The Trump administration is pulling back worker safety efforts at nuclear weapons facilities; employers indicted in 2015 railcar explosion in Nebraska that killed two workers; a federal judge rebukes Trump’s efforts to make it easier to fire federal workers; and Bernie Sanders calls on Amazon warehouse workers to share their stories of low pay and harmful working conditions.
Firefighters struggle with considerable mental health tolls, face high suicide rates; Vermont dairy farm workers report improvements after Milk With Dignity agreement; unions win big wage boost for Disneyland Resort workers; and Vox offers a new tool to search which employers require mandatory arbitration.
A new Kentucky law will likely make it harder for miners to access black lung benefits; hundreds of organizations and individuals petition OSHA to develop a heat exposure standard; one of the world’s largest asbestos sellers starts stamping its products with Donald Trump’s face; and a new study finds corporate tax cuts don’t boost worker wages.
The Teamsters get ready to become a ‘sanctuary union’; a Florida bill would protect immigrant workers injured on the job; low-wage workers return to the streets to fight for $15; and the death of a social worker highlights the risks of occupational violence.
Reveal investigates the toll of nuclear testing on the country’s “atomic vets”; federal labor officials propose new mining safety rules; D.C. officials vote in support of a $15 minimum wage; and an Amazon employee writes a first-person account from inside one of the company’s warehouses.
The Center for Investigative Reporting exposes discriminatory hiring practices within the temporary staffing industry; a worker dies in another chemical facility explosion in Houston; a new Amnesty International report links tech giants to child labor; and Amazon is cited for failing to report workplace injuries.
ProPublica investigates the hazards of temporary work, while the death of a temp worker at an Amazon warehouse underscores the severity of the problem; three California counties are recognizing nail salons with worker-friendly practices; and Bangladesh charges the owners of Tazreen Fashions factory, where 112 workers died in a fire, with culpable homicide.
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Vanessa Veselka at The Atlantic: In the Wake of Protest: One Woman’s Attempt to Unionize Amazon Marshall Allen at ProPublica: Without Autopsies, Hospitals Bury Their Mistakes Maryn McKenna at Superbug: Fecal Transplants: They Work, the Regulations Don’t Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic: Ron Wyden, Paul Ryan, […]
If you haven’t already seen Spencer Scoper’s in-depth story on working conditions at Amazon.com’s Lehigh Valley warehouse, it’s well worth a read. The Morning Call’s investigation into the warehouse involved interviews with 20 current and former warehouse workers, and most of them were temporary employees hired by Integrity Staffing Solutions rather than Amazon itself. Workers […]