Category Archives: Workers’ Issues

Day After Texas Fire, Report Reveals US Hazardous Chemical Incidents Occur Almost Daily

“Hazardous facilities must be required to do more to protect workers and communities,” said Coming Clean’s federal policy director.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 11-9-2023 by Common Dreams

The Sound Resource Solutions facility made solvents for glue and paint remover.. Photo: @JamaalBowmanNY/X

A shelter-in-place order has been lifted in two Texas counties after a chemical plant fire on Wednesday, which came on the eve of a report showing just how frequent such incidents are across the United States, particularly at sites tied to the fossil fuel industry.

There have been at least 287 hazardous chemical incidents—including explosions, fires, and toxic releases—this year alone, and over 825 since the beginning of 2021, according to the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters’ online database.

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Reporters Without Borders Files ICC War Crimes Petition Over Israel, Hamas Killing of Journalists

“Since 2000, we have not seen a war begin with so much violence against journalists,” said the group.

By Julia Conley. Published 11-2-2023 by Common Dreams

Palestinian journalists Muhammad Sobh and Saeed Al-Taweel were killed during their work by Israeli airstrikes on October 10, 2023 in Gaza City, Gaza Photo: Ahmed Shameya/X

The international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders on Wednesday called on the International Criminal Court to formally investigate the deaths of nine journalists who have been killed in the Israel-Hamas War that began on October 7, noting that at least 34 reporters have been killed so far in the conflict.

“No other 21st century war has begun in such a deadly manner for reporters,” said Reporters Without Borders, also known as RSF. “At least 12 of them have been killed in connection with their work, most of them by Israeli strikes in Gaza.”

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60% of US Oil and Gas Infrastructure Now Protected by Anti-Protest Laws: Greenpeace

Fossil fuel companies have contributed millions of dollars to legislators who sponsored such laws, according to a new report.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 10-25-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Joe Brusky/Overpass Light Brigade/flickr/cc

In the seven years since the massive protests against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock, the fossil fuel industry and their allies in politics and law enforcement have been hard at work to prevent a repeat: Around 60% of oil and gas infrastructure in the U.S. is now shielded by anti-protest laws that make direct action much riskier for activists and frontline communities who want to protect their local and global home from dangerous pollution, a new Greenpeace report has found.

The report, Dollars vs. Democracy 2023: Inside the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Playbook to Suppress Protest and Dissent in the United States, reveals that fossil fuel companies made up nine of the 10 most determined lobbyists for anti-protest measures since 2017 and that 25 oil, gas, coal, and energy companies contributed more than $5 million to legislators who sponsored these laws.

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Tens of Thousands of Women Strike in Iceland Over Pay Gap, Gender-Based Violence

“An ‘equality paradise’ should not have a 21% wage gap and 40% of women experiencing gender-based or sexual violence in their lifetime,” said one organizer.

By Julia Conley. Published 10-24-2023 by Common Dreams

Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir is seen at a conference. (Photo: Herve Cortinat/OECD via flickr)

Schools, health systems, and television broadcasters in Iceland were among the businesses that said they would have to close or reduce services on Tuesday due to the country’s first full-day women’s strike in nearly 50 years—potentially helping to prove the point that tens of thousands of women and non-binary workers are hoping to make by demonstrating that their labor is vital and must be paid accordingly.

Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir is among the women taking part in the kvennafrí,” or “women’s day off,” and told reporters she expects women in her cabinet to strike as well, as organizers push to close Iceland’s gender pay gap and end gender-based violence.

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$10 Trillion in Added US Debt Since 2001 Shows ‘Bush and Trump Tax Cuts Broke Our Modern Tax Structure’

“In their blind loyalty to their mega-donors, Republicans’ fixation on giant tax cuts for billionaires has created a revenue problem that is driving up our national debt,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse in response to new Treasury Department figures.

By Jon Queally. Published 10-21-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: White House Archives

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday released new figures related to the 2023 budget that showed a troubling drop in the nation’s tax revenue compared to GDP—a measure which fell to 16.5% despite a growing economy—and an annual deficit increase that essentially doubled from the previous year.

“After record U.S. government spending in 2020 and 2021” due to programs related to the economic fallout from the Covid-19 crisis, the Washington Post reports, “the deficit dropped from close to $3 trillion to close to $1 trillion in 2022. But rather than continue to fall to its pre-pandemic levels, the deficit unexpectedly jumped this year to roughly $2 trillion.”

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Amazon ‘Failed to Protect’ Third-Party Workers in Saudi Arabia

Investigations from several newsrooms and Amnesty International report exploitative contracts and unsafe living conditions for foreign workers at the company’s warehouses.

By Olivia Rosane. Published 10-10-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: amazon.sa

Amazon failed to protect contract workers in Saudi Arabia from human rights abuses that may have amounted to human trafficking.

That’s one of the findings from an Amnesty International exposé and combined reporting from NBC News, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists,Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, and The Guardian, all published Tuesday. The investigations focused on men recruited from Nepal to work at Amazon warehouses in Saudi Arabia, where they found themselves faced with low pay, unhealthy living conditions, and no job security. When they complained directly to Amazon managers, nothing changed.

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California Public School Students Will Learn About Labor Rights Under First-of-Its-Kind Law

“A.B. 800 empowers young people with the information and tools they need to understand their rights as workers,” said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher of the California Labor Federation.

By Julia Conley. Published 10-2-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: eSchool News

While Republican-controlled state legislatures have rolled back child labor protections this year, Democratic lawmakers and rights advocates in California on Monday celebrated Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signing of a first-of-its-kind law that they say will make young people less vulnerable to workplace abuses by teaching them about labor protections.

Assemblymember Liz Ortega (D-20) told the Contra Costa News that Assembly Bill 800 is aimed at “giving kids the tools to stand up for themselves” as Republican lawmakers attack unions as well as making it easier for companies to employ children as young as 14 to work in industrial facilities.

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UN Report Urges End to Forced US Prison Labor—a ‘Contemporary Form of Slavery’

One of the U.N. experts who compiled the report after visiting the U.S. earlier this year said its findings “point to the critical need for comprehensive reform.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 9-28-2023 by Common Dreams

There are no minimum wage or overtime pay requirements for prison work Photo: Meer

A report published Thursday by United Nations human rights experts condemns systemic racism in the U.S. criminal justice system and policing, while describing “appalling” prison conditions and decrying forced unpaid convict labor as a “contemporary form of slavery.”

The U.N. International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in the Context of Law Enforcement report follows a visit to the U.S. earlier this year by a team of human rights experts. The U.N. officials collected testimonies from 133 affected people, visited five prisons and jails, and held meetings with advocacy groups and numerous government and police officials in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

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‘A Huge Win’: Texas Judge Finds Law Limiting Local Rule Is Unconstitutional

“When local policymaking is stifled, community voices are silenced,” said a coalition of progressive groups.

By Julia Conley. Published 8-31-2023 by Common Dreams

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Photo: World Travel & Tourism Council/flickr/CC

Local leaders in Texas’ increasingly progressive major cities were joined by workers’ rights advocates and other pro-democracy groups on Thursday as they applauded a district court judge’s ruling that a Republican-authored law aimed at superseding local regulations is unconstitutional and should be temporarily halted.

House Bill 2127, which has been called the Death Star Law by progressive groups, had been set to go into effect on Friday and would prevent cities from enacting and passing local ordinances, including many that would protect workers’ rights.

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Thanks to NLRB’s Cemex Decision, ‘Union-Busting Just Got a Lot Harder’

“The Cemex decision reaffirms that elections are not the only appropriate path for seeking union representation, while also ensuring that, when elections take place, they occur in a fair election environment,” said the NLRB chair.

By Jessica Corbett. Published 8-25-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Teamsters

The National Labor Relations Board on Friday announced a new framework for determining when companies must bargain with unions without an election—a policy that supporters said will make union-busting much more difficult.

Following the NLRB’s decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, when workers ask an employer to voluntarily recognize a union as their bargaining representative, the company can voluntarily do so and begin good-faith negotiations.

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