On Friday, March 11, a crowd of almost 5,000 people packed St. Louis’ Kiener Plaza to stand up against bills in the Missouri Legislature that would hurt working families, including Right-to-Work-for-Less legislation (SB 1), Minimum Wage Repeal (HB 61 and SB 110), and the Child Labor Repeal (SB 222). Carpenters, laborers, pipefitters, boilermakers, teachers, autoworkers, teamsters, janitors, nurses, policemen, glaziers, machinists, electricians, insulators- just about every local in the St. Louis metropolitan area was represented at this rally.

“We-Are-One” chants recurred throughout the event- before, after and during almost every speaker. Speakers voiced their opposition to the attacks on the middle class, tax breaks for the wealthy, tax incentives for corporations and legislators who are overturning the will of the voters.

Chant leaders JwJ St. Louis Organizer Aaron Burnett And SEIU Local 1 Union Representative Kevin Oliver kicked off the event.  Speakers at the event included:

Continue reading Following Huge Protest in Missouri, Senators drop Right to Work Bill

On December 10th, the New York State Department of Labor’s (DOL) Commissioner Patricia Smith, announced in a joint press conference [video here] with the Tompkins County Workers’ Center and Ithaca Mayor Carolyn Peterson, the findings of a targeted DOL investigation of 22 Tompkins County restaurants.  In May 2009, investigators from the DOL’s Division of Labor Standards and Unemployment Insurance found that five of the restaurants – 23 percent – were in full compliance with labor laws.  However, the other 17 restaurants – 77 percent of those visited – were found to have violated New York State Labor Laws.  Specifically, the DOL found that $87,925 is owed to 93 employees at 6 restaurants for violations such as failure to pay minimum wage and illegal deductions from workers’ paychecks.  Commissioner Smith said:

I’m encouraged by the fact that almost one-quarter of the restaurants we checked were in full compliance with labor laws.  To them I say thank you – thank you for treating your workers fairly and thank you for

Continue reading Sweep of Ithaca Restaurants Finds Labor Law Violations at Most

]]> http://www.jwjblog.org/2010/01/sweep-of-ithaca-restaurants-finds-labor-law-violations-at-most/feed/ 1 http://www.jwjblog.org/2009/10/activists-in-15-countries-launch-historic-global-collective-bargaining-campaign/ http://www.jwjblog.org/2009/10/activists-in-15-countries-launch-historic-global-collective-bargaining-campaign/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:37:02 +0000 Anannya Bhattacharjee http://www.jwjblog.org/?p=632

Delhi, India— On October 7th, the ITUC-declared World Day of Decent Work, Asian workers’ organizations and representatives along with allies in the US, UK and throughout Europe are coming together to demand a Minimum Living Wage called the Asia Floor Wage.

As the protestors at G-20 recently urged the global platform of governments to realize the fallacy of the neoliberal “free trade” model of development, labor activists in Asia, US, UK and Europe have joined hands to pro-actively propose a new model for growth.

The Asia Floor Wage (AFW) Campaign is based on the premise that we need a new framework for the growth of the global economy; one that is based on labor rights and prioritizes the demand for a living wage.

Garment worker Mirza takes a nap, while her eldest son gives lessons to his younger

Continue reading Activists in 15 Countries Launch Historic Global Collective Bargaining Campaign

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