In Boston, the gulag may be as close as the corner pizza shop. Stavros Papantoniadis (photo, left), 48, owner of a pizza chain, was convicted of forced labor on Friday, June 7, 2024 (details here). According to a Boston legal aid office, he hired illegal immigrants and used threats, intimidation, an[...]
Posts Tagged ‘Labor Exploitation’
Employers steal more $$$ than criminals
I was surprised to read that in the U.S., workers “have an estimated $50bn-plus stolen from them every year, … surpassing all robberies, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts combined,” the Guardian said on Thursday, June 15, 2023 (read story here). I knew wage theft was a problem, a[...]
Arkansas relaxes child labor laws
Kids under 16 no longer need work permits in Arkansas. The new GOP governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders (photo, left), a hardcore cheap-labor conservative, signed a bill this week doing away with requiring parental permission for minor children to work. The bill also weakens other child labor protection[...]
November 27th, 2022 - 3:14 pm § in Business
Why workers aren’t loyal to companies anymore
In the old days, a young man could graduate from high school, get a job in a factory, support a wife and five kids, and had a job for life as long as he showed up and did the work. That was before Wall Street financiers bought and sold companies like trading cards, Reagan broke […][...]
May 16th, 2022 - 3:15 pm § in Economics
Why workers are quitting
Because jobs are plentiful, there’s a labor shortage, and they don’t have to put up with working conditions like this anymore: Ashley Sierra, a Dollar General employee in Marion, Georgia, was paid $11 an hour, and given part-time hours. Her paychecks were $200 to $260 a week. She said &#[...]
May 3rd, 2022 - 9:38 pm § in Health, Law and Courts
How to make sure we don’t have enough nurses
Overwork them, underpay them. Deny them lunch and rest breaks, time off, and family leave. Stress them out, burn them out, then throw them in prison if they make a mistake. “Diana Campion, a nurse practitioner who lives in Florida, recently contemplated going back to bedside nursing part-time,[...]
Is the Big Quit actually a mass strike?
America experienced mass strikes after the end of both world wars. For example, in 1946, 10% of the U.S. workforce struck employers. The reason? Companies had made a lot of money during the war, and they wanted their share. What makes a “mass strike” different from an ordinary strike is [...]
Psychologist: “America is not well”
The capitalist system demands that you work, come hell or high water. But “for a moment in early 2020, it seemed like we might get a break from capitalism,” a Vox article says (read it here). It continues, “A novel coronavirus was sweeping the globe, and leaders and experts recomme[...]
November 16th, 2021 - 12:20 pm § in Economics, Schools & Colleges
Why school bus drivers are striking
A Kentucky school bus driver says she makes $19,000 a year (story here). In Rhode Island, drivers for three school districts unionized, then authorized a strike after the school bus company refused to bargain (story here). In Minneapolis, school bus drivers unanimously authorized a strike if mediati[...]
Conservatives: Use hunger to make wage earners “obedient dogs”
If you work for a living, these people are not your friends. Return to The-Ave.US Home Page[...]