Today, the new minimum wage of $17.28 in my city of Bellingham, WA goes into effect.
Compared to some other cities in the US, this may sound high. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 (since 2009).
Unfortunately, experts have calculated Bellingham's "living wage" closer to $23.52 for an individual and $29.97 for a family of four with two working parents.
According to Redfin, "In March 2024, Bellingham home prices were up 12.2% compared to last year, selling for a median price of $685K."
Average rent for an apartment is $1,863, and average rent for a house is $2,891.
Whatcom County, where Bellingham is located, recorded a 27% jump in unhoused people in 2023 (the most recent data), the highest increase since the point in time survey began in 2008.
Any Texan, in particular, can cast propaganda aside and simply look around to see that our state is built, maintained, and improved every day by unauthorized workers.
"When a full-time worker is living in poverty, it indicates a failed system and the need for major change; not more cuts, austerity and a further erosion of our rights at work."
In 2023, we broke the story of #Texas Department of #Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller's transphobic dress code. One year later, employees are still suffering under this policy.
Strawberry picking is one of the worst jobs in agriculture — it's hard on the body, poorly paid, and workers are badly treated by bosses. Civil Eats talked to some of the people who work in the fields about what it's like, and their hopes for change. “People have to unite — and we need big demonstrations. It’s necessary to pressure the ranchers so they value our work. Without us they have nothing," says Matilde, a worker who refused to give her last name for fear of reprisals.
UAW's Fain braces for fight with politicians to win at Mercedes plants
"Our next stop is Mercedes because workers there are fired up, they're fed up and they want a union," Fain said. "By mid-May we believe those workers are going to vote strongly for a union also and they're going to win justice for themselves."
"Four million workers will now take home more money when they work more than 40 hours a week under a new Labor Dept. rule released today. The changes would make it so salaried workers earning less <~$59K annually would automatically be due overtime pay.
That threshold will apply to a large swath of IDU, but is expected to have the broadest impacts in the retail & hospitality sectors."
“We couldn’t make the math work with the way that we were structured,” [Dropbox CEO Drew] Houston said during the podcast.
“So we had to make a really tough decision to let go of a lot of people and then make room for the investments in AI and [Dropbox] Dash and all the stuff that we wanted to ultimately make the company successful.”
UAW clinches watershed union victory at Volkswagen Tennessee factory | Reuters
The victory will make the Chattanooga factory the first auto plant in the South to unionize via election since the 1940s and the first foreign-owned auto plant in the South to do so.
Governors of six Southern states warn workers against joining UAW union
Joint statement comes a day before Volkswagen factory in Tennessee votes on unionization — the first of more than a dozen factories the UAW is targeting
By Rebecca Gordon, originally published by Tom Dispatch April 17, 2024
"...Project 2025 doesn’t launch the typical conservative attack on the very concept of such a wage. It does, however, go after overtime pay (generally time-and-a-half for more than 40 hours of work a week), by proposing that employers be allowed to average time worked over a longer period. This would supposedly be a boon for workers, granting them the “flexibility” to labor fewer than 40 hours one week and more than 40 the next, without an employer having to pay overtime compensation for that second week.
What such a change would actually do, of course, is give an employer the power to require overtime work during a crunch period while reducing hours at other times, thereby avoiding paying overtime often or at all..."
In case you were wondering if the GOP still supports destitution.
#Amazon#WorkersRights#Labor#EU#Monopolies#BigTech#Antitrust: "At the hearing in the European Parliament in January, where Amazon's chair remained empty, we got a glimpse into horrible working conditions through testimonies of employees.
One particular story sticks in our mind — of a worker who witnessed an accident and was later fired, to prevent any negative impact. There are reports about every break being closely monitored, about cameras in front of the bathroom door, about workers being treated like robots, slaves, numbers.
There must be no place for such exploitation in Europe. The multinational must respect European rules and values if it wants to do business and make profit in Europe. We must make Amazon pay decent wages and ensure workers' rights — to treat employees like humans, not robots.
With this mission in mind, the Socialists and Democrats are on Friday (12 April) organising a Europe-wide Amazon action day, coordinated by UNI Europa, the European Services Workers Union, to meet Amazon workers and UNI Europa affiliated trade unions in Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands — and discuss how to empower employees so they can stand up to Amazon's exploitation."
America’s Last Violent Strike Has Been Wrongly Forgotten
The 1937 Little Steel strike is often dismissed as a failure and relegated to a footnote. But it was a courageous organizing effort and a crucial moment in US labor history — revealing the limits of the New Deal order and the deepest dynamics of capitalism.
With #ClimateChange come record-breaking heatwaves, posing severe health risks, especially for workers exposed to prolonged heat. Despite this, some Republican-led states like Florida and Texas are passing laws preventing local protections for workers in extreme heat.
#Project2025 attacks decades-long workers' rights achievements and proposes to classify more workers as independent contractors, stripping away crucial protections.
Big Brother Is Watching Amazon and Walmart Warehouse Workers
Both Amazon and Walmart invest massively in highly invasive technological surveillance of their warehouse workforce — surveillance that then enables the hyperexploitation both companies’ workers are subject to.
FTC Ban on Noncompetes Is a Victory for the US Economy (www.bloomberg.com)
By giving workers more bargaining power, the new rule will make businesses more competitive.