Two federal appeals courts, one in Los Angeles and the other in Washington, D.C., have split on whether public workers – and which ones – in safety fields can get overtime pay. The decisions could affect millions of Fire Fighters, EMTs, police and other state and local public safety workers, as well as, in the D.C. decision, air traffic controllers. […]

If there ever was an argument for a big increase in the minimum wage, a new report from the National Women’s Law Center provides it. The report confirms what people see with their own eyes: The U.S. economy is gaining private-sector jobs again, but they’re all low-wage jobs, and hundreds of thousands of them are minimum-wage jobs. And based on […]

PITTSBURGH —The Service Employees and a coalition of women’s rights groups are battling Pittsburgh’s largest employer, the UPMC Hospital System, over the company’s claim that the federal government has no power to audit it for hiring bias. The dispute will play out in federal appeals court in D.C., where UPMC (Univer-sity of Pittsburgh Medical Center) challenged the Labor Department’s authority […]

EAGAN, Minn.—One of every 11 workers, or 9%, do not report an on-the-job injury for fear of retaliation and harassment by his or her supervisors, a new survey shows.  The proportions rise to one of every six – 15% — of Hispanic workers and one of every seven, or 14%, of workers with kids in the house. The fear occurs […]

Some 568 workers who toiled in a Mira Loma, Calif., warehouse for Schneider Logistics, a subcontractor that handles Wal-Mart’s goods, will share in a $4.68 million class action settlement of their claims for unpaid wages for meal times, break times and denied overtime, a federal judge ruled on Dec. 4.

WASHINGTON—Making good on a GOP promise during the latest Senate debate over the National Labor Relations Board’s powers – and shoring up their Right Wing credentials with the Tea Party — 24 Republicans introduced legislation in late November to, in many respects, turn back the clock on U.S. labor law. The so-called Employee Rights Act would, among other things, outlaw […]

LOS ANGELES—With a final mass rally during the AFL-CIO Convention in Los Angeles and a lobbying blitz in the state capitol of Sacramento, domestic workers and union allies won California legislative votes for the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. The measure, approved 22-12 in the State Senate on Sept. 13, after prior approval in the Assembly, headed for Gov. Jerry […]