Wages
Asian slave labor producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK
Slaves forced to work for no pay for years at a time under threat of extreme violence are being used in Asia in the production of seafood sold by major US, British and other European retailers, the Guardian can reveal. A six-month investigation has established that large numbers of men bought and sold like animals and held…
Read MorePublic PayCHECK: Check out local government salaries
Recent salary survey shows that City of Springfield wages often were less than the wages offered for comparable jobs in other cities. But a News-Leader analysis of public employee salaries shows that city government workers have no more — and no less — cause for complaint than other area workers. Overall, city wages appear to…
Read MoreMaintenance workers for troubled public housing system reaped thousands of dollars from dubious overtime
The Center for Investigative Reporting has uncovered more problems in Richmond, California’s public housing system. Two maintenance workers, who also live in public housing, were found to have double-billed for tasks, billed for more hours than were worked and charged overtime during their regularly-scheduled shifts. Overtime paid to the two workers totaled more than $125,000 over four years.…
Read MoreDetroit landlords cash in on rent aid, ignore tax bills
A Detroit News investigation found about 1 in 4 Detroit landlords paid to rent to poor families through the state’s Housing Choice Voucher program collectively owe the city at least $5 million in back taxes and probably much more. Federal and state guidelines for the rental assistance — known as Section 8 — don’t require…
Read MoreFlorida’s unemployment benefits website was not ready for launch and state can’t explain why
Florida’s new unemployment benefits website, CONNECT, “launched so riddled with technical glitches that it has left thousands of unemployed Floridians without the money they need for food, rent and bills,” according to the Tampa Bay Times. “The problems are so bad that the (Department of Economic Opportunity) began fining the contractor $15,000 a day and federal…
Read MoreMassachusetts and secret payoffs
For years, the state has used confidential settlement and severance deals to make embarrassing problems go away, often requiring workers to promise to keep the payments secret and avoid saying anything critical about the agencies. When the Globe first asked for copies of all the pacts worth at least $10,000 statewide, it took a four-year…
Read MoreRevealed: Qatar’s World Cup ‘slaves’
Dozens of Nepalese migrant laborers have died in Qatar in recent weeks and thousands more are enduring appalling labor abuses, a Guardian investigation has found, raising serious questions about Qatar’s preparations to host the 2022 World Cup.
Read MoreComp time empty promise for MDOC prison guards
“Mississippi Department of Corrections officials insist their comp time policies are legal and, indeed, authorized by the Mississippi Personnel Board. But at face value, the resulting system has required 25 prison guards to work more than 1,000 extra hours for free, according to a Clarion-Ledger analysis of MDOC records.”
Read MoreInternships
“The number of internships in the United States has ballooned over the past few decades. But oversight and legal protection for unpaid interns hasn’t kept up.”
Read MoreTemp Land
“America is now dotted with “temp towns” – places where it’s difficult to find blue-collar work except through a temp agency and where workers often suffer lost wages, no benefits and high injury rates.”
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