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A grand jury has indicted Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on charges of using weapons of mass destruction and killing four people, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
On Thursday morning, the New York City Council overrode a veto by Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) to pass a new paid sick days requirement for businesses with more than 15 employees. Employees at those businesses will earn five paid sick days each year. The law will be implemented in 2014 and initially it will apply to companies with 20 or more employees; after a year and a half it will apply to businesses with 15 or more workers. Smaller businesses will be required to provide their employees with five unpaid sick days. The victory for both workers and consumers makes New York the largest city with a paid sick days requirement.
The U.S. Senate just voted 68-32 (with 14 Republicans joining all 54 Democrats) to approve immigration reform legislation that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says will move the nation “a big step closer” to building a commonsense immigration system that will allow millions of aspiring Americans to become citizens. Now it is up to the House of Representatives to follow the Senate’s lead by allowing a majority of House members to vote on a bill with a road map to citizenship.
The Obama administration announced Thursday it is suspending trade privileges for Bangladesh because of that country's poor record of safety and protection of workers' rights in the garment industry. After a recent building collapse killed more than 1,100 workers and a fire in a separate factory led to another 112 deaths, the administration was under pressure to take action. The suspension means Bangladesh no longer will be able to avoid paying duties on more than 5,000 products the country exports to the United States.
This is the weekend many of us will head to the stores to stock up on our July 4th supplies for the summer’s top cookout event. To celebrate the Fourth with a Made in America, union label, check out our union-made list below, compiled from the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers (BCTGM), the LA Labor 411's website, Union Plus and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW).
Although African American workers are significantly better educated than they were three decades ago, they're actually less likely to be in good jobs, according to a new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in a 5–4 ruling, a big step toward equality for LGBT families. But now that part of the discriminatory law has been ruled unconstitutional, what does it mean for same-sex couples? Lambda Legal has a thorough guide to the legal ramifications of the ruling.
