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The City Council overrode Mayor Bloomberg‘s veto Thursday and made New York the largest city in the country to require paid sick leave for workers. The veto override came after a protracted battle over the paid sick-leave legislation that was first proposed in 2009.
Council Speaker Christine Quinn brought the bill to the floor for a vote in May under intense pressure from political opponents and labor unions. Bloomberg then vetoed the measure, saying it would damage businesses.
The legislation forces tens of thousands of city businesses with at least 20 employees to offer five paid sick days a year beginning in April 2014. The following year, the mandate would extend to businesses with at least 15 workers.
One million workers eventually will be covered by the bill, which also prevents companies from firing employees for taking unpaid sick days. (more) |
| Justice Dept., Macy’s settle employment allegations
The Associated Press, June 27, 2013
The Justice Department and Macy’s Inc. have resolved allegations that the retailer imposed discriminatory document requirements on immigrant employees to verify that they were eligible to work.
The anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act law bars employers from demanding more or different identification documents from employees based on workers’ immigration status and prohibits employers from limiting those workers’ choice of documents. (more) |
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Newsday, June 27, 2013, op ed. David Dyssegaard Kallick
Thursday, the Senate took a big step forward for the kind of immigration reform that a large majority of Long Island residents say they support. As the debate heads into the House of Representatives — where reform faces even greater hurdles than it did in the Senate — there undoubtedly will be a renewed focus on how to make enforcement work. The right answer, though it’s rarely voiced, is that effective enforcement will require more labor inspectors, not more border agents.
Unfortunately, as the number of border patrol agents around the country has soared in recent decades, the number of labor inspectors has shrunk — by 31 percent between 1980 and 2007, even though the labor force grew. At the same time, not coincidentally, the number of people being paid off the books — both immigrants who lack the proper documentation to work and others — has dramatically increased. There are now only around 1,000 labor inspectors to cover the entire country. (more) |
| How Congress can undo the Supreme Court’s attack on workers’ rights ThinkProgress, June 27, 2013
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court handed down decisions in two little-watched cases: Vance v. Ball State University and University of Texas Southwestern Center v. Nassar. Both cases erected new hurdles for those who experience workplace harassment or discrimination. (more) |
| The expendables: How the temps who power corporate giants are getting crushed ProPublica, June 27, 2013
In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away.
Across America, temporary work has become a mainstay of the economy, leading to the proliferation of what researchers have begun to call “temp towns.”(more) |
| Grain bin operators’ failure to protect workers is unconscionable
National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, June 26, 2013
But in the past couple of weeks, two Indiana workers were killed in grain bin incidents at the Union Mills Co-op and in Veedersburg. But even more tragic is the knowledge that these deaths could have been prevented.
Though the media has framed these incidents as workplace accidents, the hazards associated with grain bin work, such as the high risks of explosions or suffocations, are well known and well documented. Employers’ failure to address these hazards and prevent these deaths is unconscionable. (more) |
| Federal agency finds lax regulation of chemicals
The Associated Press, June 26, 2013
A federal agency investigating a deadly explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant will tell a Senate committee Thursday that regulation of the dangerous chemicals used in the industry fall under a “patchwork” of standards that are decades old and are far weaker than rules used by other countries. (more) |
| A broken outsourcing model
Editorial, The New York Times, June 27, 2013
An agreement designed to improve working conditions in Bangladesh’s apparel factories commits the companies to help pay for renovations and stick with Bangladeshi suppliers who agree to improve their facilities. This is a good start in addressing an entrenched problem – and also makes sound business sense.(more) |
| Obama administration to suspend trade privileges with Bangladesh, officials say The New York Times, June 27, 2013
The Obama administration will suspend trade privileges for Bangladesh over concerns about safety problems and labor rights violations in that country’s garment industry, administration and Congressional officials said on Thursday.
The White House has come under intense pressure to suspend trade privileges with Bangladesh after a factory building there collapsed in April, killing 1,129 workers, and after a factory fire there killed 112 workers last November. (more) |
| Wal-Mart, Gap close to deal on stronger garment-factory safety plan
The Washington Post, June 26, 2013
Wal-Mart, Gap and other major U.S. retailers are on track to reach an agreement by early next month to improve safety conditions in Bangladesh garment factories, where a building collapse two months ago killed 1,127 workers.
Pressure on Wal-Mart and Gap increased after they refused to join an international accord to increase fire and building safety in Bangladesh. The legally binding agreement was signed last month by dozens of large European retailers, including H&M and Inditex, as well as by Abercrombie & Fitch, PVH and other American companies. (more) |
| Comings and Goings: Denise Patel leaving NJ WEC
After seven years of working as New Jersey Work Environment Council’s chemical safety project coordinator, Denise Patel is leaving the organization to earn her Master’s Degree in Public Health at Columbia University with a focus on Climate & Health through Columbia’s Environmental Health Sciences Department. She plans to use the knowledge and experience she has gained through my work at WEC as an organizer, researcher, coalition builder, and trainer on chemical safety issues to look at the impacts our changing climate will have on industrial sites and neighboring communities. We wish her the best of luck with her studies! |
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