A state jury found Thursday that Wal-Mart broke Pennsylvania labor laws by forcing employees to work through rest breaks and off the clock, a decision plaintiffs’ lawyers said would result in at least $62 million in damages.
Jurors will return Friday to determine damages in the class-action lawsuit, which covers up to 187,000 hourly current and […]

I’m a week late with this one, sorry:
These strategies by labor don’t often get a lot of play in the mainstream media, but on this Labor Day, I thought it was a good time to celebrate the sophistication and persistence of US workers and their labor leaders in taking on the challenges of the […]

In a determined bid to curb the exploitation of children, the government has prohibited their employment as servants at home or in businesses.
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The Union labour ministry has warned that anyone employing children below 14 years of age would be liable for prosecution and penal action under the Child Labour (Prohibition & Regulation) Act, 1986.
Full Story: […]

Cannon Industries, Inc. in Rochester, New York, has agreed to pay $35,000 to two employees who accused the company of retaliating against them because they reported health and safety concerns to OSHA.
Full Story: Safety BLR.
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The senate has passed a much saner immigration bill than the house. It remains to be seen what will happen with either bill from here. Both could wind up as dead legislation. But I’m happy the new bill passed without the legislation making illegal immigrants and those that aid them into felons.
Full Story: AP […]

Remarkably, the number of people calling for LEGAL immigration to be decreased is at a historical low. Just last year and for most of the last decades, roughly a majority of the public called for decreasing immigration below its present levels.
Today, just 34% call for decreasing legal immigration, with 39% calling for INCREASED levels of […]

Child labor is on the decline — especially in Latin America — and its most egregious forms could be eliminated within the next decade, a U.N. agency said Thursday in a report it called “cautiously optimistic.”
The International Labor Organization report, titled “The End of Child Labor: Within Reach,” states that between 2000 and 2004 the […]

In a move to eliminate child labour, 80,000 working children will be integrated with mainstream education by 2007 under an Indo-US project.
The three-year-long INDUS project, launched in February, 2004, as a follow-up of a joint statement on ‘Enhanced Indo-US Cooperation on Eliminating Child Labour’, is aimed to ensure elimination of child labour from hazardous occupations, […]

The IWW Starbucks Workers Union won a watershed victory yesterday in the first National Labor Relations Board conflict over unfair labor practices between the world’s largest coffee chain and the baristas who work there. Faced with the prospect of having its widespread union-busting campaign exposed in a public hearing, Starbucks agreed to remedy all of […]

After Massachusetts last month ordered Wal-Mart to stock the “Plan B” emergency contraception pill, Wal-Mart this past Friday announced that, effective March 20, all Wal-Mart pharmacies nationwide will carry emergency contraception, reversing the companies previous policy– part of a trend of Wal-Mart changing its national policies in response to state laws.
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And in many cases, workers […]