Posts filed under 'Workers'
March 20th, 2008
Ever wonder exactly what your employer can and can’t do to you under federal labor law? Or if your boss’ obnoxious comments qualify as sexual harassment? Or whether you should get paid for that 5-minute cigarette break?
Well, there’s a Web site that explains all the federal rules governing workers in straightforward question-and-answer format.
For instance, did you know that federal law does not guarantee you the right to a meal break during eight hours of work? Fewer than half the states have such guarantees (Illinois only protects break times for hotel workers in Cook County).
Nearly all employers give lunch breaks anyway because, well, it’s a smart thing to do to avoid open revolt among staff. I don’t know about you, but if my company forced me to go without food for eight hours, I would incite an uprising.
I’m not a union agitator. But when I get hungry, I’m not responsible for my actions.
Anyway, workplacefairness.org is a wealth of information about all facets of workers’ rights. Check it out.
March 17th, 2008
After four months locked out of brake foundry Gunite Corp., the United Auto Workers Local 718 went back to work today.
Now that the ordeal is over, I just discovered a Windows Live Spaces page run by the union that was used to keep members informed during the work stoppage.
Wish I would’ve found this site earlier because it would have made my job easier.
February 28th, 2008
I hope you’re not reading this while you’re at work.
Because if you are, your employer could be watching. Actually, there’s a two-in-three chance your company is looking over your shoulder. Sixty-six percent of employers say they’re monitoring workers’ Internet connections and 65 percent say they block access to certain Websites, according to an annual electronic surveillance survey by the American Management Association and The ePolicy Institute.
It’s no surprise that 96 percent of employers who block content are concerned about employees visiting adult sites. Other concerns include game sites (61 percent), social networking sites (50 percent) and entertainment sites (40 percent). Only 27 percent were worried about online shopping or auction sites and one in five cared about sports sites.
The poll of 304 U.S. companies also found that 28 percent of employers have fired workers for email misuse. Violations of company policy led to 64 percent of dismissals and inappropriate or offensive language was included in 62 percent of firings. Using company email too often for personal messages led to only a quarter of terminations, so most employers don’t care much if you’re corresponding with buddies.
To read the entire release, visit here.
January 25th, 2008
Buoyed by union growth in California, national membership in organized labor groups grew in 2007 as a share of the work force for the first time since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking union rolls. From The Center for Economic and Policy Research, a progressive think tank in Washington, D.C.:
Unions added about 310,000 members last year, raising the unionized share of the workforce to 12.1 percent from 12.0 percent in 2006.
The increase is small, and may well reflect statistical variation rather than an actual increase in the union membership share, but the uptick is striking because it is the first time since the BLS began collecting annual union membership rates in 1983 that the union share has increased.
Read the whole news release here.
An interesting side note is that the Rockford metropolitan area has bucked the trend against unionization over the last two decades, according to data from UnionStats.com.
In 1986, just 12.1 percent of employed workers here were union members. By 2006, that share had grown to 15.3 percent of the workforce. But the reason for the growth was the robust expansion of public sector unions; private sector membership declined as a share of the work force. Union workers made up 28.6 percent of public employees here in 1986, but by 2006 half of all public employees were unionized.
