California Fines Carwashes $700,000
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Chloe Osmer of the Community-Labor-Environmental Action Network (CLEAN) Carwash Campaign reports on a series of enforcement actions last week by California’s Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet at more than 200 carwash operations in the state.
The California labor commissioner’s office investigated 247 carwashes in California, including nearly 50 in Los Angeles County alone. The businesses include carwashes that the CLEAN Carwash Campaign had reported to the state as having potential wage-and-hour violations based on complaints from workers.
The actions, which resulted in more than $700,000 in fines to the carwashes, made it clear that the carwash industry continues to violate even the most basic laws protecting workers. The industry’s widespread problems with compliance highlight the need for workers to have a union to help enforce standards in their workplace.
California Labor Commissioner Files Suit to Close 9 Carwash Operations
The fight for justice, fair wages and safe working conditions for Southern California’s carwash workers—carwasheros—received a boost June 2 when the California Labor Commissioner filed a lawsuit to close nine carwashes operating illegally. The same day, the state Assembly passed a bill to continue the state law regulating carwashes the nine are charged with violating.
The CLEAN Carwash Campaign says two of the carwashes targeted in the lawsuit are
examples of the abusive practices in the industry that prompted passage of the Carwash Worker Law.
Labor Board Charges California Carwash Owner
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The owner and a manager of a Los Angeles carwash where workers were harassed, intimidated and fired by management more than year ago when they tried to form a union now face charges from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
In a complaint issued May 28, the NLRB charges that when workers at Vermont Hand Wash began organizing with the Carwash Workers Organizing Committee (CWOC), they were met with threats, unlawful interrogations and surveillance. CWOC joined with the United Steelworkers (USW) last March as part of the CLEAN Carwash Campaign.
CLEAN Carwash is leading a major citywide effort by unions, community and religious leaders and others seeking to eliminate abuses and uphold standards in the carwash industry. Click here to learn more about the campaign and how you can help the “carwasheros,” as the workers are known.
Workers Memorial Day 2009
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The very real threat of being killed or seriously hurt on the job hangs over every worker and workplace in the nation. In 2007—the year with the latest available figures—5,657 workers lost their lives on the job and more than 4 million other workers were hurt or made ill, according to the AFL-CIO’s 18th annual “Death on the Job” report.
“Death on the Job” reports that another 50,000 to 60,000 workers died due to occupational diseases. On an average day, 15 workers lose their lives as a result of workplace injuries and disease, and another 10,959 are injured. Yet little has been done in recent years, says the report, to improve job safety and protect workers.
For eight years, the Bush administration failed to take action to address major safety and health problems. Many OSHA and [Mine Safety and Health Administration] MSHA rules were withdrawn or blocked. The rules that were issued were largely in response to court challenges, congressional mandates or tragedies. New and emerging hazards were not actively addressed. Voluntary efforts were favored over strong enforcement.
