring and promotion decisions are not changing senior-level representation as quickly as we have wanted.”
The company acted quickly on Matheson’s admission of the Nike’s gender-equality shortcomings, lapses that came to light just months after chief executive Mark Parker said in a statement in March that said the company had received complaints of inappropriate behavior.
“When we discover issues, we take action. We are laser-focused on making Nike a more inclusive culture and accelerating diverse representation within our leadership teams,” Parker wrote.
In July, after a review of compensation practices, Nike said it would give competitive pay-adjustments to 10%, or about 7,000 staff out of 74,000 employees around the world.
But in the complaint, attorney Laura Salerno Owens says Nike continues to have a “good-old-boy’s culture” in which women enter the company with lower pay, and receive smaller raises and bonuses.
“Women came into the company paid less than men, then they are ranked more harshly and, as a result, got smaller raises and bonuses,” she told the Oregonian/OregonLive.
The plaintiffs seek unspecified monetary damages, and a court order requiring Nike to pay its employees fairly without regard to gender.
Nike declined comment on the lawsuit.
UPS Is Flush With Cash. It’s Up to Workers to Demand the Company Cough It Up.
BY MICAH UETRICHT - in these times
FRIDAY, AUG 10, 2018, 11:56 AM
The econ 101 explanation of how wages and benefits work goes something like this: when times are tough and companies are losing money, they have to limit workers’ compensation and hire less. When they’re flush with cash, companies bump up workers’ pay and hire more.
We should all be rooting for high profits and bull markets, since those are the conditions that lead to the invisible hand delivering better conditions for workers. Yet for some reason, that hand is nowhere to be found at United Parcel Service (UPS).
Dave Jamieson has an excellent piece in the Huffington Post on the proposed new union contract for UPS drivers. The contract (which is at the tentative agreement (TA) stage between UPS and the Teamsters, meaning that they are close to sending it to the union’s membership for approval), will cover more than a quarter million workers. It’s a massive workforce for one of the most important logistics companies in the United States and the world, so what’s in the contract matters a lot.
UPS isn’t hurting right now. Quite the contrary: the company has more packages than it knows what to do with. Deliveries from e-commerce sites like Amazon have all of the parcel carriers operating at full capacity. This huge new demand has been very good to UPS: the company pulled in $1.5 billion in the second quarter alone.
You’d think, then, because UPS is making money hand over fist, the company wouldn’t be prioritizing undercutting its workers’ wages and benefits. And it’s true, most UPS workers are being offered higher wages in the TA. But something else is afoot in the new contract.
In the TA — which the Teamsters’ leadership has agreed to — UPS introduces a kind of second-tier driver position, a “hybrid” driver that would both deliver packages in a truck and sort them at a hub. As Jamieson reports, quoting a driver named Ken Smith:
The new employees would work on a lower pay scale than current full-time drivers, starting and topping out at lower hourly rates. They also wouldn’t enjoy the same limits on forced overtime, opening them up to long work weeks. The way Smith sees it, those factors would essentially make the new drivers second-class within the union and potentially drive down the standards for everyone over the long term.
Part of the company’s motivation in introducing this hybrid position is that it wants to expand its delivery service to seven days a week. Amazon is using other delivery services like FedEx and the Postal Service to deliver on Sundays. UPS wants to get in on the Sunday action, too. Fair enough.
But given the numbers the company is currently doing, and the clear demand for expanded service that is out there right now, you’d assume that UPS would be proposing a solution that pays these new workers more. Nobody wants to work on Sundays, and it’s obvious the company is desperate for more workers.
Yet as Jamieson reports, the proposed wage cap for standard drivers in the new contract is $40; for hybrid drivers/package handlers, by contrast, it’s just over $34.
Of course, a big part of the company’s motivation is its competition like FedEx and Amazon contractors, who are eking by with far lower compensation. If the Teamsters were to organize the other parcel delivery workforces — no easy task, given the blatant abuse of misclassifying drivers as “independent contractors” that companies like FedEx have engaged in — it would give the UPS workforce some breathing room, as well as reverse miserable conditions at those other companies.
But UPS is still doing quite well. Company bargainers aren’t proposing a two-tier contract because they have to. They’re proposing it because they can get away with it. Call it the Kanye West and Jay-Z approachtowards shoving a shitty contract down workers’ throats: “Who gon’ stop me, huh?”
The answer to that question is supposed to be “the union.” Yet the Teamsters have signed on to the tentative agreement. The reform group Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), on the other hand, is calling for workers to vote “no.” Teamsters United, the slate that ran against Teamsters general president James Hoffa in the last election, is leading discussions around the country about opposing the contract.
The union recently voted to authorize a strike at UPS, with 93 percent of workers voting in favor. The last time UPS workers went on strike, in 1997, it drew overwhelming support throughout the country and held the promise of reviving the American labor movement.
UPS’s actions here don’t quite square with how we’re taught labor markets are supposed to work, but it’s pretty standard stuff these days. University of Illinois labor relations professor Robert Bruno noted a similar phenomenon at the earthmoving company Caterpillar in Joliet, Illinois, in 2012.
In forcing an end to a four-month strike at the company, “Caterpillar Inc. got what it wanted. Not some of it or just what it needed, or what was economically justified or even fair, but all of it.” Despite previously agreeing to a two-tier contract and the company’s sky-high profits, the unionized workers “got little more than the privilege to vote for their own abuse” by the end of the contract fight.
If they can get away with it, corporations like Caterpillar and UPS will always insist on eroding workers’ compensation. This is how labor markets work under capitalism. And right now, with the labor movement at its weakest in a century, companies feel like they can get away with it.
If UPS workers — and every other worker in the global economy — don’t want to see their standard of living steadily eroded, they’ll have to pry open the company’s grubby hands and make them fork over the cash. The invisible hand of the market certainly won’t be delivering it to them.
We should all be rooting for high profits and bull markets, since those are the conditions that lead to the invisible hand delivering better conditions for workers. Yet for some reason, that hand is nowhere to be found at United Parcel Service (UPS).
Dave Jamieson has an excellent piece in the Huffington Post on the proposed new union contract for UPS drivers. The contract (which is at the tentative agreement (TA) stage between UPS and the Teamsters, meaning that they are close to sending it to the union’s membership for approval), will cover more than a quarter million workers. It’s a massive workforce for one of the most important logistics companies in the United States and the world, so what’s in the contract matters a lot.
UPS isn’t hurting right now. Quite the contrary: the company has more packages than it knows what to do with. Deliveries from e-commerce sites like Amazon have all of the parcel carriers operating at full capacity. This huge new demand has been very good to UPS: the company pulled in $1.5 billion in the second quarter alone.
You’d think, then, because UPS is making money hand over fist, the company wouldn’t be prioritizing undercutting its workers’ wages and benefits. And it’s true, most UPS workers are being offered higher wages in the TA. But something else is afoot in the new contract.
In the TA — which the Teamsters’ leadership has agreed to — UPS introduces a kind of second-tier driver position, a “hybrid” driver that would both deliver packages in a truck and sort them at a hub. As Jamieson reports, quoting a driver named Ken Smith:
The new employees would work on a lower pay scale than current full-time drivers, starting and topping out at lower hourly rates. They also wouldn’t enjoy the same limits on forced overtime, opening them up to long work weeks. The way Smith sees it, those factors would essentially make the new drivers second-class within the union and potentially drive down the standards for everyone over the long term.
Part of the company’s motivation in introducing this hybrid position is that it wants to expand its delivery service to seven days a week. Amazon is using other delivery services like FedEx and the Postal Service to deliver on Sundays. UPS wants to get in on the Sunday action, too. Fair enough.
But given the numbers the company is currently doing, and the clear demand for expanded service that is out there right now, you’d assume that UPS would be proposing a solution that pays these new workers more. Nobody wants to work on Sundays, and it’s obvious the company is desperate for more workers.
Yet as Jamieson reports, the proposed wage cap for standard drivers in the new contract is $40; for hybrid drivers/package handlers, by contrast, it’s just over $34.
Of course, a big part of the company’s motivation is its competition like FedEx and Amazon contractors, who are eking by with far lower compensation. If the Teamsters were to organize the other parcel delivery workforces — no easy task, given the blatant abuse of misclassifying drivers as “independent contractors” that companies like FedEx have engaged in — it would give the UPS workforce some breathing room, as well as reverse miserable conditions at those other companies.
But UPS is still doing quite well. Company bargainers aren’t proposing a two-tier contract because they have to. They’re proposing it because they can get away with it. Call it the Kanye West and Jay-Z approachtowards shoving a shitty contract down workers’ throats: “Who gon’ stop me, huh?”
The answer to that question is supposed to be “the union.” Yet the Teamsters have signed on to the tentative agreement. The reform group Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU), on the other hand, is calling for workers to vote “no.” Teamsters United, the slate that ran against Teamsters general president James Hoffa in the last election, is leading discussions around the country about opposing the contract.
The union recently voted to authorize a strike at UPS, with 93 percent of workers voting in favor. The last time UPS workers went on strike, in 1997, it drew overwhelming support throughout the country and held the promise of reviving the American labor movement.
UPS’s actions here don’t quite square with how we’re taught labor markets are supposed to work, but it’s pretty standard stuff these days. University of Illinois labor relations professor Robert Bruno noted a similar phenomenon at the earthmoving company Caterpillar in Joliet, Illinois, in 2012.
In forcing an end to a four-month strike at the company, “Caterpillar Inc. got what it wanted. Not some of it or just what it needed, or what was economically justified or even fair, but all of it.” Despite previously agreeing to a two-tier contract and the company’s sky-high profits, the unionized workers “got little more than the privilege to vote for their own abuse” by the end of the contract fight.
If they can get away with it, corporations like Caterpillar and UPS will always insist on eroding workers’ compensation. This is how labor markets work under capitalism. And right now, with the labor movement at its weakest in a century, companies feel like they can get away with it.
If UPS workers — and every other worker in the global economy — don’t want to see their standard of living steadily eroded, they’ll have to pry open the company’s grubby hands and make them fork over the cash. The invisible hand of the market certainly won’t be delivering it to them.
Millions of government workers paid 'poverty' wages, study says
The federal government pays millions of contractors less than $15 an hour, and the Trump administration has further cut wages
Mike Elk
the guardian
Fri 10 Aug 2018 08.41 EDT
The federal government employs more workers making less than $15 an hour than any other employer in the US, a new report has revealed.
The study, compiled by pro-union group Good Jobs Nation, analyzed federal data and showed that the government spends more than $1.6tn on federal contractors employing more than 12.5 million people with 4.5 million of those workers making below $15 an hour.
Many of these workers are employed by contractors as janitors, cafeteria workers, call center workers, administrative assistants and healthcare aides, and union campaigners say they are being kept on poverty wages.
A minimum wage of $15 an hour is a target for many US pro-union groups that have waged a national campaign on the issue and won successes in places such as California, Seattle and Oakland.
“We expect our government to lead by example and set standards for how to do business during the private sector,” said Joe Geevarghese, the Good Jobs Nation executive director. “I just think people know on a fundamental level that this is wrong; that the federal government should be lifting workers into the middle class and not pushing them further into poverty”.
Under the Obama administration, the federal government began to take steps to lift the wages of federal contractors. In 2012, Barack Obama signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for all workers employed on federal contracts to $10.10 an hour. In 2014, Obama signed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which prevented contractors who violate labor law from receiving federal contracts.
Organized labor applauded the orders as some of the most far-reaching reforms for workers achieved under Obama, though they fell short of their aim of establishing a $15 minimum wage.
The Trump administration has already started clawing back the moves. In 2017, the administration repealed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order. Then, in June of this year, the White House exempted contractors employed by the National Park Service from having to pay their workers the $10.10 minimum wage rate.
Officials portrayed the move as boosting the economy and creating jobs. “The order will have a positive effect on rural economies and American families, allowing guides and outfitters to bring tourists out on multi-day hiking, fishing, hunting, and camping expeditions, without enduring costly burdens,” said interior secretary Ryan Zinke in a statement.
Many observers expect the Trump administration to take further action to rollback the regulations around the use of federal contractors and their hiring practises. In July, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it intends to stop allowing automatic union dues deduction for home healthcare workers employed by federal contractors.
Union groups and other campaigners see such moves as an attack on their power to secure higher wages for workers. “[This is] an often low-paid and vulnerable workforce of predominantly women of color who do critical work helping seniors and people with disabilities with daily tasks,” said Amy Traub, the associate director of policy and research for Demos, a public policy organization that has published research on federal government wages. “These rules slash at workers’ ability to join together to improve their jobs”.
As federal contractor workers come under attack, pro-union groups like Good Jobs Nation are planning campaigns to defend them. The group has organized three strikes among federal contractors since Trump has taken office and plans to organize more in the future.
In April, Good Jobs Nation worked with the Communication Workers of America to file a class action wage theft lawsuit on behalf of 10,000 call center workers employed by General Dynamics; accusing the nation’s’ third largest federal contractor of stealing more than $100m in wages from workers.
The group is especially targeting workers in parts of the country which voted for Trump.
“A lot of work under Obama was focused in Washington DC and organizing people of color, who were his base,” said Geevarghese. “Now, we are focusing on organizing workers more in Trump’s base out in midwest because the midwest is where things are ripe for action”.
The study, compiled by pro-union group Good Jobs Nation, analyzed federal data and showed that the government spends more than $1.6tn on federal contractors employing more than 12.5 million people with 4.5 million of those workers making below $15 an hour.
Many of these workers are employed by contractors as janitors, cafeteria workers, call center workers, administrative assistants and healthcare aides, and union campaigners say they are being kept on poverty wages.
A minimum wage of $15 an hour is a target for many US pro-union groups that have waged a national campaign on the issue and won successes in places such as California, Seattle and Oakland.
“We expect our government to lead by example and set standards for how to do business during the private sector,” said Joe Geevarghese, the Good Jobs Nation executive director. “I just think people know on a fundamental level that this is wrong; that the federal government should be lifting workers into the middle class and not pushing them further into poverty”.
Under the Obama administration, the federal government began to take steps to lift the wages of federal contractors. In 2012, Barack Obama signed an executive order raising the minimum wage for all workers employed on federal contracts to $10.10 an hour. In 2014, Obama signed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, which prevented contractors who violate labor law from receiving federal contracts.
Organized labor applauded the orders as some of the most far-reaching reforms for workers achieved under Obama, though they fell short of their aim of establishing a $15 minimum wage.
The Trump administration has already started clawing back the moves. In 2017, the administration repealed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order. Then, in June of this year, the White House exempted contractors employed by the National Park Service from having to pay their workers the $10.10 minimum wage rate.
Officials portrayed the move as boosting the economy and creating jobs. “The order will have a positive effect on rural economies and American families, allowing guides and outfitters to bring tourists out on multi-day hiking, fishing, hunting, and camping expeditions, without enduring costly burdens,” said interior secretary Ryan Zinke in a statement.
Many observers expect the Trump administration to take further action to rollback the regulations around the use of federal contractors and their hiring practises. In July, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it intends to stop allowing automatic union dues deduction for home healthcare workers employed by federal contractors.
Union groups and other campaigners see such moves as an attack on their power to secure higher wages for workers. “[This is] an often low-paid and vulnerable workforce of predominantly women of color who do critical work helping seniors and people with disabilities with daily tasks,” said Amy Traub, the associate director of policy and research for Demos, a public policy organization that has published research on federal government wages. “These rules slash at workers’ ability to join together to improve their jobs”.
As federal contractor workers come under attack, pro-union groups like Good Jobs Nation are planning campaigns to defend them. The group has organized three strikes among federal contractors since Trump has taken office and plans to organize more in the future.
In April, Good Jobs Nation worked with the Communication Workers of America to file a class action wage theft lawsuit on behalf of 10,000 call center workers employed by General Dynamics; accusing the nation’s’ third largest federal contractor of stealing more than $100m in wages from workers.
The group is especially targeting workers in parts of the country which voted for Trump.
“A lot of work under Obama was focused in Washington DC and organizing people of color, who were his base,” said Geevarghese. “Now, we are focusing on organizing workers more in Trump’s base out in midwest because the midwest is where things are ripe for action”.
stupid people in charge!!!
Prisoners fighting deadly California wildfires for $1 an hour banned from serving as firefighters upon release
Tana Ganeva - raw story
08 AUG 2018 AT 10:02 ET
As wildfires rage in California, firefighters are risking their lives to contain the damage and put out the flames.
California conscripts prison inmates to fight fires. In July, California corrections tweeted their appreciation for the prisoners’ work.
Yet, as the Washington Examiner reports, those prisoners would not be allowed to become professional firefighters after their release. The state requires firefighters to have EMT training and felons are barred from acquiring the occupational license.
It’s an example of the many barriers former prisoners face on the outside, which in turn leads to high recidivism rates: if, however, prisoners who have already undergone the extensive training required to fight fires (for only a dollar an hour) were allowed to practice their trade on the outside they’re less likely to reoffend.
Research suggests that gainful employment significantly lowers the chances that a convict will end up back in prison.
California conscripts prison inmates to fight fires. In July, California corrections tweeted their appreciation for the prisoners’ work.
Yet, as the Washington Examiner reports, those prisoners would not be allowed to become professional firefighters after their release. The state requires firefighters to have EMT training and felons are barred from acquiring the occupational license.
It’s an example of the many barriers former prisoners face on the outside, which in turn leads to high recidivism rates: if, however, prisoners who have already undergone the extensive training required to fight fires (for only a dollar an hour) were allowed to practice their trade on the outside they’re less likely to reoffend.
Research suggests that gainful employment significantly lowers the chances that a convict will end up back in prison.
Haitian Workers Called Slaves and Banned from Speaking Creole Win Big In Settlement from Miami Beach Hotel
By Tanasia Kenney - atlanta black star
August 2, 2018
Haitian hotel workers who say they were fired for speaking Creole while Hispanic workers were free to chat in Spanish were awarded a hefty payout Monday to settle a discrimination suit brought against the lavish Miami inn.
On Friday, the SLS South Beach hotel agreed to a $2.5 million settlement to the 17 workers who were booted, The Miami Herald reported. The million-dollar payment stemmed from a lawsuit filed in April 2017 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“ … The EEOC will continue to protect workers in the hospitality industry, including the Black, Haitian community that makes up a significant part of the South Florida workforce,” Michael Farrell, district director for the EEOC’s Miami office, said in a statement.
In the lawsuit, Haitian dishwashers employed at the hotel’s various restaurants claim they were banned from speaking Creole, yet their Latino colleagues were still allowed to speak Spanish. They also alleged they were forced to lug heavy items up the hotel’s 13 flights of stairs while other employees were spared.
When the service elevator broke down and workers asked that it be fixed, one manager allegedly said, “Let those slaves do the work,” according to the complaint.
The disgruntled workers took their concerns to human resources in April 2014. That same day, the entire Haitian dishwashing staff was fired and replaced with a crew “made up of almost entirely of white and/or Hispanic workers,” the suit alleges. James Greeley, chief legal officer of the hotel’s parent company, denied the group’s firing was racially motivated, however, and said the decision was a “legitimate business move” after the hotel was forced to outsource its staff.
“We’re an inclusive company which employs people of over 60 nationalities,” Greeley told the Miami Herald, nothing that not everyone who got fired was of Haitian descent.
As part of the settlement, SLS South Beach will be required to hold mandatory anti-bias training for all chefs, sous chefs, hourly employees and managers who work in the hotel’s eateries, Local News 10 reported. Federal officials will also monitor the hotel, keeping track of the names and national origins of all workers who are hired and fired.
Greeley said the hotel hoped to settle the lawsuit “as amicably as possible” for the benefit the fired employees.
“At the end of the day these were our employees,” he said. “These aren’t adversaries.”
On Friday, the SLS South Beach hotel agreed to a $2.5 million settlement to the 17 workers who were booted, The Miami Herald reported. The million-dollar payment stemmed from a lawsuit filed in April 2017 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“ … The EEOC will continue to protect workers in the hospitality industry, including the Black, Haitian community that makes up a significant part of the South Florida workforce,” Michael Farrell, district director for the EEOC’s Miami office, said in a statement.
In the lawsuit, Haitian dishwashers employed at the hotel’s various restaurants claim they were banned from speaking Creole, yet their Latino colleagues were still allowed to speak Spanish. They also alleged they were forced to lug heavy items up the hotel’s 13 flights of stairs while other employees were spared.
When the service elevator broke down and workers asked that it be fixed, one manager allegedly said, “Let those slaves do the work,” according to the complaint.
The disgruntled workers took their concerns to human resources in April 2014. That same day, the entire Haitian dishwashing staff was fired and replaced with a crew “made up of almost entirely of white and/or Hispanic workers,” the suit alleges. James Greeley, chief legal officer of the hotel’s parent company, denied the group’s firing was racially motivated, however, and said the decision was a “legitimate business move” after the hotel was forced to outsource its staff.
“We’re an inclusive company which employs people of over 60 nationalities,” Greeley told the Miami Herald, nothing that not everyone who got fired was of Haitian descent.
As part of the settlement, SLS South Beach will be required to hold mandatory anti-bias training for all chefs, sous chefs, hourly employees and managers who work in the hotel’s eateries, Local News 10 reported. Federal officials will also monitor the hotel, keeping track of the names and national origins of all workers who are hired and fired.
Greeley said the hotel hoped to settle the lawsuit “as amicably as possible” for the benefit the fired employees.
“At the end of the day these were our employees,” he said. “These aren’t adversaries.”
OSHA May Make It Worse For Workers Exposed To The Heat
While the Nation Melts, Safety Agency Considers Rollback of Its Limited Authority to Protect Employees
By Sarah Okeson - dc report
8/1/18
Exactly six years ago, Mark Rainey, 60, was admitted to the hospital with a core body temperature of 105.4 degrees after his first day on a roofing job. He was diagnosed with heat stroke. He died 21 days later.
The Dayton, Ohio, roofing firm that Rainey was working for, A.H. Sturgill Roofing Inc., was fined $8,820, but a commission dominated by Trump appointees could throw out that fine in a case that might make it harder to discipline firms whose workers sicken or die from working when it’s too hot.
James Sullivan Jr., a Trump appointee who previously represented a roofer, questioned OSHA using publications such as a National Roofing Contractors Association safety guide to show that Sturgill knew there was a hazard.
“Has this had a chilling effect on employers?” asked Sullivan, one of the two Trump appointees on the three-member Occupational Safety and Heath Review Commission.
OSHA doesn’t have specific regulations for heat which means it is harder to prove that the employer is at fault. Two former OSHA directors and more than 130 advocacy groups have called for OSHA to develop a heat
standard. California,Washington, Minnesota and the U.S. military have heat standards.
“There’s no question it will save lives,” said David Michaels, who headed the agency under former President Barack Obama.
From 1992 to 2016, 783 U.S. workers died from the heat, according to a Public Citizen report. Those numbers are likely to increase with climate disruption.
Rainey was at his first day on the job as a temporary employee on Aug. 1, 2012. The temperature was expected to reach 89, but conditions were about 10 degrees hotter on the roof of the Miamisburg, Ohio, bank building.
Temporary employees such as Rainey are particularly at risk. The Public Citizen report said 17 of 23 heat deaths studied happened in the employee’s first three days on the job.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommends gradually phasing in new employees who work in hot conditions over 7 to 14 days and monitoring employees for problems.
Sturgill’s attorney, Robert Dunlevey Jr., said the company’s workers were not exposed to excessive heat and that OSHA was trying to make an example out of the firm. The attorneys said an administrative law judge improperly inflated the heat index and that Rainey was in “exceptionally poor health.”
Rainey was sweating after his morning break and began walking clumsily. At 11:41 a.m. he became ill and collapsed, after five hours of working in direct sunlight, according to the Labor Department.
“Based upon my review of the medical records, there is nothing that would get him to 105 degrees (except) for exposure to heat in the workplace,” said Dr. Theodore Yee.
The Dayton, Ohio, roofing firm that Rainey was working for, A.H. Sturgill Roofing Inc., was fined $8,820, but a commission dominated by Trump appointees could throw out that fine in a case that might make it harder to discipline firms whose workers sicken or die from working when it’s too hot.
James Sullivan Jr., a Trump appointee who previously represented a roofer, questioned OSHA using publications such as a National Roofing Contractors Association safety guide to show that Sturgill knew there was a hazard.
“Has this had a chilling effect on employers?” asked Sullivan, one of the two Trump appointees on the three-member Occupational Safety and Heath Review Commission.
OSHA doesn’t have specific regulations for heat which means it is harder to prove that the employer is at fault. Two former OSHA directors and more than 130 advocacy groups have called for OSHA to develop a heat
standard. California,Washington, Minnesota and the U.S. military have heat standards.
“There’s no question it will save lives,” said David Michaels, who headed the agency under former President Barack Obama.
From 1992 to 2016, 783 U.S. workers died from the heat, according to a Public Citizen report. Those numbers are likely to increase with climate disruption.
Rainey was at his first day on the job as a temporary employee on Aug. 1, 2012. The temperature was expected to reach 89, but conditions were about 10 degrees hotter on the roof of the Miamisburg, Ohio, bank building.
Temporary employees such as Rainey are particularly at risk. The Public Citizen report said 17 of 23 heat deaths studied happened in the employee’s first three days on the job.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health recommends gradually phasing in new employees who work in hot conditions over 7 to 14 days and monitoring employees for problems.
Sturgill’s attorney, Robert Dunlevey Jr., said the company’s workers were not exposed to excessive heat and that OSHA was trying to make an example out of the firm. The attorneys said an administrative law judge improperly inflated the heat index and that Rainey was in “exceptionally poor health.”
Rainey was sweating after his morning break and began walking clumsily. At 11:41 a.m. he became ill and collapsed, after five hours of working in direct sunlight, according to the Labor Department.
“Based upon my review of the medical records, there is nothing that would get him to 105 degrees (except) for exposure to heat in the workplace,” said Dr. Theodore Yee.
Trump Welcomes Immigrants, but Only if They Can Be Exploited
BY David L. Wilson Truthout
PUBLISHED
July 31, 2018
The US mainstream media had two competing events to cover the night of April 28: the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, DC, and a Trump rally in Macomb County, Michigan, a predominantly white working-class suburb of Detroit. Journalists mainly focused on the dinner, but the more important story may have been a remark President Trump made in the course of his 80-minute speech at the rally.
As reported by the immigration-restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), around 33 minutes into his talk, Trump began praising guest worker programs. “For the farmers it’s going to get really good,” he started.
We’re going to let your guest workers come in, because we have to have strong borders, but we have to let your workers in. Our unemployment picture is so good and so strong that we’ve got to let people come in, they’re going to be guest workers. They’re going to work on your farms, we’re going to have the H-2Bs come in, we’re going to have a lot of things happening, but then they have to go out. But we’re going to let them in because you need them…. Guest workers, don’t we agree? We have to have them.
This was just one moment in a typical Trumpian rant, but it highlighted two developments that haven’t gotten nearly enough attention from the media: the dramatic growth of the country’s temporary work program for farm laborers in recent years, and a push from politicians and the mainstream media to expand this and other guest worker programs in the near future.
A New “Bracero” Program?
The H-2A program — named for the type of visa issued — brings workers to US farms for seasonal jobs, generally for periods of 10 months or less.
H-2A has been unpopular with both farm workers and family farmers ever since it took its present form back in 1986. Nevertheless, it has experienced phenomenal growth over the past decade-and-a-half. In fiscal year 2006, the Department of Labor certified 59,110 jobs in the H-2A category. By fiscal year 2016, the last full year of Obama’s presidency, the certifications had more than doubled, to 165,741, with a total of 134,368 visas actually issued. (The number of visas is lower than the number of certifications because some jobs aren’t filled and some workers hold more than one job during the year.)
In 2016, the United States employed a total of about 820,000 hired farm workers, so the H-2A guest workers represented more than 15 percent of the work force. This is about the same as the participation rate in the much better-known “bracero” program, which brought millions of Mexican manual laborers to work on US farms in the years from 1942 to 1964. At its high point in 1956, the program employed some 445,000guest workers — nearly 15 percent of the approximately 3 million hired farm workers at the time.
The H-2A program seems likely to go on growing as the US Labor Department reportedly certified more than 200,000 jobs in fiscal year 2017. Meanwhile, farmer associations have been lobbying to expand the program to include year-round employment, which would add important sectors like dairy farming to the program.
This lobbying campaign has produced what veteran labor journalist David Bacon calls “the zombie guest worker bill.” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, introduced this as standalone legislation in 2017. When the bill went nowhere, he tried to attach it as a rider to the omnibus appropriations act passed in March of this year. The rider was left out of the final version, so Goodlatte added the plan to the Republicans’ so-called “compromise immigration bill” in June. That bill died in a disastrous 121-301 vote. Undeterred, Goodlatte reintroduced the guest worker expansion on July 18 as an independent bill, the AG and Legal Workforce Act (H.R. 6417), with more than 40 co-sponsors, including two Democrats.
The H-2B “Crab Crisis”
Trump’s remarks at the rally also seemed to reference a second type of guest worker program, the H-2B program, which is used to enlist seasonal workers for non-agricultural jobs. The president may have meant to say “H-2A,” or he may just not know the difference between the two programs, but it’s worth noting that his own Trump Organization employs dozens of H-2B workers. For example, as of July 10, his Mar-a-Lago Club, also known as the “Winter White House,” had applied for 78 temporary employees to work from October through next May.
A major difference between the H-2A and the H-2B programs is that the non-agricultural program has an annual limit on the number of visas issued. Currently, the cap is set at 66,000, but employer associations have been working hard to raise it; they’ve formed a lobbying group, the H-2B Workforce Coalition, to push their agenda in Congress. In both 2017 and 2018, legislators gave the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) permission to increase the number of visas. DHS added 15,000 extra visas in 2017.
In addition to lobbying Congress directly, this year, various companies appear to have launched a media campaign to create public pressure for an H-2B expansion. We’re now seeing news stories about a landscaper shortage in Texas, tourism-based businesses “left in the lurch” on Cape Cod, and the tourism and hospitality industry hurt so badly in New Hampshire that the governor had to plead for more visas. But what has gotten the most coverage is the “crab crisis.” This refers to a shortage of Mexican guest workers that the H-2B limit has supposedly inflicted on the Maryland seafood industry—which just happens to supply fresh crabmeat to the Washington restaurants where Congress members dine.
On May 3, Andy Harris, the Republican representing Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the House, responded to the problem with an announcementthat DHS had agreed to issue 15,000 additional visas for this year’s summer season. But media concerns about crabmeat have continued even with the extra visas. Meanwhile, another supposed crustacean crisis may be in preparation: On July 18, Fortune reported that an H-2B worker shortage may cause the Texas shrimp industry to lose $1 million a day.
What Big Business Wants
After three years of telling his base that he “puts American jobs first,” surely Trump wouldn’t try to expand the guest worker programs — or would he?
The president routinely uses populist rhetoric to distract his base while he implements establishment policies, as happened with this year’s Republican tax plan. And guest worker expansion is a prime establishment policy. Business associations and centrist politicians in both the Republican and Democratic parties have been pushing the project for years. The drive is intensifying now as a declining unemployment rate reduces the number of residents willing to take low-end temporary jobs.
As currently constituted, guest worker programs are highly exploitative; the Southern Poverty Law Center has described them as “close to slavery.” H-2B workers are charged exorbitant fees for visas, transportation and other costs, and many start their jobs already indebted to recruiters, contractors or employers. If the workers leave or get fired, they lose their visa status; sometimes employers hold on to the workers’ passports and other documents to keep them from leaving. If the workers try to organize or protest conditions, they are summarily shipped home.
It’s true that there are requirements for employers to provide decent working conditions and to pay wages at rates comparable to those for US residents, but government oversight is lax and the official pay rates are understated. An Economic Policy Institute study from 2011 provided an example: H-2B crab pickers in Maryland — the same workers whose absence was causing the hyped-up crab crisis — were being paid nearly $5 an hour less than Maryland residents who worked in comparable jobs.
The expanded guest worker programs now being considered would be even worse, if Goodlatte’s bill is any indication.
According to David Bacon, this bill would strip away the few benefits and protections agricultural guest workers have currently and would force resident farm workers to accept lower wages or face unemployment. The bill would also require agricultural employers to use E-Verify, so that hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants now doing fieldwork would have to return to their home countries and re-enter as guest workers. Goodlatte’s goal, Farmworker Justice President Bruce Goldstein told Bacon, is the creation of “a massive new guest worker program of millions of captive workers.”
Why Employers Love a Wall
The campaign for expanded guest worker programs dovetails neatly with a key part of Trump’s nationalist agenda — the drive for intensified border enforcement, intensified this year with manufactured frenzy about a caravan of Central American asylum seekers, and then with the administration’s child separation policy.
One of the US’s most notorious immigration enforcement actions was the 1954 “Operation Wetback,” which resulted in hundreds of thousands of undocumented Mexican field workers being deported or forced out from the United States. What’s often overlooked about the operation is its relation to the bracero program. As Columbia University history professor Mae Ngai details in her book Impossible Subjects, Operation Wetback’s purpose wasn’t to keep undocumented workers out of the United States, but to force them to enter through the temporary work program.
This approach remains a basis for policy in the 21st century. Bacon has noted that Michael Chertoff, DHS head during George W. Bush’s second term, described immigration enforcement as “closing the back door and opening the front door” — that is, restricting access at the border so that foreign workers are left with little choice but to come here as guest workers. There are various reasons for the rise in the number of H-2A workers since 2006, but one is certainly the massive increase in border security that has made unauthorized border crossing vastly more expensive and dangerous. “As we enforce the borders, the cost to sneak in is more,” the director of a state growers association explained to The American Prospect in 2013. “Some will die in the deserts. But [a guest worker] won’t. He’ll ride over here in an air-conditioned tour bus watching a movie.”
Will Trump’s base ever catch on to this aspect of their leader’s “big, beautiful wall”?
The crowd at the April 28 rally fell uncharacteristically silent when Trump brought up guest workers. Apparently sensing the discomfort his supporters were feeling, the president quickly noted that after working here, the foreigners “have to go out,” and the cheering resumed. Most attendees that night probably weren’t interested in farm jobs, and no doubt many were satisfied with Trump’s transparent appeals to racism and xenophobia. But at least some of the president’s supporters may change their minds as evidence mounts that his concern about “American jobs” is as bogus as his claims to be a successful entrepreneur.
As reported by the immigration-restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), around 33 minutes into his talk, Trump began praising guest worker programs. “For the farmers it’s going to get really good,” he started.
We’re going to let your guest workers come in, because we have to have strong borders, but we have to let your workers in. Our unemployment picture is so good and so strong that we’ve got to let people come in, they’re going to be guest workers. They’re going to work on your farms, we’re going to have the H-2Bs come in, we’re going to have a lot of things happening, but then they have to go out. But we’re going to let them in because you need them…. Guest workers, don’t we agree? We have to have them.
This was just one moment in a typical Trumpian rant, but it highlighted two developments that haven’t gotten nearly enough attention from the media: the dramatic growth of the country’s temporary work program for farm laborers in recent years, and a push from politicians and the mainstream media to expand this and other guest worker programs in the near future.
A New “Bracero” Program?
The H-2A program — named for the type of visa issued — brings workers to US farms for seasonal jobs, generally for periods of 10 months or less.
H-2A has been unpopular with both farm workers and family farmers ever since it took its present form back in 1986. Nevertheless, it has experienced phenomenal growth over the past decade-and-a-half. In fiscal year 2006, the Department of Labor certified 59,110 jobs in the H-2A category. By fiscal year 2016, the last full year of Obama’s presidency, the certifications had more than doubled, to 165,741, with a total of 134,368 visas actually issued. (The number of visas is lower than the number of certifications because some jobs aren’t filled and some workers hold more than one job during the year.)
In 2016, the United States employed a total of about 820,000 hired farm workers, so the H-2A guest workers represented more than 15 percent of the work force. This is about the same as the participation rate in the much better-known “bracero” program, which brought millions of Mexican manual laborers to work on US farms in the years from 1942 to 1964. At its high point in 1956, the program employed some 445,000guest workers — nearly 15 percent of the approximately 3 million hired farm workers at the time.
The H-2A program seems likely to go on growing as the US Labor Department reportedly certified more than 200,000 jobs in fiscal year 2017. Meanwhile, farmer associations have been lobbying to expand the program to include year-round employment, which would add important sectors like dairy farming to the program.
This lobbying campaign has produced what veteran labor journalist David Bacon calls “the zombie guest worker bill.” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, introduced this as standalone legislation in 2017. When the bill went nowhere, he tried to attach it as a rider to the omnibus appropriations act passed in March of this year. The rider was left out of the final version, so Goodlatte added the plan to the Republicans’ so-called “compromise immigration bill” in June. That bill died in a disastrous 121-301 vote. Undeterred, Goodlatte reintroduced the guest worker expansion on July 18 as an independent bill, the AG and Legal Workforce Act (H.R. 6417), with more than 40 co-sponsors, including two Democrats.
The H-2B “Crab Crisis”
Trump’s remarks at the rally also seemed to reference a second type of guest worker program, the H-2B program, which is used to enlist seasonal workers for non-agricultural jobs. The president may have meant to say “H-2A,” or he may just not know the difference between the two programs, but it’s worth noting that his own Trump Organization employs dozens of H-2B workers. For example, as of July 10, his Mar-a-Lago Club, also known as the “Winter White House,” had applied for 78 temporary employees to work from October through next May.
A major difference between the H-2A and the H-2B programs is that the non-agricultural program has an annual limit on the number of visas issued. Currently, the cap is set at 66,000, but employer associations have been working hard to raise it; they’ve formed a lobbying group, the H-2B Workforce Coalition, to push their agenda in Congress. In both 2017 and 2018, legislators gave the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) permission to increase the number of visas. DHS added 15,000 extra visas in 2017.
In addition to lobbying Congress directly, this year, various companies appear to have launched a media campaign to create public pressure for an H-2B expansion. We’re now seeing news stories about a landscaper shortage in Texas, tourism-based businesses “left in the lurch” on Cape Cod, and the tourism and hospitality industry hurt so badly in New Hampshire that the governor had to plead for more visas. But what has gotten the most coverage is the “crab crisis.” This refers to a shortage of Mexican guest workers that the H-2B limit has supposedly inflicted on the Maryland seafood industry—which just happens to supply fresh crabmeat to the Washington restaurants where Congress members dine.
On May 3, Andy Harris, the Republican representing Maryland’s Eastern Shore in the House, responded to the problem with an announcementthat DHS had agreed to issue 15,000 additional visas for this year’s summer season. But media concerns about crabmeat have continued even with the extra visas. Meanwhile, another supposed crustacean crisis may be in preparation: On July 18, Fortune reported that an H-2B worker shortage may cause the Texas shrimp industry to lose $1 million a day.
What Big Business Wants
After three years of telling his base that he “puts American jobs first,” surely Trump wouldn’t try to expand the guest worker programs — or would he?
The president routinely uses populist rhetoric to distract his base while he implements establishment policies, as happened with this year’s Republican tax plan. And guest worker expansion is a prime establishment policy. Business associations and centrist politicians in both the Republican and Democratic parties have been pushing the project for years. The drive is intensifying now as a declining unemployment rate reduces the number of residents willing to take low-end temporary jobs.
As currently constituted, guest worker programs are highly exploitative; the Southern Poverty Law Center has described them as “close to slavery.” H-2B workers are charged exorbitant fees for visas, transportation and other costs, and many start their jobs already indebted to recruiters, contractors or employers. If the workers leave or get fired, they lose their visa status; sometimes employers hold on to the workers’ passports and other documents to keep them from leaving. If the workers try to organize or protest conditions, they are summarily shipped home.
It’s true that there are requirements for employers to provide decent working conditions and to pay wages at rates comparable to those for US residents, but government oversight is lax and the official pay rates are understated. An Economic Policy Institute study from 2011 provided an example: H-2B crab pickers in Maryland — the same workers whose absence was causing the hyped-up crab crisis — were being paid nearly $5 an hour less than Maryland residents who worked in comparable jobs.
The expanded guest worker programs now being considered would be even worse, if Goodlatte’s bill is any indication.
According to David Bacon, this bill would strip away the few benefits and protections agricultural guest workers have currently and would force resident farm workers to accept lower wages or face unemployment. The bill would also require agricultural employers to use E-Verify, so that hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants now doing fieldwork would have to return to their home countries and re-enter as guest workers. Goodlatte’s goal, Farmworker Justice President Bruce Goldstein told Bacon, is the creation of “a massive new guest worker program of millions of captive workers.”
Why Employers Love a Wall
The campaign for expanded guest worker programs dovetails neatly with a key part of Trump’s nationalist agenda — the drive for intensified border enforcement, intensified this year with manufactured frenzy about a caravan of Central American asylum seekers, and then with the administration’s child separation policy.
One of the US’s most notorious immigration enforcement actions was the 1954 “Operation Wetback,” which resulted in hundreds of thousands of undocumented Mexican field workers being deported or forced out from the United States. What’s often overlooked about the operation is its relation to the bracero program. As Columbia University history professor Mae Ngai details in her book Impossible Subjects, Operation Wetback’s purpose wasn’t to keep undocumented workers out of the United States, but to force them to enter through the temporary work program.
This approach remains a basis for policy in the 21st century. Bacon has noted that Michael Chertoff, DHS head during George W. Bush’s second term, described immigration enforcement as “closing the back door and opening the front door” — that is, restricting access at the border so that foreign workers are left with little choice but to come here as guest workers. There are various reasons for the rise in the number of H-2A workers since 2006, but one is certainly the massive increase in border security that has made unauthorized border crossing vastly more expensive and dangerous. “As we enforce the borders, the cost to sneak in is more,” the director of a state growers association explained to The American Prospect in 2013. “Some will die in the deserts. But [a guest worker] won’t. He’ll ride over here in an air-conditioned tour bus watching a movie.”
Will Trump’s base ever catch on to this aspect of their leader’s “big, beautiful wall”?
The crowd at the April 28 rally fell uncharacteristically silent when Trump brought up guest workers. Apparently sensing the discomfort his supporters were feeling, the president quickly noted that after working here, the foreigners “have to go out,” and the cheering resumed. Most attendees that night probably weren’t interested in farm jobs, and no doubt many were satisfied with Trump’s transparent appeals to racism and xenophobia. But at least some of the president’s supporters may change their minds as evidence mounts that his concern about “American jobs” is as bogus as his claims to be a successful entrepreneur.
Accidents at Amazon: workers left to suffer after warehouse injuries
Guardian investigation reveals numerous cases of Amazon workers being treated in ways that leave them homeless, unable to work or bereft of income after workplace accidents
by Michael Sainato - the guardian
7/30/18
Vickie Shannon Allen, 49, started working at Amazon as a counter in a fulfillment warehouse at Haslet, Texas in May 2017. At first, like many employees, Allen was excited by the idea of working for one of the fastest growing corporations in the world. That feeling dissipated quickly after a few months.
“I noticed managers would ask you questions all the time about any bathroom breaks, performance, and productivity. What they do is code your time, and they are allowed to change it at will. To me, that’s how they get rid of people,” Allen said.
Amazon is now the world’s most valuable retailer. It’s customers are served by over 140 fulfillment centers like the one where Allen worked across the US. The revenues from these centers have made founder Jeff Bezos the world’s richest man – Bezos’ net worth recently crossed the $150bn, making him the wealthiest person in history, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
In the meantime Allen has become homeless after a workplace accident left her unable to do her job.
Nor is Allen alone. A Guardian investigation has revealed numerous cases of Amazon workers suffering from workplace accidents or injuries in its gigantic warehouse system and being treated in ways that leave them homeless, unable to work or bereft of income.
Allen’s story began on 24 October last year when she injured her back counting goods on a workstation that was missing a brush guard, a piece of safety equipment meant to prevent products from falling onto the floor. She used a tote bin to try to compensate for the missing brush guard, and hurt her back while counting in an awkward position. The injury was the beginning of an ongoing ordeal she is still working to amend at Amazon. Over the course of a few weeks, Amazon’s medical triage area gave her use of a heating pad to use on her back, while Amazon management sent her home each day without pay until Allen pushed for workers compensation.
“I tried to work again, but I couldn’t stretch my right arm out and I’m right handed. So I was having a hard time keeping up. This went on for about three weeks,” Allen said. Despite not getting paid, Allen was spending her own money to drive 60 miles one way to the warehouse each day just to be sent home.
Once on workers compensation, Allen started going to physical therapy. In January 2018, she returned to work and injured herself again on the same workstation that still was not fixed.
Allen went back on medical leave and took an additional two weeks of unpaid leave because she didn’t have the money to drive to work. In April 2018, an MRI scan showed her back was still injured, but just five days after her diagnosis, she claims Amazon’s workers compensation insurer, Sedgwick, had the company doctor drop her as a patient.
“By June 2018, they finally had that station fixed. It took them eight months to put one little brush guard on this station,” Allen said. On 2 July, she met with management at the Amazon fulfillment center, who offered her a week of paid leave for the issues she had to deal with over the past nine months.
“They’re also going to pay me for 24 more hours for last week. They haven’t said anything else,” Allen explained. ”They offered me a buyout, only for $3,500, which meant I would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to not say anything derogatory about Amazon or my experience.”
Allen said she rejected the buyout offer to speak out against Amazon’s treatment of her. She currently lives out of her car in the parking lot of the Amazon fulfillment center. “They cost me my home, they screwed me over and over and I go days without eating.”
Allen’s case is one of numerous reports from Amazon workers of being improperly treated after an avoidable work injury. Amazon’s warehouses were listed on the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health’s “dirty dozen” list of most dangerous places to work in the United States in April, 2018. The company made the list due to its pattern of unsafe working conditions and its focus on productivity and efficiency over the safety and livelihood of its employees. Amazon’s emphasis on fulfilling a high demand of orders has resulted in unsafe working conditions for its warehouse employees.
In April 2018, 43-year-old Bryan Hill of Seffner, Florida filed a lawsuit against Amazon, alleging managers fired him for hurting his back on the job and failed to file a workers compensation claim once his injury was reported. “It’s been scheduled for mediation in September, and we’re in a holding pattern until then,” said Miguel Bouzas, the attorney representing Hill in the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, Hill was told by a manager he was too young to have back problems, and he was fired before Amazon Human Resources would authorize a doctor visit.
At an Amazon Fulfillment Center in Pennsylvania, one former employee was fired five weeks after getting injured on the job. “I was on a ladder and someone came flying into the area I was in, hit the ladder causing me to fall and I landed on my back and left leg,” said Christina Miano-Wilburn. Her back is permanently injured from the incident. “They refused to give me the paperwork for workmen’s comp. They cut my short term disability after five weeks. I was supposed to get it for 26 weeks.”
Miano-Wilburn was notified of her job termination through a letter in the mail in May 2017 after working at Amazon for two years. She lost her home shortly after being fired from Amazon.
Other Amazon employees succumb to the fatigue and exhaustion of the fulfillment center work environment and quit before getting injured. “I felt they thought I was faking. I was dehydrated and dizzy,” said Lindsai Florence Johnson, who was taken away in an ambulance in April during a hot day while working at an Amazon fulfillment center in San Bernardino, California. She quit in May 2018 over mistreatment after starting in June 2017. “Not all people report injuries because they are scared to get taken off their job or told they can’t work over there anymore. I have many times come home with bruises from work at Amazon and I experienced my first hernia there.”
In many cases, Amazon workers are left to deal with the temp agency that hired them, shifting the burden of responsibility to a third party and making it more difficult for workers to receive proper treatment and compensation. For nearly three years, Michael Yevtuck has been in and out of court over a workers compensation claim against Integrity Staffing, who hired him to work in a Robbinsville, New Jersey based Amazon fulfillment center.
“I was squatting full speed and going up the step ladder as many times as I could an hour to try to hit the rates. All that squatting hurt my left knee, so I favored the other one and hurt that one,” said Yevtuck, who hurt his knees in November 2015.
An Amazon company doctor recommended he return to work on light duty and gave him braces for each knee. Yevtuck provided documents corroborating his medical diagnoses from Amazon company doctors and private doctors. “As soon as I came back, the supervisor returned me back to a job that was full duty and I reinjured both knees.”
He added Amazon told him to return to work, or work a light duty job if he signed a form stating his injuries occurred prior to working at Amazon. An MRI he received in April 2016 from a private doctor noted he tore the meniscus in his left knee, but Amazon would not pay his medical fees or accept his workers compensation filing. His next court date in his legal efforts to obtain workers compensation and medical reimbursement from Amazon is in September 2018.
Amazon meanwhile insists that ensuring the safety of its workers is a priority and that it was “proud” of its record.
“Amazon has created over 130,000 jobs in the last year alone and now employs over 560,000 people around the world.
Ensuring the safety of these associates is our number one priority,” said Amazon spokesperson Melanie Etches in an email, who also pointed to the firm’s Safety Leadership Program as an example of being proactive on the issue.
“Operational meetings, new hire orientation, process training and new process development begin with safety and have safety metrics and audits integrated within each program … While any serious incident is one too many, we learn and improve our programs working to prevent future incidents,” Etches said.
RELATED: Amazon posts record $2.5bn profit fueled by ad and cloud businesses
“I noticed managers would ask you questions all the time about any bathroom breaks, performance, and productivity. What they do is code your time, and they are allowed to change it at will. To me, that’s how they get rid of people,” Allen said.
Amazon is now the world’s most valuable retailer. It’s customers are served by over 140 fulfillment centers like the one where Allen worked across the US. The revenues from these centers have made founder Jeff Bezos the world’s richest man – Bezos’ net worth recently crossed the $150bn, making him the wealthiest person in history, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
In the meantime Allen has become homeless after a workplace accident left her unable to do her job.
Nor is Allen alone. A Guardian investigation has revealed numerous cases of Amazon workers suffering from workplace accidents or injuries in its gigantic warehouse system and being treated in ways that leave them homeless, unable to work or bereft of income.
Allen’s story began on 24 October last year when she injured her back counting goods on a workstation that was missing a brush guard, a piece of safety equipment meant to prevent products from falling onto the floor. She used a tote bin to try to compensate for the missing brush guard, and hurt her back while counting in an awkward position. The injury was the beginning of an ongoing ordeal she is still working to amend at Amazon. Over the course of a few weeks, Amazon’s medical triage area gave her use of a heating pad to use on her back, while Amazon management sent her home each day without pay until Allen pushed for workers compensation.
“I tried to work again, but I couldn’t stretch my right arm out and I’m right handed. So I was having a hard time keeping up. This went on for about three weeks,” Allen said. Despite not getting paid, Allen was spending her own money to drive 60 miles one way to the warehouse each day just to be sent home.
Once on workers compensation, Allen started going to physical therapy. In January 2018, she returned to work and injured herself again on the same workstation that still was not fixed.
Allen went back on medical leave and took an additional two weeks of unpaid leave because she didn’t have the money to drive to work. In April 2018, an MRI scan showed her back was still injured, but just five days after her diagnosis, she claims Amazon’s workers compensation insurer, Sedgwick, had the company doctor drop her as a patient.
“By June 2018, they finally had that station fixed. It took them eight months to put one little brush guard on this station,” Allen said. On 2 July, she met with management at the Amazon fulfillment center, who offered her a week of paid leave for the issues she had to deal with over the past nine months.
“They’re also going to pay me for 24 more hours for last week. They haven’t said anything else,” Allen explained. ”They offered me a buyout, only for $3,500, which meant I would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to not say anything derogatory about Amazon or my experience.”
Allen said she rejected the buyout offer to speak out against Amazon’s treatment of her. She currently lives out of her car in the parking lot of the Amazon fulfillment center. “They cost me my home, they screwed me over and over and I go days without eating.”
Allen’s case is one of numerous reports from Amazon workers of being improperly treated after an avoidable work injury. Amazon’s warehouses were listed on the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health’s “dirty dozen” list of most dangerous places to work in the United States in April, 2018. The company made the list due to its pattern of unsafe working conditions and its focus on productivity and efficiency over the safety and livelihood of its employees. Amazon’s emphasis on fulfilling a high demand of orders has resulted in unsafe working conditions for its warehouse employees.
In April 2018, 43-year-old Bryan Hill of Seffner, Florida filed a lawsuit against Amazon, alleging managers fired him for hurting his back on the job and failed to file a workers compensation claim once his injury was reported. “It’s been scheduled for mediation in September, and we’re in a holding pattern until then,” said Miguel Bouzas, the attorney representing Hill in the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, Hill was told by a manager he was too young to have back problems, and he was fired before Amazon Human Resources would authorize a doctor visit.
At an Amazon Fulfillment Center in Pennsylvania, one former employee was fired five weeks after getting injured on the job. “I was on a ladder and someone came flying into the area I was in, hit the ladder causing me to fall and I landed on my back and left leg,” said Christina Miano-Wilburn. Her back is permanently injured from the incident. “They refused to give me the paperwork for workmen’s comp. They cut my short term disability after five weeks. I was supposed to get it for 26 weeks.”
Miano-Wilburn was notified of her job termination through a letter in the mail in May 2017 after working at Amazon for two years. She lost her home shortly after being fired from Amazon.
Other Amazon employees succumb to the fatigue and exhaustion of the fulfillment center work environment and quit before getting injured. “I felt they thought I was faking. I was dehydrated and dizzy,” said Lindsai Florence Johnson, who was taken away in an ambulance in April during a hot day while working at an Amazon fulfillment center in San Bernardino, California. She quit in May 2018 over mistreatment after starting in June 2017. “Not all people report injuries because they are scared to get taken off their job or told they can’t work over there anymore. I have many times come home with bruises from work at Amazon and I experienced my first hernia there.”
In many cases, Amazon workers are left to deal with the temp agency that hired them, shifting the burden of responsibility to a third party and making it more difficult for workers to receive proper treatment and compensation. For nearly three years, Michael Yevtuck has been in and out of court over a workers compensation claim against Integrity Staffing, who hired him to work in a Robbinsville, New Jersey based Amazon fulfillment center.
“I was squatting full speed and going up the step ladder as many times as I could an hour to try to hit the rates. All that squatting hurt my left knee, so I favored the other one and hurt that one,” said Yevtuck, who hurt his knees in November 2015.
An Amazon company doctor recommended he return to work on light duty and gave him braces for each knee. Yevtuck provided documents corroborating his medical diagnoses from Amazon company doctors and private doctors. “As soon as I came back, the supervisor returned me back to a job that was full duty and I reinjured both knees.”
He added Amazon told him to return to work, or work a light duty job if he signed a form stating his injuries occurred prior to working at Amazon. An MRI he received in April 2016 from a private doctor noted he tore the meniscus in his left knee, but Amazon would not pay his medical fees or accept his workers compensation filing. His next court date in his legal efforts to obtain workers compensation and medical reimbursement from Amazon is in September 2018.
Amazon meanwhile insists that ensuring the safety of its workers is a priority and that it was “proud” of its record.
“Amazon has created over 130,000 jobs in the last year alone and now employs over 560,000 people around the world.
Ensuring the safety of these associates is our number one priority,” said Amazon spokesperson Melanie Etches in an email, who also pointed to the firm’s Safety Leadership Program as an example of being proactive on the issue.
“Operational meetings, new hire orientation, process training and new process development begin with safety and have safety metrics and audits integrated within each program … While any serious incident is one too many, we learn and improve our programs working to prevent future incidents,” Etches said.
RELATED: Amazon posts record $2.5bn profit fueled by ad and cloud businesses
GOP Legislators Blocked a Minimum Wage Raise Impacting Mostly Black Workers, So They Filed a Lawsuit
By Associated Press - atlanta black star
July 28, 2018
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday revived a lawsuit that had accused the Alabama Legislature of racially discriminating against the city of Birmingham by preventing the majority-black city from setting a minimum wage within the city limits.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a judge’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit. The court said that “plaintiffs have stated a plausible claim that the Minimum Wage Act had the purpose and effect of depriving Birmingham’s black citizens’ equal economic opportunities on the basis of race.”
Birmingham had been poised to be the first Southern city to raise the minimum hourly wage after the city council in 2015 approved an increase to $10.10. But before it was implemented, the Alabama Legislature in 2016 swiftly passed a law requiring a uniform state minimum wage, effectively nullifying the planned increase.
Fast food workers and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit, arguing that the law was “tainted with racial animus” since it was pushed by white suburban Republican legislators in the majority-white Alabama Legislature and disproportionately affected black workers in the majority black city.
Supporters of the state law say the city initiative would stall economic development and the state should not have a patchwork of minimum wage laws.
In an at-times strongly worded opinion, the appellate court said the judge was wrong to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that plaintiffs didn’t have the “clearest proof” of racial motivation.
Today, racism is no longer pledged from the portico of the capitol or exclaimed from the floor of the constitutional convention; it hides, abashed, cloaked beneath ostensibly neutral laws and legitimate bases, steering government power toward no less invidious ends,” the opinion stated.
Scott Douglas, executive director of Greater Birmingham Ministries, one of the group’s behind the lawsuit, said the decision means that, “Birmingham’s minimum-wage workers will get another chance to win higher wages.”
“We fought hard to win our pay raise, and Birmingham workers deserve to have our day in court to show that the state of Alabama was wrong to take away our raise,” plaintiff Antoin Adams said in a statement.
A spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the office is reviewing the decision and did not have an immediate comment.
The court only revived the racial discrimination claim. The court ruled the judge was correct to dismiss other claims in the suit.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a judge’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit. The court said that “plaintiffs have stated a plausible claim that the Minimum Wage Act had the purpose and effect of depriving Birmingham’s black citizens’ equal economic opportunities on the basis of race.”
Birmingham had been poised to be the first Southern city to raise the minimum hourly wage after the city council in 2015 approved an increase to $10.10. But before it was implemented, the Alabama Legislature in 2016 swiftly passed a law requiring a uniform state minimum wage, effectively nullifying the planned increase.
Fast food workers and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit, arguing that the law was “tainted with racial animus” since it was pushed by white suburban Republican legislators in the majority-white Alabama Legislature and disproportionately affected black workers in the majority black city.
Supporters of the state law say the city initiative would stall economic development and the state should not have a patchwork of minimum wage laws.
In an at-times strongly worded opinion, the appellate court said the judge was wrong to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that plaintiffs didn’t have the “clearest proof” of racial motivation.
Today, racism is no longer pledged from the portico of the capitol or exclaimed from the floor of the constitutional convention; it hides, abashed, cloaked beneath ostensibly neutral laws and legitimate bases, steering government power toward no less invidious ends,” the opinion stated.
Scott Douglas, executive director of Greater Birmingham Ministries, one of the group’s behind the lawsuit, said the decision means that, “Birmingham’s minimum-wage workers will get another chance to win higher wages.”
“We fought hard to win our pay raise, and Birmingham workers deserve to have our day in court to show that the state of Alabama was wrong to take away our raise,” plaintiff Antoin Adams said in a statement.
A spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the office is reviewing the decision and did not have an immediate comment.
The court only revived the racial discrimination claim. The court ruled the judge was correct to dismiss other claims in the suit.
CIRCA 1870: A CARTOON SATIRISING THE SWEATSHOPS OF THE CLOTHING INDUSTRY. ORIGINAL ARTIST: BY JOHN LEECH FROM PUNCH MAGAZINE. (PHOTO BY RISCHGITZ/GETTY IMAGES)
Domestic Workers in Seattle Win Most Comprehensive Bill of Rights in the US
BY Sheila Bapat Truthout
PUBLISHED
July 28, 2018
On July 27, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan signed into law the city’s domestic workers’ bill of rights. The ordinance, which passed the Seattle City Council unanimously on Monday, establishes protections for the city’s more than 30,000 nannies, caregivers and housekeepers, who have historically been excluded from labor laws. Seattle is now the only city in the United States with a comprehensive domestic workers’ bill of rights. The city joins eight states that have adopted a domestic workers’ bill of rights.
Against a grim national backdrop in which traditional labor unions are being drained of any remaining power, the persistence of the domestic workers’ movement throughout the country is indicative of how labor organizing may continue to evolve, incorporating workers’ efforts to exert pressure directly on local policymaking bodies.
Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who was just elected to her position in November, was instrumental to the ordinance’s passage.
“As a woman, as a person of color, as a third generation Chicana, I know that many of our issues have been on the back burner historically,” Mosqueda told Truthout. “When I got into office, this was the first legislation I was committed to passing.”
Councilmember Mosqueda and her colleagues were moved by the advocacy of domestic workers like Etelbina Hauser. Hauser, 57, was born in Honduras and spent many years as a domestic worker in Seattle. In the past, Hauser had suffered harassment and abuse at the hands of her employers.
Hauser is now an organizer with the National Domestic Workers Alliance. The Seattle ordinance was the first legislative campaign she worked on, and she was present at Monday’s unanimous City Council vote.
“When we heard the vote announced, one city council member after another, everyone started cheering,” Hauser told Truthout. “I immediately shared the news with my daughters when I saw the outpouring of support on social media. For me personally, this is a feeling of triumph and recognition for us as domestic workers.”
Seattle’s new domestic workers’ ordinance, which takes effect in 2019, applies to nannies, house cleaners, home care workers, gardeners and cooks who are employed by individuals or private residences. The bill also covers live-in workers who sleep or reside at their place of employment.
The law now entitles domestic workers to Seattle’s minimum wage, and also grants them meal and rest breaks. Workers who live with their employers are entitled to overtime pay and one day off per week.
Seattle’s ordinance also includes a first-of-its-kind provision: the creation of a Domestic Worker Standards Board. The standards board will be a forum for workers and employers to dialogue and identify proposals and recommendations that will raise standards for the sector. The Seattle City Council must act on the standards board’s recommendations within 120 days after they’re made.However, the law does not apply to workers who are paid through state Medicaid dollars, which the city does not have the authority to alter. According to the National Domestic Workers Alliance, workers paid through Medicaid have generally achieved higher wages through their ability to bargain with the State of Washington.
“The creation of this Board helps ensure that labor standards can change and improve over time without local activists having to mount a legislative campaign,” said Marzena Zukowska, a representative for the National Domestic Workers Alliance. “The standards board will make our organizing so much easier.”
Thanks to the creation of the standards board, Seattle’s domestic workers’ bill of rights is one of the most robust and innovative in the country. (By contrast, some domestic workers’ laws have been streamlined through legislative processes to simply guarantee overtime or other basic protections.)
Domestic workers’ advocacy is helping empower the sector as a whole. There are approximately 30,000 domestic workers employed in Seattle, and a March 2018 National Domestic Workers Alliance survey of 174 Seattle domestic workers revealed that their wages vary widely. Seventy-seven percent of surveyed workers said they have difficulty making ends meet.
Most domestic workers in the US cannot afford to take days off when they are sick or pregnant. Planning for educational expenses or retirement becomes nearly impossible for many domestic workers. Globally, the vast majority of domestic workers are women — and they are also caregivers within their own families. Such working conditions throughout the world keep women in poverty.
Worker-advocates toiled for just one year in Seattle to secure the new city ordinance, whereas other local and state domestic workers bills of rights have taken several years and multiple failuresbefore finally passing. Employers of domestic workers as well as traditional labor unions like the SEIU in Seattle threw their support behind the law.
The broad-based support in Seattle is not surprising, given the city’s record on economic justice issues — including efforts to secure higher wages for Uber drivers. Seattle also has one of the highest minimum wages in the country.
Now, domestic worker-advocates like Hauser and Gilda Blanco are energized by the victory in Seattle — and they have their sights set higher.
Blanco, 47, worked as a housecleaner for 14 years in Detroit before becoming an organizer with the National Domestic Workers Alliance. She is a Black immigrant from Guatemala, and has played a central role in organizing Black domestic workers in Seattle.
“The worker testimony at the Seattle City Council meeting about the abuse, discrimination and harassment they’ve faced was so powerful,” Blanco said. “And it’s powerful not just for the 30,000 workers in Seattle, but for workers all over the country.”
As a domestic worker, Blanco said she was isolated. “I had no idea there were so many domestic workers around me,” she said. “And as an immigrant I didn’t know I had rights.”
The isolation that Blanco describes is a common experience for domestic workers, who generally labor in private homes with little ability to connect with other workers — a set of conditions that have historically made organizing that much more challenging for them.
But now, Blanco’s life experience as a domestic worker motivates her to fight for better wages and working conditions for the entire sector.
Domestic workers’ advocacy will continue at the local and state levels. Depending on how the November elections go, a federal domestic workers’ bill of rights may be something the domestic workers’ movement fights for as well.
“We have to follow up this Seattle bill with a federal law. This win gives us strength, strength to keep fighting,” Blanco said. “We are strong. We never give up. This is a new phase of democracy in the United States.”
Against a grim national backdrop in which traditional labor unions are being drained of any remaining power, the persistence of the domestic workers’ movement throughout the country is indicative of how labor organizing may continue to evolve, incorporating workers’ efforts to exert pressure directly on local policymaking bodies.
Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who was just elected to her position in November, was instrumental to the ordinance’s passage.
“As a woman, as a person of color, as a third generation Chicana, I know that many of our issues have been on the back burner historically,” Mosqueda told Truthout. “When I got into office, this was the first legislation I was committed to passing.”
Councilmember Mosqueda and her colleagues were moved by the advocacy of domestic workers like Etelbina Hauser. Hauser, 57, was born in Honduras and spent many years as a domestic worker in Seattle. In the past, Hauser had suffered harassment and abuse at the hands of her employers.
Hauser is now an organizer with the National Domestic Workers Alliance. The Seattle ordinance was the first legislative campaign she worked on, and she was present at Monday’s unanimous City Council vote.
“When we heard the vote announced, one city council member after another, everyone started cheering,” Hauser told Truthout. “I immediately shared the news with my daughters when I saw the outpouring of support on social media. For me personally, this is a feeling of triumph and recognition for us as domestic workers.”
Seattle’s new domestic workers’ ordinance, which takes effect in 2019, applies to nannies, house cleaners, home care workers, gardeners and cooks who are employed by individuals or private residences. The bill also covers live-in workers who sleep or reside at their place of employment.
The law now entitles domestic workers to Seattle’s minimum wage, and also grants them meal and rest breaks. Workers who live with their employers are entitled to overtime pay and one day off per week.
Seattle’s ordinance also includes a first-of-its-kind provision: the creation of a Domestic Worker Standards Board. The standards board will be a forum for workers and employers to dialogue and identify proposals and recommendations that will raise standards for the sector. The Seattle City Council must act on the standards board’s recommendations within 120 days after they’re made.However, the law does not apply to workers who are paid through state Medicaid dollars, which the city does not have the authority to alter. According to the National Domestic Workers Alliance, workers paid through Medicaid have generally achieved higher wages through their ability to bargain with the State of Washington.
“The creation of this Board helps ensure that labor standards can change and improve over time without local activists having to mount a legislative campaign,” said Marzena Zukowska, a representative for the National Domestic Workers Alliance. “The standards board will make our organizing so much easier.”
Thanks to the creation of the standards board, Seattle’s domestic workers’ bill of rights is one of the most robust and innovative in the country. (By contrast, some domestic workers’ laws have been streamlined through legislative processes to simply guarantee overtime or other basic protections.)
Domestic workers’ advocacy is helping empower the sector as a whole. There are approximately 30,000 domestic workers employed in Seattle, and a March 2018 National Domestic Workers Alliance survey of 174 Seattle domestic workers revealed that their wages vary widely. Seventy-seven percent of surveyed workers said they have difficulty making ends meet.
Most domestic workers in the US cannot afford to take days off when they are sick or pregnant. Planning for educational expenses or retirement becomes nearly impossible for many domestic workers. Globally, the vast majority of domestic workers are women — and they are also caregivers within their own families. Such working conditions throughout the world keep women in poverty.
Worker-advocates toiled for just one year in Seattle to secure the new city ordinance, whereas other local and state domestic workers bills of rights have taken several years and multiple failuresbefore finally passing. Employers of domestic workers as well as traditional labor unions like the SEIU in Seattle threw their support behind the law.
The broad-based support in Seattle is not surprising, given the city’s record on economic justice issues — including efforts to secure higher wages for Uber drivers. Seattle also has one of the highest minimum wages in the country.
Now, domestic worker-advocates like Hauser and Gilda Blanco are energized by the victory in Seattle — and they have their sights set higher.
Blanco, 47, worked as a housecleaner for 14 years in Detroit before becoming an organizer with the National Domestic Workers Alliance. She is a Black immigrant from Guatemala, and has played a central role in organizing Black domestic workers in Seattle.
“The worker testimony at the Seattle City Council meeting about the abuse, discrimination and harassment they’ve faced was so powerful,” Blanco said. “And it’s powerful not just for the 30,000 workers in Seattle, but for workers all over the country.”
As a domestic worker, Blanco said she was isolated. “I had no idea there were so many domestic workers around me,” she said. “And as an immigrant I didn’t know I had rights.”
The isolation that Blanco describes is a common experience for domestic workers, who generally labor in private homes with little ability to connect with other workers — a set of conditions that have historically made organizing that much more challenging for them.
But now, Blanco’s life experience as a domestic worker motivates her to fight for better wages and working conditions for the entire sector.
Domestic workers’ advocacy will continue at the local and state levels. Depending on how the November elections go, a federal domestic workers’ bill of rights may be something the domestic workers’ movement fights for as well.
“We have to follow up this Seattle bill with a federal law. This win gives us strength, strength to keep fighting,” Blanco said. “We are strong. We never give up. This is a new phase of democracy in the United States.”
Starbucks, others must pay California workers for tasks done after clocking out: court
Reuters - raw story
27 JUL 2018 AT 06:23 ET
California’s top state court said on Thursday that employers must pay their workers for small amounts of time they spend on work tasks after clocking out, in a ruling that will likely lead to the revival of a lawsuit against Starbucks Corp.
The California Supreme Court said a rule under federal wage law that excuses companies from paying workers for small amounts of time that are difficult to record did not apply under California law.
The decision could be costly for many companies, particularly restaurants and retailers that have many hourly workers, since California, America’s most populous state, is home to nearly 40 million people and about 10 percent of the U.S. workforce.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business group, warned the court in a brief backing Starbucks that such a ruling would encourage workers to file lawsuits seeking pay for “trifling absurdities.”
A Starbucks representative said the company was disappointed with the decision.
Shaun Setareh, who represents former Starbucks employee Douglas Troester in a 2012 lawsuit against the company, said the ruling would force many companies to change their employment practices.
Troester said that after Starbucks employees clock out of work, they are required to transmit sales data, set an alarm, and sometimes bring in patio furniture or walk coworkers to their cars.
Those tasks could take up to 10 minutes each day, Troester said, and workers should have been paid for that time. In the 17 months he worked at Starbucks, he said he performed about 13 hours of unpaid work and was owed about $100.
A federal judge in San Francisco in 2014 dismissed Troester’s case, saying it would be impractical to require Starbucks to record the brief amount of time employees spent doing work tasks before leaving a store.
Troester appealed, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asked the California Supreme Court to decide whether the “de minimis rule” under federal law also applied under state law.
The court said on Thursday that under California law, workers must generally be paid for any time they are required to be on their employers’ premises.
But the court said there could be cases involving tasks “that are so irregular or brief in duration” that companies are not required to pay for them.
The 9th Circuit must now apply the court’s decision in Troester’s case, which will likely lead to the lawsuit against Starbucks being revived.
The case is Troester v. Starbucks, California Supreme Court, No. S234969.
The California Supreme Court said a rule under federal wage law that excuses companies from paying workers for small amounts of time that are difficult to record did not apply under California law.
The decision could be costly for many companies, particularly restaurants and retailers that have many hourly workers, since California, America’s most populous state, is home to nearly 40 million people and about 10 percent of the U.S. workforce.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business group, warned the court in a brief backing Starbucks that such a ruling would encourage workers to file lawsuits seeking pay for “trifling absurdities.”
A Starbucks representative said the company was disappointed with the decision.
Shaun Setareh, who represents former Starbucks employee Douglas Troester in a 2012 lawsuit against the company, said the ruling would force many companies to change their employment practices.
Troester said that after Starbucks employees clock out of work, they are required to transmit sales data, set an alarm, and sometimes bring in patio furniture or walk coworkers to their cars.
Those tasks could take up to 10 minutes each day, Troester said, and workers should have been paid for that time. In the 17 months he worked at Starbucks, he said he performed about 13 hours of unpaid work and was owed about $100.
A federal judge in San Francisco in 2014 dismissed Troester’s case, saying it would be impractical to require Starbucks to record the brief amount of time employees spent doing work tasks before leaving a store.
Troester appealed, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asked the California Supreme Court to decide whether the “de minimis rule” under federal law also applied under state law.
The court said on Thursday that under California law, workers must generally be paid for any time they are required to be on their employers’ premises.
But the court said there could be cases involving tasks “that are so irregular or brief in duration” that companies are not required to pay for them.
The 9th Circuit must now apply the court’s decision in Troester’s case, which will likely lead to the lawsuit against Starbucks being revived.
The case is Troester v. Starbucks, California Supreme Court, No. S234969.
Disneyland agrees to pay its workers $15 an hour
CNN
11:16 AM, Jul 27, 2018
Disneyland workers in California are getting a pay raise.
Unions representing nearly 10,000 Disneyland workers accepted Disney's three-year contract to raise starting hourly wages to $15 an hour beginning next year. The agreement ends a lengthy labor battle over pay at Disney's Anaheim resort.
Minimum wage employees at Disneyland made $11 an hour. The deal immediately raises their pay 20% to $13.25 an hour. The $15 starting rate will go into effect on January 1, 2019. It will go up to $15.45 in June of 2020.
Disney said an employee making $11 today would earn an additional $8,000 a year.
The deal puts Disney on track to reach California's mandatory $15 an hour minimum wage three years before it goes into effect. It covers union workers in Disneyland jobs like attractions, store operations, custodial, costume, and transportation and parking.
"This agreement sets a new bar with minimum wages that are among the highest in the country," Disneyland president Josh D'Amaro said in a statement.
Disneyland has 30,000 workers, but the majority of hourly workers are represented by unions. Disney said wages for other hourly workers will be negotiated separately.
The labor fight got a public boost from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who pressured Disney to raise wages for workers in California and Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Sanders traveled to Anaheim last month and spoke at a rally that hundreds of Disneyland workers attended.
"The wages and benefits for its workers are atrocious," Sanders wrote in a Guardian op-ed criticizing the company and its CEO Bob Iger.
Disney is also in talks with unions in Orlando over pay and benefits at Disney World.
RELATED: The Walt Disney Company announced record revenue of 55.14 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, an increase of over 10 billion U.S. dollars on the figure from 2013. Of this revenue in 2017, about 23.5 billion U.S. dollars was generated in its media networks segment and a further 18.4 billion U.S. dollars was derived from the parks and resorts segment.
Unions representing nearly 10,000 Disneyland workers accepted Disney's three-year contract to raise starting hourly wages to $15 an hour beginning next year. The agreement ends a lengthy labor battle over pay at Disney's Anaheim resort.
Minimum wage employees at Disneyland made $11 an hour. The deal immediately raises their pay 20% to $13.25 an hour. The $15 starting rate will go into effect on January 1, 2019. It will go up to $15.45 in June of 2020.
Disney said an employee making $11 today would earn an additional $8,000 a year.
The deal puts Disney on track to reach California's mandatory $15 an hour minimum wage three years before it goes into effect. It covers union workers in Disneyland jobs like attractions, store operations, custodial, costume, and transportation and parking.
"This agreement sets a new bar with minimum wages that are among the highest in the country," Disneyland president Josh D'Amaro said in a statement.
Disneyland has 30,000 workers, but the majority of hourly workers are represented by unions. Disney said wages for other hourly workers will be negotiated separately.
The labor fight got a public boost from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who pressured Disney to raise wages for workers in California and Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Sanders traveled to Anaheim last month and spoke at a rally that hundreds of Disneyland workers attended.
"The wages and benefits for its workers are atrocious," Sanders wrote in a Guardian op-ed criticizing the company and its CEO Bob Iger.
Disney is also in talks with unions in Orlando over pay and benefits at Disney World.
RELATED: The Walt Disney Company announced record revenue of 55.14 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, an increase of over 10 billion U.S. dollars on the figure from 2013. Of this revenue in 2017, about 23.5 billion U.S. dollars was generated in its media networks segment and a further 18.4 billion U.S. dollars was derived from the parks and resorts segment.
disguised slavery!!!
Corporations and Mainstream Media Trumpet the “Horrors” of Higher Wages
BY Dean Baker Truthout
PUBLISHED
July 16, 2018
The media have treated us to an array of stories warning us of the terrible labor shortage facing the country. Some of the pieces have been general, such as this CNBC piece on the labor shortage “reaching a critical point,” or this Wall Street Journal article on wage gains “threatening profits.”
Others have been more industry-specific, such as The Washington Post’s highlighting of the trucker shortage that threatens the “prosperous economy.” Then there is this New York Times piece noting that nursing homes have trouble attracting nursing assistants at the $13.23 an hour average pay for the occupation.
It’s clear that many in the media are terrified by the prospect that as the labor market gets tighter, workers might get a larger share of the pie. Perhaps this should not be surprising when billionaires control major news outlets, but it does mean that economic reporting might be getting pretty far out of line with economic reality.
At the most basic level, if workers did see pay increases at the expense of profits, they would just be getting back some of what they have lost in this century. The after-tax profit share of national income rose by almost three full percentage points between 2000 and 2016. That would correspond to an average loss of almost $3,000 per worker per year.
But even this calculation understates the shift from wages from profits. According to new research by Gabriel Zucman, more than a third of the foreign profits of US corporations are actually profits made in US but shifted overseas to evade taxes.
Factor this profit shift into the calculation and the loss to workers is close to $4,000 per worker per year. And this is before factoring in the corporate tax cut passed last year.
In this context, the whining over higher wages seems especially pathetic. Corporations were happy to take advantage of the weak labor market, especially in the years of the Great Recession, to increase their profit share. Now they are warning of disaster if they have to give back some of their gains if the labor market continues to strengthen.
Undoubtedly, many of those complaining about the labor shortage want the Federal Reserve Board to accelerate its pace of interest rate hikes. The hope is that slower economic growth will mean fewer jobs and higher unemployment.
Others are looking for more direct help from the government. For example, Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is looking to getpermission to bring in 78 foreign workers to fill low-paying jobs such as cooks and housekeepers.
We’ll see soon enough how the battle shakes out, but the basic story should be quite clear to anyone paying attention. The increase in income inequality we have seen over the last four decades has little to do with the intrinsic dynamics of the market.
It is a story of the rich rigging the rules to get all the money.
We see this again and again in different areas of public policy. After running around the country for 18 months yelling about China’s currency policy, which has cost the jobs of millions of manufacturing workers in the United States, Donald Trump has dropped currency from his list of complaints as he sets out on his trade war. Instead, we are supposed to fight China over Boeing and Pfizer’s patent fees.
The Supreme Court has decided it is a “free speech violation” if unions sign a contract requiring the workers who benefit from the union to share in the cost of maintaining the union. However, the court sees no questions of freedom at stake when fast-food companies prohibit their workers from seeking jobs with competitors.
Undoubtedly, we will see many economists doing careful research studying the causes of growing inequality. Major foundations will devote tens of millions of dollars for this work.
But there is no mystery here. The rich control the political process and they are using this control to get an ever larger share of the economic pie. Implying that there is some complex puzzle to be sorted out helps the rich in their pursuit of upward redistribution.
Others have been more industry-specific, such as The Washington Post’s highlighting of the trucker shortage that threatens the “prosperous economy.” Then there is this New York Times piece noting that nursing homes have trouble attracting nursing assistants at the $13.23 an hour average pay for the occupation.
It’s clear that many in the media are terrified by the prospect that as the labor market gets tighter, workers might get a larger share of the pie. Perhaps this should not be surprising when billionaires control major news outlets, but it does mean that economic reporting might be getting pretty far out of line with economic reality.
At the most basic level, if workers did see pay increases at the expense of profits, they would just be getting back some of what they have lost in this century. The after-tax profit share of national income rose by almost three full percentage points between 2000 and 2016. That would correspond to an average loss of almost $3,000 per worker per year.
But even this calculation understates the shift from wages from profits. According to new research by Gabriel Zucman, more than a third of the foreign profits of US corporations are actually profits made in US but shifted overseas to evade taxes.
Factor this profit shift into the calculation and the loss to workers is close to $4,000 per worker per year. And this is before factoring in the corporate tax cut passed last year.
In this context, the whining over higher wages seems especially pathetic. Corporations were happy to take advantage of the weak labor market, especially in the years of the Great Recession, to increase their profit share. Now they are warning of disaster if they have to give back some of their gains if the labor market continues to strengthen.
Undoubtedly, many of those complaining about the labor shortage want the Federal Reserve Board to accelerate its pace of interest rate hikes. The hope is that slower economic growth will mean fewer jobs and higher unemployment.
Others are looking for more direct help from the government. For example, Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is looking to getpermission to bring in 78 foreign workers to fill low-paying jobs such as cooks and housekeepers.
We’ll see soon enough how the battle shakes out, but the basic story should be quite clear to anyone paying attention. The increase in income inequality we have seen over the last four decades has little to do with the intrinsic dynamics of the market.
It is a story of the rich rigging the rules to get all the money.
We see this again and again in different areas of public policy. After running around the country for 18 months yelling about China’s currency policy, which has cost the jobs of millions of manufacturing workers in the United States, Donald Trump has dropped currency from his list of complaints as he sets out on his trade war. Instead, we are supposed to fight China over Boeing and Pfizer’s patent fees.
The Supreme Court has decided it is a “free speech violation” if unions sign a contract requiring the workers who benefit from the union to share in the cost of maintaining the union. However, the court sees no questions of freedom at stake when fast-food companies prohibit their workers from seeking jobs with competitors.
Undoubtedly, we will see many economists doing careful research studying the causes of growing inequality. Major foundations will devote tens of millions of dollars for this work.
But there is no mystery here. The rich control the political process and they are using this control to get an ever larger share of the economic pie. Implying that there is some complex puzzle to be sorted out helps the rich in their pursuit of upward redistribution.
The Tech Industry’s Push to Hire Autistic Workers Could Be a Recipe for Hyper-Exploitation
BY Julianne Tveten - in these times
7/11/18
For autistic people, employment prospects are grim. Using data collected in 2014 and 2015, a Drexel University study found that only 14 percent of autistic adults in the United States hold paying jobs. In 2016, the university reported that while 60 percent of autistic adults who complete vocational training secure jobs, the majority earn poverty-level wages. The issue isn’t limited to the United States: Gainful employment rates for autistic people remain comparatively low in a number of other nations, including the United Kingdom and Australia.
In recent years, major corporations—particularly those in tech—have purported to offer an antidote. Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Yahoo and German software company SAP, among others, have demonstrated a mounting interest in hiring autistic candidates, introducing programs ostensibly designed to recruit them. The logic: At once, these companies address an employment crisis and avail themselves of what Microsoft calls an "untapped" pool of talent.
Efforts to engage people on the autism spectrum interested in pursuing tech careers are, in theory, laudable, especially in light of the current labor landscape. What the work-in-tech narrative elides, however, is these initiatives’ exploitative, paternalistic treatment of the people they claim to exalt.
Conceived as a vehicle of self-actualization in the 1990s, the neurodiversity movement contends that neurological differences such as dyslexia and autism aren’t “disorders,” as much scientific literature classifies them, but natural human variations. More recently, some media outlets have appropriated neurodiversity as a corporate boon. Last year, the Harvard Business Review deemed workers on the autism spectrum a “competitive advantage” for companies, touting such reductive qualities as “loyalty” and “appreciativeness of having been given a chance,” while citing productivity growth and public relations boosts. In 2016, the BBC characterized autistic people as model employees, apt to be “immersed in their work” and attentive to detail. Relatedly, Peter Thiel’s 2014 book Zero to One exhorts companies to hire people on the autism spectrum in order to stimulate “innovation” and thwart “herd-like thinking and behavior.”
These claims, however, serve as a pretext for predatory business practices. Autistic rights activist Elena Chandler told In These Times that the celebration of autistic workers’ putative fealty has an ulterior motive: curtailing turnover. The tech industry has notoriously low rates of employee retention; at Microsoft and Google, the average worker’s tenure falls short of two years, amid such factors as stress and discrimination. Neurotypical people, said Chandler, are commonly “hired at companies like SAP and Microsoft. The company trains them up and helps them develop in the field, and after a few years, they leave and create a competing startup.” Companies seeking autistic people, she added, bank on those candidates’ low likelihood of leaving or asserting their rights as workers—from pay to intellectual property—due in large part to a dearth of alternative job options and limited work experience.
Game developer Ryan Holtz, who has worked for a company acquired by Microsoft, has further concerns. Microsoft, SAP and other companies, he maintains, assume “that people on the autism spectrum will happily work unpaid overtime as long as we’re enjoying ourselves, because we don’t have a social life and so don't know any better. It belies a patronizing understanding of the autism spectrum.”
Chandler and Shaun Bryan Ford, who are both autistic, have sought work in the tech industry. After applying for technical writing positions at Microsoft and SAP, Chandler said she heard nothing from either company, despite her Ph.D. and history of working in the field. Ford, a media scholar whose mathematical learning disability precludes him from coding jobs, recently participated in a virtual career fair held by Autism at Work, a hiring initiative spearheaded by SAP and adopted by a number of corporations including Microsoft. In a Medium essay, he detailed what he found to be apathy toward aspirants who weren’t white, male computer scientists. The reason, Ford posits, is that recruiting programs and companies such as Autism at Work and Danish company Specialisterne favor statistically well-paid demographics.
“It’s based on profit for them,” Ford told In These Times. “If they recruit high-wage-earning people from the very beginning to come to Microsoft or these other companies, SAP, etc. … they will get a share of this employee’s productivity from the very beginning. (Microsoft declined to comment, and SAP didn’t respond to requests for comment.)
Those who progress to the interview incur a separate set of problems. Bucking the conventional approach of formal, conversation-oriented meetings, which may be challenging for people on the autism spectrum, a number of companies have designed formats wherein applicants complete engineering projects with materials like Legos and marshmallows on campus over the course of two or more weeks. While Microsoft and other corporations have garnered plaudits for heeding the needs of autistic people, the companies’ apparent lack of compensation for multiple weeks’ worth of labor goes unaddressed. (This issue has gained increased attention among more traditional tech interviews.)
According to Chandler, prospective tech employers place pressure on autistic applicants not only to perform a task competently, but to distinguish themselves via the aforementioned stereotype invoked by Thiel: what she calls a “magic autistic” tendency to “think outside the box.” This expectation thus begets a narrow hiring focus that sets a significantly high bar of ingenuity for people who already struggle to secure work.
If the experiences of Chandler, Holtz and Ford are any indication, these initiatives seek to include only a small fraction of the autistic population]. People on the autism spectrum, then, aren’t spared by capitalism’s value system—they’re among those it harms the most profoundly. The agency and liberation of people of marginalized neurotypes doesn’t, and never will, depend on corporate campaigns to turn a chosen few into a new technical underclass, but on a holistic understanding of what it means to have a dignified, fulfilling existence that doesn’t hinge on corporate approval.
“If a corporation can’t use us to make money, we aren’t useful to society. That’s all of us,” said Ford. “Regardless of what it is their capabilities and 'productivity' are," he added, autistic people “should be able to live a good life.”
In recent years, major corporations—particularly those in tech—have purported to offer an antidote. Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Google, Yahoo and German software company SAP, among others, have demonstrated a mounting interest in hiring autistic candidates, introducing programs ostensibly designed to recruit them. The logic: At once, these companies address an employment crisis and avail themselves of what Microsoft calls an "untapped" pool of talent.
Efforts to engage people on the autism spectrum interested in pursuing tech careers are, in theory, laudable, especially in light of the current labor landscape. What the work-in-tech narrative elides, however, is these initiatives’ exploitative, paternalistic treatment of the people they claim to exalt.
Conceived as a vehicle of self-actualization in the 1990s, the neurodiversity movement contends that neurological differences such as dyslexia and autism aren’t “disorders,” as much scientific literature classifies them, but natural human variations. More recently, some media outlets have appropriated neurodiversity as a corporate boon. Last year, the Harvard Business Review deemed workers on the autism spectrum a “competitive advantage” for companies, touting such reductive qualities as “loyalty” and “appreciativeness of having been given a chance,” while citing productivity growth and public relations boosts. In 2016, the BBC characterized autistic people as model employees, apt to be “immersed in their work” and attentive to detail. Relatedly, Peter Thiel’s 2014 book Zero to One exhorts companies to hire people on the autism spectrum in order to stimulate “innovation” and thwart “herd-like thinking and behavior.”
These claims, however, serve as a pretext for predatory business practices. Autistic rights activist Elena Chandler told In These Times that the celebration of autistic workers’ putative fealty has an ulterior motive: curtailing turnover. The tech industry has notoriously low rates of employee retention; at Microsoft and Google, the average worker’s tenure falls short of two years, amid such factors as stress and discrimination. Neurotypical people, said Chandler, are commonly “hired at companies like SAP and Microsoft. The company trains them up and helps them develop in the field, and after a few years, they leave and create a competing startup.” Companies seeking autistic people, she added, bank on those candidates’ low likelihood of leaving or asserting their rights as workers—from pay to intellectual property—due in large part to a dearth of alternative job options and limited work experience.
Game developer Ryan Holtz, who has worked for a company acquired by Microsoft, has further concerns. Microsoft, SAP and other companies, he maintains, assume “that people on the autism spectrum will happily work unpaid overtime as long as we’re enjoying ourselves, because we don’t have a social life and so don't know any better. It belies a patronizing understanding of the autism spectrum.”
Chandler and Shaun Bryan Ford, who are both autistic, have sought work in the tech industry. After applying for technical writing positions at Microsoft and SAP, Chandler said she heard nothing from either company, despite her Ph.D. and history of working in the field. Ford, a media scholar whose mathematical learning disability precludes him from coding jobs, recently participated in a virtual career fair held by Autism at Work, a hiring initiative spearheaded by SAP and adopted by a number of corporations including Microsoft. In a Medium essay, he detailed what he found to be apathy toward aspirants who weren’t white, male computer scientists. The reason, Ford posits, is that recruiting programs and companies such as Autism at Work and Danish company Specialisterne favor statistically well-paid demographics.
“It’s based on profit for them,” Ford told In These Times. “If they recruit high-wage-earning people from the very beginning to come to Microsoft or these other companies, SAP, etc. … they will get a share of this employee’s productivity from the very beginning. (Microsoft declined to comment, and SAP didn’t respond to requests for comment.)
Those who progress to the interview incur a separate set of problems. Bucking the conventional approach of formal, conversation-oriented meetings, which may be challenging for people on the autism spectrum, a number of companies have designed formats wherein applicants complete engineering projects with materials like Legos and marshmallows on campus over the course of two or more weeks. While Microsoft and other corporations have garnered plaudits for heeding the needs of autistic people, the companies’ apparent lack of compensation for multiple weeks’ worth of labor goes unaddressed. (This issue has gained increased attention among more traditional tech interviews.)
According to Chandler, prospective tech employers place pressure on autistic applicants not only to perform a task competently, but to distinguish themselves via the aforementioned stereotype invoked by Thiel: what she calls a “magic autistic” tendency to “think outside the box.” This expectation thus begets a narrow hiring focus that sets a significantly high bar of ingenuity for people who already struggle to secure work.
If the experiences of Chandler, Holtz and Ford are any indication, these initiatives seek to include only a small fraction of the autistic population]. People on the autism spectrum, then, aren’t spared by capitalism’s value system—they’re among those it harms the most profoundly. The agency and liberation of people of marginalized neurotypes doesn’t, and never will, depend on corporate campaigns to turn a chosen few into a new technical underclass, but on a holistic understanding of what it means to have a dignified, fulfilling existence that doesn’t hinge on corporate approval.
“If a corporation can’t use us to make money, we aren’t useful to society. That’s all of us,” said Ford. “Regardless of what it is their capabilities and 'productivity' are," he added, autistic people “should be able to live a good life.”
For Many Undocumented Workers, There’s No Such Thing As Minimum Wage
BY SEBASTIÁN GONZÁLEZ DE LEÓN - in these times
MONDAY, JUL 9, 2018, 5:29 PM
Wage violations are commonplace in Chicago. They affect low-paid workers in industries like construction, food service and retail. Immigrants and people of color are especially vulnerable because they tend to work in more low-income jobs. David, who requested a pseudonym to protect his safety, told In These Times his story.
Twenty-three-year-old David migrated to Chicago in late 2017. His first job was as a busboy at a restaurant on the Northeast Side. His job was to clean tables and bring water to customers. He said at the gig, where he worked earlier this year, he was being paid $6 dollars per hour plus tips.
According to David, he wasn’t receiving tips directly from customers. Instead, he was told he would get a percentage of net sales. This tipping method was never fully explained and left him in a vulnerable position. Some days, he says, he would receive no tips at all. He would be taken off the floor by the owner to clean the apartments above the restaurant during his shift. "She made me clean every apartment. Yet they had nothing to do with my job. Besides, they were not even part of the restaurant," David recalls.
Although coworkers told him to object to unrelated work requests, they also warned him that refusing could cost him his job.
In mid-February, David said he was sick and the only employee on the restaurant floor. His boss told him that he had to clean the windows of the apartments from the outside. "There was a snow storm that week. I had a pretty bad and noticeable cold," David says. Despite protesting that he was too sick, David says the owner of the restaurant made him work outside.
Knowing he was in a precarious position, David continued to clean all of the apartments and their respective outdoor windows. As such, he was unable to collect tips because he didn’t work the restaurant floor. As a result of being outside, his sickness worsened and he became feverish, he says. This proved to be too much ,so he could not go to work the next day. The retaliation for his absence was swift. His shifts were cut, and sometimes management would fail to tell him until he arrived at his scheduled time—after a one-hour commute. He never received an explanation, he says.
David quit. But he argues that he was technically forced out when his employer cut his shifts to one day a week. Unfortunately for him, he still had to keep in contact with his employer because they had not paid him for all of his work to date. When he received his paycheck, he says a coworker told him that he should make sure that he was being paid for all of his work because he suspected that his hours were not fully accounted for, but he did not want to engage any longer with management. He took his $450 paycheck for one month’s work and used it all to pay his rent.
David commented that, between tips and paycheck, he never received close to a complete minimum wage.
The wage-theft epidemic
Wage theft is an-all-too common phenomenon in immigrant communities in Chicago. Individuals born outside the United States are 1.5 times more likely to experience a labor violation.
Three ordinances are active in Chicago to avoid wage violations. The first one dictates that if an employer commits wage theft, they can lose their commercial license. The second states that minimum wage in Chicago must increase every year until 2019. The third ordinance grants one hour of sick leave, per every 40 worked hours.
Unfortunately, these ordinances have not been fully able to dissuade business owners from stealing wages or violating labor laws. A study published by the Center for Urban Economic Development of the University of Illinois at Chicago found that the labor laws are regularly and systematically violated. This makes David's case commonplace among low-income workers: 15 percent of the tipped workers in Chicago that were interviewed never received a full minimum wage.
Low-income workers are the ones who face a bigger risk. Immigrants and people of color tend to get more low-paying jobs, placing them at more risk of facing any wage violation. The problem, though, affects all low-income workers. Twenty-six percent of all the respondents were paid less than the required minimum wage and 23 percent had to perform “off-the-clock” tasks, among other violations.
Jorge Mújica, the Strategic Campaigns Organizer from Arise Chicago, argues that wage theft can happen in every industry. Yet he points out three particular ones: construction, restaurants and retail. Mújica says that wage theft is an "epidemic.”
“It happens a lot, for example, in small laundry businesses, small restaurants, small stores, and family-owned places," explains Mújica.
David never raised his voice. He said he did not want any trouble because he feared retaliation from management. The numbers in the University of Illinois study show that reprisal from employers is frequent. Firing, suspension, threats to call immigration authorities, slashing work hours or payment are common for immigrants and those in low-income jobs.
Taking action is difficult. The dismissal rate of wage violation cases that are filed, is rather high: 41 percent in 2010 to 58 percent in 2014. "Our famous ordinance against wage theft, has never been enforced," Mújica tells In These Times. The frustrations of activists like Mújica or fears like the ones David has are not unfounded. “[I would like] that workers were aware and had knowledge [of their rights] and were organized," Mújica adds, "and that the government had the means to enforce and oversee the laws."
Twenty-three-year-old David migrated to Chicago in late 2017. His first job was as a busboy at a restaurant on the Northeast Side. His job was to clean tables and bring water to customers. He said at the gig, where he worked earlier this year, he was being paid $6 dollars per hour plus tips.
According to David, he wasn’t receiving tips directly from customers. Instead, he was told he would get a percentage of net sales. This tipping method was never fully explained and left him in a vulnerable position. Some days, he says, he would receive no tips at all. He would be taken off the floor by the owner to clean the apartments above the restaurant during his shift. "She made me clean every apartment. Yet they had nothing to do with my job. Besides, they were not even part of the restaurant," David recalls.
Although coworkers told him to object to unrelated work requests, they also warned him that refusing could cost him his job.
In mid-February, David said he was sick and the only employee on the restaurant floor. His boss told him that he had to clean the windows of the apartments from the outside. "There was a snow storm that week. I had a pretty bad and noticeable cold," David says. Despite protesting that he was too sick, David says the owner of the restaurant made him work outside.
Knowing he was in a precarious position, David continued to clean all of the apartments and their respective outdoor windows. As such, he was unable to collect tips because he didn’t work the restaurant floor. As a result of being outside, his sickness worsened and he became feverish, he says. This proved to be too much ,so he could not go to work the next day. The retaliation for his absence was swift. His shifts were cut, and sometimes management would fail to tell him until he arrived at his scheduled time—after a one-hour commute. He never received an explanation, he says.
David quit. But he argues that he was technically forced out when his employer cut his shifts to one day a week. Unfortunately for him, he still had to keep in contact with his employer because they had not paid him for all of his work to date. When he received his paycheck, he says a coworker told him that he should make sure that he was being paid for all of his work because he suspected that his hours were not fully accounted for, but he did not want to engage any longer with management. He took his $450 paycheck for one month’s work and used it all to pay his rent.
David commented that, between tips and paycheck, he never received close to a complete minimum wage.
The wage-theft epidemic
Wage theft is an-all-too common phenomenon in immigrant communities in Chicago. Individuals born outside the United States are 1.5 times more likely to experience a labor violation.
Three ordinances are active in Chicago to avoid wage violations. The first one dictates that if an employer commits wage theft, they can lose their commercial license. The second states that minimum wage in Chicago must increase every year until 2019. The third ordinance grants one hour of sick leave, per every 40 worked hours.
Unfortunately, these ordinances have not been fully able to dissuade business owners from stealing wages or violating labor laws. A study published by the Center for Urban Economic Development of the University of Illinois at Chicago found that the labor laws are regularly and systematically violated. This makes David's case commonplace among low-income workers: 15 percent of the tipped workers in Chicago that were interviewed never received a full minimum wage.
Low-income workers are the ones who face a bigger risk. Immigrants and people of color tend to get more low-paying jobs, placing them at more risk of facing any wage violation. The problem, though, affects all low-income workers. Twenty-six percent of all the respondents were paid less than the required minimum wage and 23 percent had to perform “off-the-clock” tasks, among other violations.
Jorge Mújica, the Strategic Campaigns Organizer from Arise Chicago, argues that wage theft can happen in every industry. Yet he points out three particular ones: construction, restaurants and retail. Mújica says that wage theft is an "epidemic.”
“It happens a lot, for example, in small laundry businesses, small restaurants, small stores, and family-owned places," explains Mújica.
David never raised his voice. He said he did not want any trouble because he feared retaliation from management. The numbers in the University of Illinois study show that reprisal from employers is frequent. Firing, suspension, threats to call immigration authorities, slashing work hours or payment are common for immigrants and those in low-income jobs.
Taking action is difficult. The dismissal rate of wage violation cases that are filed, is rather high: 41 percent in 2010 to 58 percent in 2014. "Our famous ordinance against wage theft, has never been enforced," Mújica tells In These Times. The frustrations of activists like Mújica or fears like the ones David has are not unfounded. “[I would like] that workers were aware and had knowledge [of their rights] and were organized," Mújica adds, "and that the government had the means to enforce and oversee the laws."
Two amputations a week: the cost of working in a US meat plant
As unions warn of serious injuries, plans to take speed limits off the lines at pig plants are causing anxiety
Andrew Wasley, Christopher D Cook and Natalie Jones
the guardian
Thu 5 Jul 2018 07.00 EDT
Pig carcasses in a midwest plant. US meat workers are three times more likely to suffer serious injury than the average American worker. Photograph: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Amputations, fractured fingers, second-degree burns and head trauma are just some of the serious injuries suffered by US meat plant workers every week, according to data seen by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
US meat workers are already three times more likely to suffer serious injury than the average American worker, and pork and beef workers nearly seven times more likely to suffer repetitive strain injuries. And some fear that plans to remove speed restrictions on pig processing lines – currently being debated by the government – will only make the work more difficult.
Government and industry bodies point out that there have been reductions in worker injury rates over the last couple of decades, although the figures still remain higher than average. They argue that despite the lifting of speed restrictions, the need to adhere to strict rules on food safety will impose its own limit on line speeds.
Records compiled by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reveal that, on average, there are at least 17 “severe” incidents a month in US meat plants. These injuries are classified as those involving “hospitalisations, amputations or loss of an eye”.
Amputations happen on average twice a week, according to the data. There were 270 incidents in a 31-month period spanning 2015 to 2017, according to the OSHA figures. Most of the incidents involved the amputation of fingers or fingertips, but there were recordings of lost hands, arms or toes. During the period there were a total of 550 serious injuries which cover 22 of the 50 states so the true total for the USA would be substantially higher.
Recorded injuries include:
Chronic ailments are an even bigger issue, leaving many workers permanently disabled, and leading to losses and costs, both individually and publicly. According to one published study, carpal tunnel syndrome costs more than $2bn annually in medical treatment costs alone, for workers in all US industries.
“Every co-worker I know has been injured at some point,” plant worker Eric Fuerstenberg told the USDA as they examined the case for implementing reforms that would include speeding up the line. “I can attest that the line speeds are already too fast to keep up with. Please, I am asking you not to increase them any more.”
A meat plant worker who asked to remain anonymous told the Guardian that although he has managed to avoid injury himself, most of his friends have needed surgery at some point. “If you complain about your hands, they just say you’ll be fine … they want you to put ice on it during your break time or lunchtime” – rather than during production hours.
The 50 year-old worker, from Nebraska, adds, “When I get home I have to stretch my hands, I feel a pinch, it hurts... You never get used to the work. I do it because I have to support my family. I don’t have an education.”
Amanda Hitt, from the Food Integrity Campaign, said: “Increased line speeds pose a real threat to workers. In addition to heinous injuries resulting from speed such as amputations and physical injury, workers are also at risk from injuries resulting from repeated motions. A pork plant worker may make … hard-cutting knife motions while working on a line. This repetition puts the worker at risk [of] debilitating musculoskeletal problems.”
However, official injury rates in the sector have been reduced over the last 25 years after an industry and government push to improve training and guidelines. “Worker safety is considered a non-competitive issue in the meat and poultry industry,” said Eric Mittenthal, spokesman for the North American Meat Institute (NAMI), “meaning companies openly share best practices with each other at meetings throughout the year, with the goal of making our facilities as safe as possible for the people working in them.”
Training has been increased, say industry bodies, and, in a joint effort with the unions, the government and industry, a set of voluntary ergonomic guidelines for the meat packing industry has been drawn up, described by OSHA as a model for other sectors. “And these efforts have really paid off,” said Mittenthal. “In 2016 we saw all-time lows for industry injury and illness rates.”
According to the most recent data published by the US Bureau of Labour Statistics “injury incidence in the meat and poultry packing and processing industries has decreased significantly over the past 25 years, reaching an all-time low of 5.3 cases per 100 full-time workers per year”. There remains, according to the Government Accountability Office, a persistent problem of under-reporting.
In 1994, according to BLS data, the incidence rate for injuries for meat packing plants was over 20. In the case of “lost workday injuries”, points out Mittenthal, the rate for animal slaughtering and processing was 3.8 cases per 100 workers versus 1.7 for “all industries including private state and local government”. A number of industries have higher rates than this.
However, some fear that aspects of a new system being piloted by the USDA may stall that progress. The New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS) will re-allocate some of the line inspection duties, and remove speed caps from the processing lines. USDA estimates that it could potentially save the agency more than $6m (£4.5m) a year.
But the plans will lead to more injuries, believe unions and workers. “When it’s production at all costs, people are going to get hurt,” said Mark Lauritsen, head of the meatpacking division for United Food and Commercial Workers (the main union for meat plant worker in the US). “There’s really no need for this, taking the caps off the line speed – there’s plenty of capacity to kill plenty of pigs … but they’re just getting greedy about it.”
“I am strongly opposed to any provision that would allow employers to increase the number of forceful repetitions workers are required to perform,” David Michaels, the former top OSHA administrator under President Obama, wrote in response to the plans. “The proposed rule allows employers to increase the line speed without adding additional workers. This will, without doubt, increase worker injuries and illnesses.”
But NAMI argues that the removal of line speed caps is not about speeding things up, but about allowing the line inspector to decide a speed that is appropriate for safety. Plants would not be capped at 1,106 pigs per hour, but they could only operate as fast as adhering to food safety rules would allow, said a NAMI spokesperson. In fact, under the pilot programmes that have been running, some plants actually ran more slowly than the current capped rate, they point out.
The USDA believes that the current inspection system forces vets to concentrate on areas that actually are not the priority for food safety concerns. They believe the NSIS will “improve animal welfare and compliance with the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (HMSA); improve the effectiveness of swine slaughter inspection; make more efficient use of the agency’s resources; and remove unnecessary regulatory obstacles to innovation”.
US meat workers are already three times more likely to suffer serious injury than the average American worker, and pork and beef workers nearly seven times more likely to suffer repetitive strain injuries. And some fear that plans to remove speed restrictions on pig processing lines – currently being debated by the government – will only make the work more difficult.
Government and industry bodies point out that there have been reductions in worker injury rates over the last couple of decades, although the figures still remain higher than average. They argue that despite the lifting of speed restrictions, the need to adhere to strict rules on food safety will impose its own limit on line speeds.
Records compiled by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reveal that, on average, there are at least 17 “severe” incidents a month in US meat plants. These injuries are classified as those involving “hospitalisations, amputations or loss of an eye”.
Amputations happen on average twice a week, according to the data. There were 270 incidents in a 31-month period spanning 2015 to 2017, according to the OSHA figures. Most of the incidents involved the amputation of fingers or fingertips, but there were recordings of lost hands, arms or toes. During the period there were a total of 550 serious injuries which cover 22 of the 50 states so the true total for the USA would be substantially higher.
Recorded injuries include:
- An employee’s left arm had to be surgically amputated at the shoulder after it was pulled into the cubing machine during sanitation
- A worker was reaching down to pick up a box to clear a jam when his jacket became caught in a roller. As he tried to pull it out, his hand got pulled in as well. His hand and lower arm were crushed
- While an employee was attempting to remove the ribs from the spine of a cattle rib set, his hand made contact with a running vertical band saw and two of his fingers were amputated
- An employee working on a sanitation crew pushed the stop button after removing parts from the upper portion of a machine. The employee then placed his foot into a horizontal grinder while climbing down from the machine, causing all five toes on his right foot to be amputated
- A worker was clearing the hydrolyzer when back pressure caused hot feathers to discharge on to him. As he moved out of the way, he fell six feet, breaking a bone over his left eye and suffering first- and second-degree burns to the hands, arms, face and neck.
Chronic ailments are an even bigger issue, leaving many workers permanently disabled, and leading to losses and costs, both individually and publicly. According to one published study, carpal tunnel syndrome costs more than $2bn annually in medical treatment costs alone, for workers in all US industries.
“Every co-worker I know has been injured at some point,” plant worker Eric Fuerstenberg told the USDA as they examined the case for implementing reforms that would include speeding up the line. “I can attest that the line speeds are already too fast to keep up with. Please, I am asking you not to increase them any more.”
A meat plant worker who asked to remain anonymous told the Guardian that although he has managed to avoid injury himself, most of his friends have needed surgery at some point. “If you complain about your hands, they just say you’ll be fine … they want you to put ice on it during your break time or lunchtime” – rather than during production hours.
The 50 year-old worker, from Nebraska, adds, “When I get home I have to stretch my hands, I feel a pinch, it hurts... You never get used to the work. I do it because I have to support my family. I don’t have an education.”
Amanda Hitt, from the Food Integrity Campaign, said: “Increased line speeds pose a real threat to workers. In addition to heinous injuries resulting from speed such as amputations and physical injury, workers are also at risk from injuries resulting from repeated motions. A pork plant worker may make … hard-cutting knife motions while working on a line. This repetition puts the worker at risk [of] debilitating musculoskeletal problems.”
However, official injury rates in the sector have been reduced over the last 25 years after an industry and government push to improve training and guidelines. “Worker safety is considered a non-competitive issue in the meat and poultry industry,” said Eric Mittenthal, spokesman for the North American Meat Institute (NAMI), “meaning companies openly share best practices with each other at meetings throughout the year, with the goal of making our facilities as safe as possible for the people working in them.”
Training has been increased, say industry bodies, and, in a joint effort with the unions, the government and industry, a set of voluntary ergonomic guidelines for the meat packing industry has been drawn up, described by OSHA as a model for other sectors. “And these efforts have really paid off,” said Mittenthal. “In 2016 we saw all-time lows for industry injury and illness rates.”
According to the most recent data published by the US Bureau of Labour Statistics “injury incidence in the meat and poultry packing and processing industries has decreased significantly over the past 25 years, reaching an all-time low of 5.3 cases per 100 full-time workers per year”. There remains, according to the Government Accountability Office, a persistent problem of under-reporting.
In 1994, according to BLS data, the incidence rate for injuries for meat packing plants was over 20. In the case of “lost workday injuries”, points out Mittenthal, the rate for animal slaughtering and processing was 3.8 cases per 100 workers versus 1.7 for “all industries including private state and local government”. A number of industries have higher rates than this.
However, some fear that aspects of a new system being piloted by the USDA may stall that progress. The New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS) will re-allocate some of the line inspection duties, and remove speed caps from the processing lines. USDA estimates that it could potentially save the agency more than $6m (£4.5m) a year.
But the plans will lead to more injuries, believe unions and workers. “When it’s production at all costs, people are going to get hurt,” said Mark Lauritsen, head of the meatpacking division for United Food and Commercial Workers (the main union for meat plant worker in the US). “There’s really no need for this, taking the caps off the line speed – there’s plenty of capacity to kill plenty of pigs … but they’re just getting greedy about it.”
“I am strongly opposed to any provision that would allow employers to increase the number of forceful repetitions workers are required to perform,” David Michaels, the former top OSHA administrator under President Obama, wrote in response to the plans. “The proposed rule allows employers to increase the line speed without adding additional workers. This will, without doubt, increase worker injuries and illnesses.”
But NAMI argues that the removal of line speed caps is not about speeding things up, but about allowing the line inspector to decide a speed that is appropriate for safety. Plants would not be capped at 1,106 pigs per hour, but they could only operate as fast as adhering to food safety rules would allow, said a NAMI spokesperson. In fact, under the pilot programmes that have been running, some plants actually ran more slowly than the current capped rate, they point out.
The USDA believes that the current inspection system forces vets to concentrate on areas that actually are not the priority for food safety concerns. They believe the NSIS will “improve animal welfare and compliance with the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (HMSA); improve the effectiveness of swine slaughter inspection; make more efficient use of the agency’s resources; and remove unnecessary regulatory obstacles to innovation”.
Corporate Wage Theft Is on the Rise
by Sam Pizzigati | other words, The smirking chimp
July 1, 2018 - 6:08am
The health of our American economy ultimately rests on a single, simple word: trust.
Employers on the one side and employees on the other have to be able to trust each other to behave honorably. A fair day’s wage, as the classic formulation puts it, for a fair day’s work.
This mutual understanding gets broken on a regular basis, particularly when employees put in that fair day’s work and don’t get paid a full fair day’s pay. Labor market analysts have come to call these betrayals of trust “wage theft,” and this thievery is thriving.
Offenders include the predictable fly-by-night operators we would expect. But the culprits also include, as an alarming new report details, billion-dollar corporations that can clearly afford to honor their side of our core employer-employee bargain.
These companies are committing their thievery on many fronts. They’re not paying employees for work performed “off the clock.” They’re stiffing workers on overtime and violating minimum wage laws. They’re requiring employees to buy particular work clothes and not compensating them for their outlays.
How widespread has this corporate wage theft become? Grand Theft Paycheck, a landmark new study from Good Jobs First and the Jobs with Justice Education Fund, examines over 1,200 lawsuits against wage theft that groups of workers have won since 2000. Employers in these cases paid out a combined $8.8 billion in penalties.
And that total just hints at how widespread wage theft has become. Only eight states currently enforce wage theft regulations and provide data on that enforcement. Many wage theft settlements also remain confidential.
The obvious question these realities raise: What’s driving our massive wage thievery? The giant U.S. corporations involved in this theft — retailers like Walmart, telecoms like AT&T, banks like JPMorgan Chase, insurers like State Farm — can all easily afford, as Grand Theft Paycheck puts it, “to pay their workers properly.” So why don’t they?
The reasons vary. With a declining union presence in America’s workplaces, workers have become more vulnerable. Politically motivated attacks on “regulation,” meanwhile, have left many government watchdog agencies woefully underfunded.
But the biggest reason major corporations are cheating their workers remains more basic: The outrageously generous rewards that have become so commonplace in corporate America give the executives who run our top corporations an ongoing — and almost irresistible — incentive to behave outrageously.
To hit the corporate jackpot — to pocket double-digit millions and more — these execs will do most anything. They’ll cook their corporate books. They’ll shortchange R&D. They’ll outsource and downsize. They’ll cut worker pensions. They’ll take reckless risks.
And, yes, they’ll commit wage theft, often brazenly.
All this outrageous behavior pays outrageously well. Among the dozen American companies most penalized for wage theft, four compensated their CEOs last year at over $20 million, and only two shelled out under $8 million.
Against these colossal millions, the threat of penalty fines for wage theft hasn’t had much of a deterrent effect. Would larger fines make a difference? Would more systematic regulatory oversight reduce levels of wage theft? Would a stronger union presence discourage corporate thievery? Undoubtedly yes.
But those who run our corporations aren’t going to abandon their thieving ways so long as that thievery can pay so well for them personally. Wage theft didn’t start soaring in the United States until the late 1970s, the same years that eye-popping CEO pay packages became a standard fixture on the corporate scene.
Corporate execs have had, for nearly five decades now, a powerful incentive to cheat their workers: their own exorbitant pay. Let’s end it.
Employers on the one side and employees on the other have to be able to trust each other to behave honorably. A fair day’s wage, as the classic formulation puts it, for a fair day’s work.
This mutual understanding gets broken on a regular basis, particularly when employees put in that fair day’s work and don’t get paid a full fair day’s pay. Labor market analysts have come to call these betrayals of trust “wage theft,” and this thievery is thriving.
Offenders include the predictable fly-by-night operators we would expect. But the culprits also include, as an alarming new report details, billion-dollar corporations that can clearly afford to honor their side of our core employer-employee bargain.
These companies are committing their thievery on many fronts. They’re not paying employees for work performed “off the clock.” They’re stiffing workers on overtime and violating minimum wage laws. They’re requiring employees to buy particular work clothes and not compensating them for their outlays.
How widespread has this corporate wage theft become? Grand Theft Paycheck, a landmark new study from Good Jobs First and the Jobs with Justice Education Fund, examines over 1,200 lawsuits against wage theft that groups of workers have won since 2000. Employers in these cases paid out a combined $8.8 billion in penalties.
And that total just hints at how widespread wage theft has become. Only eight states currently enforce wage theft regulations and provide data on that enforcement. Many wage theft settlements also remain confidential.
The obvious question these realities raise: What’s driving our massive wage thievery? The giant U.S. corporations involved in this theft — retailers like Walmart, telecoms like AT&T, banks like JPMorgan Chase, insurers like State Farm — can all easily afford, as Grand Theft Paycheck puts it, “to pay their workers properly.” So why don’t they?
The reasons vary. With a declining union presence in America’s workplaces, workers have become more vulnerable. Politically motivated attacks on “regulation,” meanwhile, have left many government watchdog agencies woefully underfunded.
But the biggest reason major corporations are cheating their workers remains more basic: The outrageously generous rewards that have become so commonplace in corporate America give the executives who run our top corporations an ongoing — and almost irresistible — incentive to behave outrageously.
To hit the corporate jackpot — to pocket double-digit millions and more — these execs will do most anything. They’ll cook their corporate books. They’ll shortchange R&D. They’ll outsource and downsize. They’ll cut worker pensions. They’ll take reckless risks.
And, yes, they’ll commit wage theft, often brazenly.
All this outrageous behavior pays outrageously well. Among the dozen American companies most penalized for wage theft, four compensated their CEOs last year at over $20 million, and only two shelled out under $8 million.
Against these colossal millions, the threat of penalty fines for wage theft hasn’t had much of a deterrent effect. Would larger fines make a difference? Would more systematic regulatory oversight reduce levels of wage theft? Would a stronger union presence discourage corporate thievery? Undoubtedly yes.
But those who run our corporations aren’t going to abandon their thieving ways so long as that thievery can pay so well for them personally. Wage theft didn’t start soaring in the United States until the late 1970s, the same years that eye-popping CEO pay packages became a standard fixture on the corporate scene.
Corporate execs have had, for nearly five decades now, a powerful incentive to cheat their workers: their own exorbitant pay. Let’s end it.
funnies
