Marina Wheeler KC to be tasked with strengthening rights to safeguard women who report workplace harassment
A leading barrister and ex-wife of Boris Johnson is set to be appointed as Labour’s new “whistleblowing tsar”, offering advice on proposed protections for women against workplace harassment.
Marina Wheeler KC will help the party with its plans to strengthen employment rights to safeguard women from abusive colleagues, the Independent reported.
Continue reading...Call to set up role comes as report alleges retailer uses factories that violate minimum-wage requirements and workers’ rights
Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, has reportedly asked the British fast-fashion brand Boohoo to increase its presence in the country, despite claims that it has failed to tackle poor conditions at its suppliers’ factories there.
In a meeting with Kakar this week, Mahmud Kamani, chairman of Boohoo Group, expressed an interest in establishing long-term buying linkages with Pakistan, according to Radio Pakistan.
Kakar pointed out Pakistan’s pro-investment policies and facilities, and invited Boohoo to open franchises in the country, which is in economic turmoil, with a record inflation rate of 36.4%.
UK law firm Leigh Day says money given to 77 workers for murders and rapes ‘sidesteps’ multinational’s responsibility over attack
Unilever is to make payments to 77 tea pickers who worked on one of its plantations in Kenya that was targeted during post-election violence in 2007.
The UK law firm Leigh Day, representing the workers, said the London-based consumer goods multinational had agreed to make voluntary, or ex-gratia, payments to former workers at its subsidiary Unilever Tea Kenya, who were attacked by armed assailants at its plantation in Kericho.
Continue reading...Senator Barbara Pocock says unpaid super is costing workers at least $3.3bn a year, while wage theft losses are about $1.3bn
The Greens have urged the Albanese government to make superannuation theft a crime, after failure to pay super was not included in the proposed wage theft offence in Labor’s closing loopholes bill.
The Greens’ employment spokesperson, Senator Barbara Pocock, has warned that unpaid super is costing workers at least $3.3bn a year, more than double the amount estimated to be lost through wage theft ($1.3bn).
Continue reading...Party leader says he would not bring in lower environmental and food standards than in Europe or reduce workers’ rights
Keir Starmer has gone further than before in outlining his vision of a future UK relationship with the EU, saying Labour didn’t “want to diverge” – in comments that were immediately seized on by the Conservatives.
The Labour leader was speaking at an event in Canada bringing together liberal and centre-left politicians, where he said that “most of the conflict” since Brexit had arisen because the UK “wants to diverge and do different things to the rest of our EU partners”.
Continue reading...Ferry captains, mates and engineers appear to be reaching deal after more than a decade without a union contract with the city
One of the lengthiest wage disputes in the US is reported to be drawing to an end, as Staten Island ferry captains, mates and engineers appeared to be reaching a deal after 13 years without a union contract with New York City.
A deal between the marine engineers’ beneficial association, which represents some 150 ferry workers, that has eluded negotiators since 2010, was set be announced Monday, according to the Daily News,
Continue reading...Employee, who was stuck in walk-in freezer for more than two hours, was treated in hospital for hypothermia
Pret a Manger has been fined £800,000 after an employee was trapped in one of its freezers for more than two hours, where she tried to use croissant boxes to stave off hypothermia.
The employee was wearing jeans and T-shirt when she was stuck in a walk-in freezer, which typically had its temperature set at -18C, in July 2021, Westminster magistrates court was told.
Continue reading...The union representing workers at the grocery chain had asked the company to allow more breaks and cooler working conditions
A Kroger distribution center employee has died on the job in Memphis amid hot working conditions, adding to a national debate in the US over the risk to workers during heatwaves.
The worker was identified as Tony Rufus, members from his union announced.
Continue reading...Deputy leader says party would legislate to improve workers’ rights within 100 days as reports say it plans to water down previous policy positions
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has said that “far from watering down” the party’s commitments to improve workers’ rights, it will be setting out “in detail how we will implement” changes, and promised the party would legislate to protect rights within 100 days of coming into office.
Her long thread on social media comes off the back of reports today in the FT that the party is planning to water down some of its previous policy positions. Rayner wrote:
Labour’s New Deal for Working People will be the biggest levelling-up of workers’ rights in decades - providing security, treating workers fairly, and paying a decent wage.
We’ll tackle insecure work by banning zero-hours contracts, ending fire and rehire and ending qualifying periods for basic rights, which currently leave working people waiting up to two years for basic protections.
Continue reading...Many employees in Texas have no heat protections and work in intense and prolonged sun exposure, which causes heat illness
Last week as the heat dome scorched Texas, Gloria Machuca arrived for work at a McDonald’s in Houston to find the air conditioning wasn’t working. The temperature inside the restaurant was similar to the temperature outside – at least 90F. It was 7.30am..
Temperatures would rise another 10 degrees that day but already, Machuca said, the intense heat was making her eyes burn. She and five of her co-workers walked out on their jobs.
Continue reading...Shahidul Islam died in an assault on Sunday in Dhaka after meeting garment factory employees fighting for unpaid salaries
Police in Bangladesh are investigating the murder of a prominent trade union leader who was fatally beaten while trying to settle a dispute between a garment factory owner and workers over unpaid wages.
Shahidul Islam, 45, a top labour organiser for the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF), was attacked on Sunday evening in Gazipur, a major garment industry hub on the outskirts of Dhaka, after intervening on behalf of workers who had gathered to demand back pay.
Continue reading...Migrants NGO finds recruiters making applicants pay for medical fees and training by taking out credit at exorbitant rates of interest
Employment agencies and money-lending companies in the Philippines are cheating women applying for jobs abroad out of thousands of pounds by charging illegal fees paid with high-interest loans, interviews and documents show.
Interviews with hundreds of women and thousands of pages of complaints compiled by a migrant rights organisation showed job agencies charged applicants training and medical fees that are above the legally allowed limit.
Continue reading...Intervention by International Labour Organization ‘hugely embarrassing’ for government, says TUC
The UN’s labour standards body has told the UK government it must make changes to highly controversial new strikes laws, which critics say threaten the fundamental rights of British workers.
The International Labour Organization (ILO), a UN agency, said the UK needed to “ensure that existing and prospective legislation is in conformity” with international rules on freedom of association, and added that the government must seek technical assistance from the agency’s experts.
Continue reading...President enlists support of union members against GOP tax cuts for the wealthy at first political rally of 2024 re-election campaign
At his first political rally since announcing his re-election campaign for president in April, Joe Biden told a crowd of labor union supporters: “Wall Street didn’t build America – you did.”
“If the investment bankers of this country went on strike tomorrow, no one would notice,” Biden said on Saturday during a speech which alluded to his blue-collar childhood roots in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Renewing his longstanding vocal support for labor unions, he continued: “If this room didn’t show up to work tomorrow, the whole country would come to a grinding halt, so tell me – who matters more in America?”
Continue reading...Taxpayer’s money also going to companies found to be flouting human rights in Kenya and DRC, says Commons committee
The UK government is under attack for investing taxpayers’ money in fossil fuel companies, a hospital in Kenya accused of imprisoning patients who couldn’t pay for treatment, and a business in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that exposed workers to dangerous chemicals and dumped untreated industrial waste.
MPs questioned the investments at a two-hour session in parliament on Tuesday, and excoriated Andrew Mitchell, minister for development, for making overseas aid available to a company owned by Africa’s richest man that is suspected of causing serious environmental damage.
Continue reading...Employees also objected to the recent layoffs, with about 27,000 jobs cut since November 2022
Hundreds of corporate Amazon workers protested what they decried as the company’s lack of progress on climate goals and an inequitable return-to-office mandate during a lunchtime demonstration at its Seattle headquarters.
The protest on Wednesday comes a week after Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting and a month after a policy took effect requiring workers to return to the office three days a week.
Continue reading...Workers at World Cup 2022 venues fired as tournament ended and allegedly jailed or deported after trying to claim unpaid wages
Three World Cup security guards who were detained while trying to resolve a dispute over unpaid wages are still being held in Qatar four months after their arrest.
Shakir Ullah and Zafar Iqbal from Pakistan, and an Indian national, have allegedly been sentenced to six months in prison and fined 10,000 riyals (£2,220) each.
Continue reading...Dowden stands in for Rishi Sunak as prime minister travels to Japan for G7
Keir Starmer has confirmed that Labour would seek to improve the Brexit deal that the UK has with the EU. Asked about the reports that the car manufacturer Stellantis wants the trade and cooperation agreement renegotiated because it believes that in its current form it puts manufacturing jobs in the UK at risk, Starmer told BBC Breakfast the UK needed “a better Brexit deal”. He said:
Look, we’re not going to re-enter the EU. We do need to improve that deal. Of course we want a closer trading relationship, we absolutely do. We want to ensure that Vauxhall and many others not just survive in this country but thrive.
Keir Starmer is absolutely right to say developers and landowners need to be prevented from deliberately slowing the rate at which they build houses to drive up prices – local authorities need more control to direct housebuilding where it is most needed.
And he’s bang on when he says targeting the green belt for ‘expensive executive housing’ upsets local communities because that’s not the homes that are needed. We’re facing a bona fide housing crisis, with an entire generation effectively priced out of home ownership. What’s more, far too many people are barely able to afford their rent.
Continue reading...Campaigners, unions and MPs raise concerns about surveillance and use of ‘management by algorithm’
Campaigners, trade unions and MPs are calling for stricter oversight of the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace, amid growing concerns about its effect on staff rights.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is holding a half-day conference on Tuesday to highlight the challenges of ensuring workers are treated fairly, as what it calls “management by algorithm” becomes increasingly prevalent.
Continue reading...Volume of allegations suggests harassment and discrimination remains a problem within the government workforce
Hundreds of public servants have reported bullying, harassment and discrimination allegations since the end of the last financial year, as government departments strive to improve workplace safety.
The culture of government workplaces has come under renewed scrutiny since the Albanese government’s respect at work bill became law in November, requiring employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate harassment and discrimination.
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