The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "workers' rights" ...
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Des Moines Register Reader's Watchdog
The Des Moines Register Reader's Watchdog column that takes on issues faced by individual Iowans who are at wits’ end and can't get answers from public officials, businesses and the justice system. Watchdog reporter Lee Rood's job is to give voice to readers who present important issues, to investigate all sides of those issues and to seek solutions that eluded others. This is a unique effort that both engages readers and values traditional watchdog reporting. At a time when journalists are seeking to remain relevant, build credibility and engage readers, she has launched this initiative that focuses not on the stories that she thinks are important, but on issues that are critical to our readers. In the past year, she wrote more than 60 columns, digging into watchdog issue brought to her by Iowans. Her work has put a new spotlight on wrongs that needed righting. Her work has led state lawmakers to propose legislation that requires Iowans to call 911 if they are present at the scene of an overdose. She has prodded the state attorney general's office to develop a plan to enforce laws that require companies to have worker's compensation insurance. She has fought through red tape for readers who didn't have someone in their corner to do so. Lee Rood's bold move to launch a new form of watchdog journalism for the Des Moines Register has made Iowans' lives better. Online, this body of work lives at DesMoinesRegister.com/ReadersWatchdog.
Tags: Public officials; businesses; justice system
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Walker Emails
The story investigates whether Wisconsin's newly inaugurated Gov. Scott Walker was telling the truth when he said that most of the emails he'd received were in support of his plan to strip the collective bargaining rights from public workers.
Tags: bargaining rights; public workers; politicians; Wisconsin
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Double Exposure
The author discovers that a celebrated civil rights photographer actually doubled as an FBI informant in the late 1960s. The author pieces together elements of his undercover work and finds that the informant's work included reporting on the activities of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike.
Tags: spy; FBI; FBI informant; civil rights; confidential
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Without warning
After an employee of a trucking company received a letter stating he no longer had a job and benefits, he found out the company was closing its doors. The company was in violation of the Warn Act, which requires companies to give their employees thirty days notice before shutting down. A number of companies have left other employees without a job and without notice. This is happening due to the poor economic conditions across the nation.
Tags: Sam Vaughn; employment; federal law; business; paycheck; Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act; worker rights; layoffs
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The Tyranny of Oil
"The hardest-hitting expose of the oil industry in decades answers today's most pressing energy questions: How much oil is left? How far will Big Oil go to get it? And at what cost to the economy, environment, human rights, worker safety, public health, democracy, and America's place in the world?"
Tags: oil; america; human rights; environment; health; gas; petroleum; Standard Oil; SEC tax filings; oil futures
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A Girl's Life
The single 7,500-word story chronicled the life and death of Acia Johnson, a South Boston girl who seemed to be doing everything right: getting good grades in school, becoming a standout basketball player with a chance at a scholarship to go to a good high school and taking care of her younger sister. That was until her house was set ablaze last April in what authorities said was a jealous rage by her mother's lover. Acia burned to death along with her three-year-old sister in her third-floor bedroom closet. Her mother stood, safe, on the ground with the family dog. Her father was in jail. It was the last in a long list of instances of neglect recounted in the story. Anyone could have saved her life--her parents, drug addicts and sometimes violent petty criminals who never managed to get straight' neighbors who knew about the violent family fights and often didn't call police; friends who did nothing though thought it unusual that Acia was left to care for her sister while their parents were out running thr streets; social workers who had declared Acia's parents unfit in 2003 and placed her in the custody of her grandmother but who never figured out that she was still living with her mother. They didn't figure it out even though they frequently visited Acia at her mother's house, including two days before the fire. They didn't figure it out even though her mother reported Acia was living with her when she applied for housing subsidies, food stamps and cash assistance. And they didn't figure it out even though her mother's house was listed as Acia's primary residence at her middle school.
Tags: social workers; arson; child death; neglect; custody; Boston
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New Orleans Now: Immigrants, Labor Rights and the Human Cost of Rebuilding and American City- Part 1
"An in-depth report on the variety of human rights, labor rights, health care and advocacy issues surrounding the treatment of immigrant and migrant workers in Post-Katrina New Orleans."
Tags: Hurricane Katrina; Mexican; spanish; African-American; General Robert E. Lee Circle; New Worker Center for Racial Justice; Common Ground Health Clinic; health care
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In Iowa Meat Plant, Kosher 'Jungle' Breeds Fear; Injury, Short Pay
Nathaniel Popper, reporting for the Forward (NY) investigated a Kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, where he uncovered dangerous working conditions, low pay, and anti-unionization pressures that raised questions about the ethics of the Jewish owners of the plant towards their largely immigrant workers.
Tags: Agriprocessors; Occupational Safety and Health Administration; slaughterhouse workers; Latin American immigrants; accidental amputations; Postville, Iowa; union "devils"; animal rights group; health and safety violations; Conservative Jewish synagogue movement; Kosher certification; Orthodox Judaism; immigration authorities; ethics; United Food and Commercial Workers; Father Floyd Paul Ouderkirk; Sholom Rubashkin; Caitlin Didier; Lubavitch Hasidim; Stephen Bloom; "Postville"; PETA; undocumented immigrants; Human Rights Watch; Rabbi Morris Allen; Rabbinical Council of America; Orthodox Union
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Intolerable
"This article covers the 10-year history of reported cruelty at the City of Albuquerque's two animal shelters. Reports started in 1996 when a local animal rights advocate witnessed a kennel worker using a control pole on a kitten. A number of lawsuits ensued over the next few years, with continuing reports of cruelty and an evaluation from the Humane Society of the United States that deemed practices at the shelters were considered improved. However, a follow-up evaluation from the Humane Society in December 2006 found that many inhumane practices continue at the shelters. The Humane Society credited most of the problems at the shelters to insufficient staff and resources -- issues that were raised to the mayor and management at animal services for years, and remain unsolved."
Tags: animal cruelty; Humane Society; animal shelters;
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Sold in the U.S.A.
An employment agency in Chicago is helping recruit Mexicans to jobs in Chinese restaurants, where they are promised "housing, food, transportation and overtime." But these places more often are havens for worker abuse as the employees are locked in rooms at night and not allowed to leave after working 12-hour shifts. Using the story of Argentine Ricardo Vaisaga's abuse at Szechwan Garden in Greenwood, Ind. as a springboard, the Chicago reporter examines this issue.
Tags: Human trafficking; employment agencies; workers' rights; Chinese restaurants; worker mistreatment; worker abuse