Crain's Detroit:Report critical of St. John Providence Health System labor practices

Interfaith Workers Justice, a national religious organization based in Chicago, issued a report that alleges Ascension Health and its Warren-based subsidiary, St. John Providence Health System, have engaged in a variety of anti-union activities at three Michigan hospitals.

In its 34-page report, “Ascension Health: A Fall from Grace,” Interfaith lists problems workers are experiencing and a pattern of anti-union behavior among management at three of Ascension's Michigan hospitals, including 553-bed St. John Macomb-Oakland Hospital in Madison Heights.

“Ascension Health's approach to workers is in free fall,” said Sister Monica McGloin, chair of the delegation from Interfaith Worker Justice that issued the report. “But grace provides an opportunity to make a change. Ascension needs to change its approach to workers.”..

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20100716/FREE/100719910#

 

wchl1360:Day Laborer Wage Theft Growing Issue Locally

Local activists are pushing for a law that would criminalize refusal to pay promised wages to day laborers.

 

To hear UNC professor and Chapel Hill-Carrboro Human Rights Center director Judith Blau tell it, it’s legalized theft.

 

Day laborers often congregate at the intersection of Jones Ferry Rd. and Davie Rd.  in Carrboro to find work that may be their only source of income.  Their illegal status in the country means they may lack legal recourse if a crime is committed against them, as they could be deported without permission to be in America.

 

One argument voiced by opponents of such a law is that it would be difficult to prosecute across jurisdictions, such as an employer from Chatham County who hires day laborers from Carrboro only to not pay them. …

http://www.wchl1360.com/details3.html?id=15266

 

Senator Savino Discusses the Wage Theft Bill & Domestic Workers Bill of Rights on WBAI's "Building Bridges"

 

Senator Savino Discusses the Wage Theft Bill & Domestic Workers Bill of Rights on WBAI's "Building Bridges" from ana tinsly on Vimeo.

HuffPost: Tobacco Giant Philip Morris Is Hooked on Child Labor

Everyone knows smoking is a costly habit, taking a toll on your health and your wallet. What you probably didn't know is that the tobacco industry extracts a much dearer price from children laboring in the remote fields of Central Asia.

Despite some legal and political troubles in recent years, the Philip Morris empire is still squeezing handsome profits from a vast migrant labor regime in Kazakhstan. A report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently shamed the company by revealing that migrant tobacco harvesters, many of them young children, are regularly subjected to abuse, wage theft, and even physical captivity. (Video below.)

Of course, labor abuse in the cultivation of tobacco is as old as the industry itself. In the colonial era, the tobacco crop gave rise to a thriving international trade in the Chesapeake, leading to environmental destruction, the displacement of indigenous communities, and political clashes. Over time, the great tobacco …

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-chen/tobacco-giant-philip-morr_b_649956.html

 

 

RetailActionProject: Victory at Scoop NYC!

Retail Workers Settle Back Wage and Discrimination Suits

Workers at the high-end clothing retailer Scoop NYC have won a victory that comes after a year of organizing, public demonstrations, and legal action to make the company follow wage and hour laws and respect immigrant worker rights. The confidential settlement is also a significant victory for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union’s Retail Action Project (RAP), an organization that is dedicated to improving wages and working conditions for retail workers.

In late 2008, 17 Scoop NYC workers joined RAP and filed complaints and launched a campaign against the company.

Scoop NYC, a high-end clothier that operates 11 stores nationwide, allegedly required stock and security workers to labor 60 or more hours per week for over six years without paying the legal overtime rate. Some workers contend they were discriminated against on the basis of their national origin because Scoop refused to accept their legal work authorization papers.

Madou Kone, a former Scoop …

http://www.retailactionproject.org/updates/detail.php?id=28

 

 

WP: Report criticizes treatment of Mexican women recruited to pick Md. crabs

Hundreds of Mexican women who travel to Maryland's Eastern Shore every summer to pick crabs are isolated and sometimes exploited by employers and recruiters, according to a report that urges changes to a U.S. guest-worker program.

The report, released Wednesday by American University and the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, reflects interviews with 43 of the 1,000 or so women who worked at 11 crab companies last year. They described being charged illegal fees by recruiters in Mexico and enduring substandard working conditions in Maryland.

The women, few of whom spoke English, said they lived in housing with backed-up sewage and no working stove, lacked transportation to buy groceries or seek medical care, were not trained for their jobs or told how their paychecks and taxes were handled, and had a hard time picking enough pounds of crabmeat to make minimum wage.

"They get no formal training, they get cuts and infections, and they are charged fees to participate," said Jayesh Rathod, an American University law professor who…

 

LaborNotes: NYC Retail Workers Win Settlement, Look to Fight for Living Wage

Working a low-wage retail job in New York City isn’t easy, but for people like Romeo Ilboudou, a stock manager at the high-end clothing retailer Scoop NYC, discrimination, wage theft, and hazardous conditions made it even lousier.

“The stock people were all West African,” said Ilboudou, who worked the job for five years. “Our break room was a boiler room in the basement. This is where we had to eat our lunch, change our clothes and even sleep.”

Non-immigrant workers at Scoop NYC were not subject to such conditions, Ilboudou said, adding that he and other immigrants were also forced to work more than 20 hours per week overtime without receiving the legally required time-and-a-half pay.

“We are the ones who built this company from the bottom up, and this was not a way to say ‘thank you,’” he added.

Now, Ilboudou and his former…