Workers' Rights Organizations Urge National Labor Relations Board to Broaden Independent Contractor Test

FEBRUARY 11, 2022 — Temp Worker Justice and other worker advocates filed an Amicus Brief on February 10, 2022 urging the NLRB to recognize the increasing fissuring of workplaces and adopt a broader test for determining whether a worker is an independent contractor, thus providing greater protections to workers, particularly workers of color.

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Workers’ Rights Organizations File Amicus Brief to Protect Temporary Staffing Workers from Anti-Competitive Practices

February 9, 2022 — National Legal Advocacy Network, Raise the Floor Alliance and National Employment Law Project filed an Amicus Brief arguing that corporate use of temporary staffing agencies can create a second-tier workforce, with no-poach and wage-fixing agreements exacerbating the poor working conditions of temporary staffing workers.

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CWC and WWJ Applaud Actions By OSHA and Department of Labor Following Death at Rich’s Products

JANUARY 31, 2022Chicago Workers Collaborative and Warehouse Workers for Justice thanks and acknowledges the leadership and advocacy of all partners, including the National Legal Advocacy Network and the Raise The Floor Alliance, for raising awareness of the tragic death of Adewale Ogunyemi, who died because of unsafe working conditions at Rich Production in Crest Hill on July 20th.

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Arizona owes workers thousands in additional unemployment payments, lawsuit claim

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021 — Thousands of unemployed Arizona workers are owed $2,400 in unemployment benefits because Gov. Doug Ducey illegally cut them off in July, a lawsuit filed in Maricopa County claims. The lawsuit argues that Ducey violated state law when he ended the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program, which paid unemployed workers up to an additional $300 on top of their weekly benefit.

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ArticleLorraine Sandsbatch1
Do Chicago-Area Temp Agencies Discriminate Based On Race? A New Study Says Yes

FEBRUARY 24, 2021 — A new study is lending evidence to claims that have surfaced over the years through lawsuits and whistleblower complaints about racial discrimination in blue-collar temp agency hiring practices. The coalition behind the report, led by the Chicago Workers’ Collaborative and Warehouse Workers for Justice, conducted “matched pair” testing of a sampling of 60 Chicago-area temp agencies.

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ArticleLorraine Sandsbatch1
Parent company of Olive Garden violates the Civil Rights Act with its tipping policies, activists say

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020 — Activists looking to eliminate the sub-minimum wage for tipped employees — a practice that they say keeps workers in poverty, encourages sexual harassment and leads to racial discrimination — are taking a new approach in their campaign to end the two-tiered wage system in America: They’re arguing the lower tipped wage, sometimes as little as $2.13 an hour, violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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ArticleLorraine Sandsbatch1
As Chain Restaurants Ask For Government Bail-Outs, Most Refuse To Bail Out Sick Hourly Employees

MAY 22, 2020 — While restaurant owners around the country beg lawmakers to offer them financial relief and assistance to comply with legally mandated orders to temporarily close their dining rooms in an effort to prevent the spread of coronavirus, only a few national chains are doing anything to ensure all of their hourly workers physically and economically survive the pandemic.

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Drag & Brunch Bar Bizarre in Bushwick Shuttered and Faces Lawsuit from Employees

SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 — An overhanging sign still reads “Bizarre” and the first two vowels are still flipped quixotically, but the rolling gate has remained shut since early June. The bartenders are now suing the shuttered bar. “I don’t know how they’ve been able to get away with it, but they never paid their employees,” one bartender told Bushwick Daily wishing to stay anonymous. They had joined five other coworkers in a lawsuit, filed in federal court earlier in August, demanding over $100,000 in unpaid wages. “The owners made it a living hell to work there,” they said.

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ArticleLorraine Sandsbatch1
Black Workers Say Walmart’s Background Checks Are Racially Discriminatory

APRIL 25, 2019 — Balentine is one of two Black workers who filed racial discrimination charges against Walmart this week, alleging that the company’s background check policies had a disparate impact on African Americans in the Elwood facility. Between 100 and 200 other African American workers may have been affected, according to Chris Williams, an attorney with the National Legal Advocacy Network, which filed the complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

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Illinois Manufacturing Workers Locked Out and Fired for One-Hour Strike

MARCH 26, 2019 — Williams filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), arguing that the workers’ non-economic strike about discrimination and unfair treatment is protected under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the law governing private sector employees’ collective bargaining rights. He said this situation is a ​“pretty clear-cut violation” of NLRA Section 8(a)(1) prohibiting interference with the right to organize and Section 8(a)(3) concerning adverse actions like a lockout.

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