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.
Continue reading...UK supermarkets heavily reliant on strawberries from southern Spain, where workers allege they are regularly underpaid, have passports withheld and are forced to live in unsanitary shacks
Abusive conditions are endemic in parts of Spain’s fruit sector, a new report alleges, with workers telling the Guardian they have been regularly underpaid and forced to live in dilapidated shacks.
During the winter, at least 60% of strawberries eaten in the UK are likely to be from vast farms across the south-west Spanish province of Huelva. In 2020, the UK imported €310m (£272m) worth of the fruit from the Andalucia region, of which 91% is believed to be grown in Huelva.
Continue reading...Fifa and Qatar claimed the World Cup would transform workers’ rights, but 100 days on from the final, the Guardian has found that for some it has become worse
Security guards employed by a company with contracts at sites linked to the World Cup in Qatar are allegedly still being paid as little as 35 pence an hour, four months after the Guardian first revealed their plight.
In a Guardian investigation, published on the eve of the World Cup, the guards alleged they were being subjected to abusive practices, including overtime pay below the legal minimum. Interviews this month with security guards employed by Al Nasr Star Security Services at multiple sites suggests the issue of illegal pay remains.
Continue reading...President’s centrist group is without a majority as parliament begins debating proposal to raise retirement age to 64
As hundreds of thousands of people prepare to protest again this week against Emmanuel Macron’s unpopular plan to raise the pension age to 64, the French president’s domestic standing is at stake.
Macron, who came to power in 2017 promising a pro-business transformation of France to cut taxes and overhaul the social model and welfare system, has for months been under pressure to give some impetus to his second term in office.
Continue reading...Leading European politicians have warned that the prime minister’s plan to ditch EU legislation will trigger retaliatory countermeasures, including imposing tariffs on goods
Rishi Sunak’s plan to scrap thousands of EU laws by the end of this year risks triggering a full-scale trade war between the UK and Brussels, senior figures in the European Union have warned.
Letters from leading EU politicians, seen by the Observer, reveal deep concern that the UK is about to lower standards in areas such as environmental protection and workers’ rights – breaching “level playing field” provisions that were at the heart of the post-Brexit trade and cooperation agreement (TCA).
Continue reading...Union leader says cancelling religious holiday dating from 1600s is threat to Danish welfare model
The Danish government’s plan to abolish a public holiday to help fund the defence budget amid the war in Ukraine is putting Denmark’s cherished welfare model at risk, the country’s biggest trade union confederation has warned.
“It’s a big threat to the Danish model,” said Lizette Risgaard, the head of the FH confederation, which has 1.3 million members in a country of 5.9 million inhabitants. “Politicians should stay out of labour market issues. If they go through with this they will be imposing their will and violate our agreements,” she told AFP on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Controversial bill to stop industrial action criticised as an already struggling sector fears losing more staff in a damaging brain drain
Zimbabwe’s health workers have criticised the government for passing contested legislation that outlaws any industrial action, saying it will worsen the sector’s already damaging brain drain.
The new Health Services Bill, which came into force on Tuesday, forbids health workers who are classified as an “essential” service from striking for more than three days. Those who do not comply face a fine or imprisonment of up to six months.
Continue reading...Officials from 14 health unions want to hold direct talks with ministers to agree pay rises for NHS staff
The system for setting NHS staff pay is under threat after health unions refused to submit evidence to the two bodies that advise ministers on how big annual increases should be.
The role and credibility of both the NHS pay review body (NHSPRB) and the review body on doctors’ and dentists’ remuneration (DDRB) have been brought into question by the move.
Continue reading...