New Hampshire Lawmakers Try to End Worker Lunch Breaks
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Charles Dickens’s tales have nothing on New Hampshire lawmakers. According to American Progress, the Republican-controlled legislature is proposing to do away with a state regulation requiring employers to give workers time to eat lunch. After all, they argued, employers will do so anyway out of the goodness of their hearts.
Like Walmart maybe? Nope. Back in 2005, Walmart was forced to pay $172 million for denying workers their lunch breaks. California’s Embassy Suites? No, again. California ordered Embassy Suites to pay workers tens of thousands of dollars for forcing them to skip breaks.
Starving workers on the job. What a novel 19th century concept.
As the Dickens’s orphan begged the headmaster, his hands outstretched with an empty bowl:
Please sir, may I have more?
Wal-Mart’s Rob Walton Wins JWJ’s Scrooge of the Year
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He beat out some tough competition, but Rob Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart’s board of directors, is the top vote getter in the 11th annual Jobs with Justice (JWJ) Scrooge of the Year election.
Walton deemed a “billionaire bully” by Brave New Films, has an estimated net worth around $21 billion, JWJ reports. As a family, the Waltons control 49 percent of Wal-Mart and are, says JWJ, the richest family in the United States, with a combined net worth is $93 billion. The Walton Family has as much wealth as the bottom 30 percent of American families combined—more than 35 million families.
The family’s dividends from their Wal-Mart stock alone are more than $2 billion a year. Just using their dividends, they could ensure that a million Wal-Mart employees make at least $12 an hour instead of the current average of $8.81 an hour.
Just last month Wal-Mart, under Rob’s leadership, slashed health care coverage for hundreds of thousands of Wal-Mart employees and their families—right before the holidays. What a scrooge! Read the rest of this entry »
Tens of Thousands March for Voting Rights
Marvin Bing, a member of the AFL-CIO Special Committee on Labor-Community Partnerships, sends us this report.
Tens of thousands of labor and civil rights activists on Saturday marched from the New York offices of Koch Industries, whose owners have supported restrictive voting legislation modeled by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing think tank funded by brothers David and Charles Koch. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who took part in the event, put it this way:
You can’t accomplish anything if you’re not prepared to fight.
The coalition of labor, civil rights and community organizations marked Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, with the Stand for Freedom march and rally where they voted to roll back new voting rules passed in several states.
Some of the laws passed in more than a dozen states around the country include Read the rest of this entry »
Conference Addresses CEO-to-Worker Pay Disparity
The Americans for Financial Reform Conference on Executive Pay and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will discuss this afternoon a provision that would disclose the CEO-to-worker pay ratio to investors and the public for the first time. The AFL-CIO is hosting the conference.
For investors, the CEO-to-typical employee pay disparity ratio is an important gauge of the effectiveness of the board. The pay disparity ratio is also important for investors in assessing the efficiency of a company because a steep gap affects employee productivity, morale and turnover. The SEC is drafting a rule on the CEO-to-worker pay disparity ratio, as it is required to under the Dodd-Frank law. Read the rest of this entry »
Still Nickel and Dimed and (Not) Getting by in America
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Congratulations to author Barbara Ehrenreich for the 10th anniversary re-issuance of her classic study of the working poor, “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America.” Ehrenreich didn’t just write a theoretical study, she based the book on her experiences working as a waitress, a Wal-Mart “associate,” a nursing home aide and a maid employed by a cleaning service. At the time the book came out, Ehrenreich wrote a piece for us based on her experiences. She concluded:
…even in an economy celebrating unequaled prosperity, a person can work hard, full-time or even more, and not make enough to live on.
That was in 2001. The U.S. unemployment rate at mid-year was 4.5 percent. There were 150,400 home foreclosures in the first quarter of that year, as reported in Aug. 17, 2001, by The New York Times, which noted that home sales were on track to make 2001 the second-best year ever.
Today, the 2001 economy seems like a dream. America’s jobless rate has hovered between 9.1 percent and 10.1 percent for more than a year, with foreclosures in July alone totaling 221,763—and that figure is a 44-month low.
Working at low-wage jobs during the dot.com boom when the economy was buzzing, Ehrenreich wrote that while employed as a waitress,
Join Jobs With Justice’s National Conference and Fight Back Against Corporate Agenda
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There’s still time to register online to join hundreds of activists from Jobs with Justice (JwJ) and stand together to “Build Power and Fight Back” against the attacks on America’s working people by corporate executives and politicians.
At JwJ’s national conference Aug. 5–7 in Washington, D.C., workers, students, religious leaders, community activists and many others will plan strategies to build a powerful movement of working people to defeat the corporate agenda. Register for the conference online here.
In the spirited, creative JwJ style, they will carry their fight to one of the world’s largest corporations with a march Friday on Wal-Mart’s corporate offices in Washington. They will join with members of the Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) to let the giant retailer know that its workers deserve a decent living and a voice on the job.
Flash Mob Sings for Respect at Wal-Mart
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Shoppers at a Laurel, Md., Wal-Mart yesterday got some unexpected entertainment while Wal-Mart managers got a serious message in the form of a rousing, revamped version of Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” from a flash mob and brass band.
Wal-Mart is planning to open four stores in nearby Washington, D.C., but the retailer hasn’t met with community members to talk about standards for respecting workers and the neighborhoods, said D.C. Jobs with Justice (JWJ) and the coalition Respect DC.
Wal-Mart drives down standards and wages, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) President Joe Hansen said yesterday.
When Wal-Mart opens in a community, it regularly displaces existing jobs with poverty-level jobs.
Wal-Mart’s Low-Wage Jobs Not Worthy of Praise
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Representatives from Wal-Mart and other retailers attended a White House event today to recognize grocery chains and other corporations for expanding their businesses into underserved areas.
But, say AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) President Joe Hansen in a joint statement, including Wal-Mart in the event:
undercuts the message of the need for good jobs that can rebuild our middle class.
The administration’s focus, say the union leaders, should be on the importance of a strong middle class and protecting and creating good jobs on a scale big enough to right the economy.
We ask the administration to stand with communities that have called on Wal-Mart to strengthen the communities it enters rather than drive standards and wages down.
Supreme Court Backs Wal-Mart in Pay Discrimination Case
The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled 5-4 that as many as 1.6 million women who are current or former Wal-Mart employees cannot sue Wal-Mart for pay discrimination in a class-action suit. A lower court had ruled that the women could join together in a class action.
But the court did not rule on the women’s claims of systematic and company-wide pay and promotion discrimination.
Ten years ago, a group of women who worked at Wal-Mart stores, led by Betty Dukes, filed a lawsuit alleging the corporation engaged in company-wide gender discrimination by paying women less than men, promoting fewer women to management positions and promoting male employees more quickly.
United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) President Joe Hansen called the decision “deeply disturbing.” The UFCW has been a longtime supporter of Wal-Mart workers’ fight for justice.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says working people are disappointed by today’s Supreme Court ruling in favor of Wal-Mart.
Our courts should be available to working men and women who seek to challenge discriminatory promotion and pay practices by their employers. Today’s decision continues a disturbing trend of closing the courthouse doors to workers seeking redress against corporations.
The ruling means the already uphill battle for women to fight pay discrimination will get even worse. John Nichols at The Nation writes that the ruling is “a big win for Wal-Mart, and for other large firms that may not choose to treat employees fairly.” The court ruled on the grounds that
the class-action status that could potentially involve hundreds of thousands of current and former female workers was too large.
Join March 29 Rally to Support Wal-Mart Women
Hundreds of people will show their support outside the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday, when the High Court hears oral arguments in what could become the largest class-action civil rights suit in U.S. history.
The Stand with the Women of Wal-Mart rally will take place as the nation’s highest court hears arguments on Wal-Mart v. Dukes to decide whether the case can move forward as a class action.
Ten years ago, a group of women who worked at Wal-Mart stores, led by Betty Dukes, filed a lawsuit alleging the corporation engaged in company-wide gender discrimination by paying women less than men, promoting fewer women to management positions and promoting male employees more quickly. The case, now a class action, has made its way to the Supreme Court.
Wal-Mart is challenging the decision by a lower court to allow the women employed at Wal-Mart stores across the country to join together in a class-action lawsuit to challenge pay and promotion practices that discriminate against women.
