When I lost my hands making flatscreens I can't afford, nobody would help me. On February 11, 2011, I lost both my hands.
I was working an overnight shift at my job in Reynosa, Mexico, where I was cutting metal for parts used in assembling flatscreen televisions. I was working in my usual area, and the boss was pressuring us. “I want you to work faster, because we need the material urgently,” he said. I was moved to Machine 19, which can rip and cut metal and takes two hands to operate. Exclusive: Amazon makes even temporary warehouse workers sign 18-month non-competes.
Amazon is the country’s largest and most sophisticated online retailer, but it still runs largely on manual labor.
Scattered around the country are massive warehouses staffed by workers who spend their days picking objects off shelves and putting them in boxes. During the holiday season, the company calls on a huge reserve army of temporary laborers. The work is repetitive and physically demanding and can pay several dollars above minimum wage, yet Amazon is requiring these workers — even seasonal ones — to sign strict and far-reaching noncompete agreements. The Amazon contract, obtained by The Verge, requires employees to promise that they will not work at any company where they "directly or indirectly" support any good or service that competes with those they helped support at Amazon, for a year and a half after their brief stints at Amazon end. Chain restaurants are killing us: Billionaire bankers, minimum-wage toilers and the nasty truth about fast-food nation. Let me tell you about this one stretch of Hillsborough Road in Durham, North Carolina.
It’s between two freeways, just a short drive from the noble towers of Duke University, and in the space of about a mile, you will find a McDonald’s, a Cracker Barrel, a Wendy’s, a Chick-fil-A, an Arby’s, a Waffle House, a Bojangles’, a Biscuitville, a Subway, a Taco Bell, and a KFC. As you walk down this roaring thoroughfare, you’ll notice that the ground is littered with napkins and bright yellow paper cups. But then again, you aren’t really supposed to be walking along this portion of Hillsborough Road and noticing things like those cups, or that abandoned concrete pedestal for some vanished logo, or the empty Aristocrat Vodka bottle hidden behind that broken Motel 6 sign. Canada Accused of Failing to Prevent Overseas Mining Abuses.
Active Citizens, Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Economy & Trade, Environment, Featured, Gender Violence, Headlines, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, Labour, Latin America & the Caribbean, Natural Resources, North America, Poverty & MDGs, TerraViva United Nations - The Canadian government is failing either to investigate or to hold the country’s massive extractives sector accountable for rights abuses committed in Latin American countries, according to petitioners who testified here Tuesday before an international tribunal.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) also heard concerns that the Canadian government is not making the country’s legal system available to victims of these abuses. 40 Percent of Restaurant Workers Live in Near-Poverty. It isn't just fast-food empires that rely on a low-paid, disempowered, and quite-often impoverished workforce.
As a stomach-turning new report (PDF viewable here) from the Economic Policy Institute shows, the entire restaurant industry hides a dirty little labor secret under the tasteful lighting of the dining room. Here are some highlights: How the Labor Department Has Let Companies Off the Hook for Unpaid Internships. Two years after the U.S.
Department of Labor announced its intent to crack down on unpaid internships, a federal investigator called a final meeting with the biggest offender the agency had found: an outdoors magazine based in Santa Fe, N.M. The investigator reported interns at Outside magazine had been fact-checking, reporting, researching, proofreading and preparing content for the website, all for about $250 a month. The Wage and Hour investigator told Outside's lawyer that this arrangement violated minimum wage law, and the publication owed its interns back pay. Outside's counsel said she'd talk it over with her client. The Department of Labor’s Internship Investigations. Experts raise concerns over superhuman workplace.
Performance-boosting drugs, powered prostheses and wearable computers are coming to an office near you—but experts warned in a new report Wednesday that too little thought has been given to the implications of a superhuman workplace.
Academics from Britain's leading institutions say attention needs to be focused on the consequences of technology which may one day allow—or compel—humans to work better, longer and harder. Here's their list of upgrades that might make their way to campuses and cubicles in the next decade: Barbara Sahakian, a Cambridge neuropsychology professor, cited research suggesting that 16 percent of U.S. students already use "cognitive enhancers" such as Ritalin to help them handle their course loads. Pilots have long used amphetamines to stay alert. Report: Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour. Captured by Cotton — Marks & Spencer — C&A — GAP Inc. — Bestseller — Inditex — Diesel — India — Asia — SOMO Stichting Onderzoek Multinationale Ondernemingen. Exploited Dalit girls produce garments in India for European and US markets This report highlights several labour rights violations faced by girls and young women employed under the Sumangali Scheme in the Tamil Nadu garment industry.
The Sumangali Scheme equals bonded labour, on the basis of the fact that employers are unilaterally holding back part of the workers’ wages until three or more years of work have been completed. In addition, workers are severely restricted in their freedom of movement and privacy. Two Cheers for Sweatshops. Qatar migrant workers 'treated like animals' - Amnesty. 17 November 2013Last updated at 16:57 ET Andrew North reports from Nepal on the plight of migrant workers Qatar's construction sector is rife with abuse, Amnesty International (AI) has said in a report published as work begins on Fifa World Cup 2022 stadiums.
Amnesty says migrant workers are often subjected to non-payment of wages, dangerous working conditions and squalid accommodation. The rights group said one manager had referred to workers as "animals". Qatari officials have said conditions will be suitable for those involved in construction of World Cup facilities. Artists boycott Guggenheim Abu Dhabi project. Controversies United Arab Emirates More than 130 artists, curators and writers have signed a petition demanding that the museum improve working conditions By Helen Stoilas.
Web onlyPublished online: 17 March 2011. Defending the Dignity of Migrant Workers. Tuesday marked the 146th Anniversary of National Freedom Day, the day on which President Abraham Lincoln signed the joint congressional resolution that outlawed slavery and became the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In remarks to the president's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that "modern slavery, often hidden and unrecognized, persists today on every continent and, most tragically, right here in the United States, despite being prohibited by both domestic legislation and international law.
" Download the ROC Diner's Guide. Click on the links below to download the Restaurant Opportunities Center's 2013 Dining Guide, an awesome new resource that tells consumers how restaurants are treating their workers and identifies the companies taking the "high road to profitability. " CLICK HERE to download a free copy of the ROC-United Diner's Guide 2013 ROC National Diners' Guide to Ethical Eating You can also download the app for Android and iPhone.
There are lots of ways to use this guide. You can support the highly-rated restaurants (and make sure they know why you’re supporting them). Not sure how to talk about the diners’ guide? Download the ROC Diners’ Guide -- if you download the paper version, make sure to cut out the tip cards in the back, which include important information about the guide for restaurant owners and managers. And that’s it! Click here to download the ROC Diners' Guide for Android Click here to download the ROC Diners' Guide for iPhone There are lots of ways to use this guide.
Largest fast food strike ever today: 58 cities will be affected. The 1% Connection: Mexico and the United States, Crony Capitalism and the Exploitation of Labor Through NAFTA. Mexico's Carlos Slim, the world's richest person according to Forbes magazine, is a full-fledged member of the transnational oligarchy.
(Photo: Agência Brasil)This is the ninth article in the Truthout on the Mexican Border series looking at US immigration and Mexican border policies through a social justice lens. Mark Karlin, editor of BuzzFlash at Truthout, visited the border region recently to file these reports. Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China. Apple's Chinese suppliers still exploiting workers, says report. Apple has so far failed in its responsibility to monitor its Chinese suppliers for worker violations, claims a labor watchdog group. In a report released yesterday, Student & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) accused three of Apple's Chinese suppliers of inhumane worker conditions. The three suppliers -- Foxlink, Pegatron, and Wintek -- fail to provide for basic human needs and continue to use student workers, according to SACOM.
Over the past few years, Apple has increased its audits of Chinese factories and taken action against those that violate its supplier code of conduct. Regardless, SACOM's report asserts that some conditions have worsened due in part to heavier demand for Apple products: Workers in Chinese Apple factories forced to sign pledges not to commit suicide. By Daily Mail Reporter Updated: 14:37 GMT, 1 May 2011 Factories making sought-after Apple iPads and iPhones in China are forcing staff to sign pledges not to commit suicide, an investigation has revealed. At least 14 workers at Foxconn factories in China have killed themselves in the last 16 months as a result of horrendous working conditions.
Many more are believed to have either survived attempts or been stopped before trying at the Apple supplier's plants in Chengdu or Shenzen. Riots, suicides, and other issues in Foxconn's iPhone factories. INCONVENIENT TRUTH: Your iPhone Was Built, In Part, By 13 Year-Olds Working 16 Hours A Day For $75 A Week. SACOM: Publication. Open Letter to CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.: Respect trade union rights; start collective negotiation with store closure programme affected workers now! Doug McMillon President & CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Walmart Home Office 702 SW 8th Street Bentonville, Arkansas72716 United States 9 April 2014, Hong Kong Dear Mr. Walmart Workers in California Protest.
Inside Amazon's Warehouse. September 18, 2011|By Spencer Soper | Of The Morning Call. Amazon.com warehouse workers complain about being kept outside freezing during fire alarms. Trader Joe's Locks the Doors to Rabbis and Ministers - Barry Estabrook - Life. Trader Joe's. UK Police linked to blacklist of construction workers. Fetisheers Take On Union In Chicago. India: workers' issues. Anti-slavery.org. Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Domestic Workers Convention May Be Landmark - NYTimes.com - Christine Yvette Lewis - The Colbert Report - 1/26/11. The Nannies' Norma Rae. For Bangladeshi Garment Workers, It Is Still 1911. Cambodia: Mass Fainting in Garment Factories.