working conditions

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Wayfair CEO Tries to Inspire With Message on 'Laziness'

Niraj Shah encourages employees to work longer hours: 'Winning requires hard work'

(Newser) - If you're a Wayfair employee and hoping that 2024 will bring a more relaxed workplace, think again. In a recent email to workers, CEO Niraj Shah delivered what The Street calls a "harsh wake-up call" that involved pushback against slacking. "Working long hours, being responsive, blending work...

Today at Starbucks, a 'Red Cup Rebellion'

Staffers at 200-plus US stores will walk off job on Thursday to protest company's anti-union stance

(Newser) - Thousands of workers at more than 200 US Starbucks stores plan to walk off the job Thursday in what organizers say is the largest strike yet in the two-year-old effort to unionize the company's stores. The Workers United union chose Starbucks' annual Red Cup Day to stage the walkout,...

After Months of 'Tense Negotiations,' Good News for Vegas

Vegas casinos, hotel workers union reach tentative deal to avoid a strike

(Newser) - Over seven months of tense negotiations, mandatory daily room cleanings underscored the big issues that Las Vegas union hotel workers were fighting to address in their first contracts since the pandemic. Those issues also included job security, better working conditions, and safety while on the job. From the onset of...

Restaurant Chain Tries 'Big Thing' to Entice Workers

The Shake Shack experiments in Las Vegas

(Newser) - A burger chain is grappling with America's tight labor market by trying something new: the four-day work week, Bloomberg reports. Randy Garutti, CEO of Shake Shack Inc, says he hopes to entice workers amid the country's nearly five-decade low in unemployment. "Here in Las Vegas, in some...

Bernie Just Named a Bill After Jeff Bezos. Bezos Won't Like It

Stop BEZOS Act would push companies like Amazon to pay workers a living wage

(Newser) - There's no more subtlety in Bernie Sanders' row with Amazon, a company he's faulted for poor working conditions and pay. In a specific dig at CEO Jeff Bezos, the independent Vermont senator on Wednesday introduced the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop BEZOS) Act, which would...

Trial of 4-Day Work Week Hailed as Huge Success

NZ's Perpetual Guardian might make it permanent

(Newser) - Roughly half of 240 employees of a New Zealand company felt they had a solid work-life balance as of November. By April, the figure had risen to 78%. The reason: Over March and April, they were paid for five eight-hour work days per week, but only required to show up...

Relief on Its Way for S. Korea's 'Inhumanely Long' Workweek

Set to fall from 68 hours max to 52, which lawmakers hope will help quality of life, birthrate

(Newser) - South Korea's maximum workweek, which had been called "inhumanely long" at 68 hours, has been cut to 52. President Moon Jae-in had vowed to cut the workweek during his campaign; also this year, he oversaw a 16% minimum-wage increase. South Korea's National Assembly passed the workweek law,...

Scottish Amazon Workers Are Sleeping in Tents

Local pol rails against company for 'intolerable working conditions,' poor wages

(Newser) - What started with photos of a handful of tents outside a Scottish Amazon warehouse has blown up. The Courier published pics over the weekend of what it said were the makeshift homes of "hard-pressed" Amazon workers now sleeping outside their place of employment to save on commuting costs, just...

Apple Probes New Violations at Troubled China Plants

China Labor Watch claims unpaid overtime, poor conditions for workers

(Newser) - Apple is again feeling the heat for the conditions at its Chinese factories, but this time it's Pegatron that may be to blame. A US-based advocacy group claims the supplier's plants, which are taking on more and more Apple production, have "benefited from and relied upon labor...

EPA Finds Workers Using 'Man Caves'

Audit also uncovers vermin feces and 'pervasive' mold

(Newser) - Contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency have apparently been hard at work—in secret man caves furnished with pin-ups, TVs, fridges, and comfy couches. The EPA says it uncovered the screened-off rooms in a warehouse in Landover, Md, where contractors have supplied services to the agency since 2007. Most of...

Toss Bangladesh Factory Owner in Jail for Life: Gov't

Government report cites reasons for collapse

(Newser) - The owner of the Bangladesh factory whose collapse killed some 1,100 people deserves life in prison if found guilty of code violations, a government committee says. Sohel Rana "used extremely poor quality iron rods and cement," says the head of the committee, whose report details the reasons...

Jailed Pussy Riot Member Hospitalized

Nadezhda Tolonnikova said to be overworked

(Newser) - A jailed member of the Pussy Riot feminist punk band has been hospitalized after complaining of headaches and of suffering from overwork at a prison colony known for its tough conditions, a fellow band member said today. An official confirmed that Nadezhda Tolonnikova, who is serving a two-year sentence for...

90% of Food Workers Basically Starving

New study finds lousy conditions for workers

(Newser) - Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be line cooks. The food industry is a pretty terrible one to work in, a new study from the Food Chain Workers Alliance argues, with nearly nine out of every 10 workers earning less than a "livable wage." The...

Apple, Foxconn to Overhaul Conditions

Move follows report critical of factory conditions

(Newser) - Apple and Chinese supplier Foxconn promise to boost factory conditions and wages for Foxconn's workers. Apple's announcement follows an independent investigation which found that Foxconn, which builds iPads, iPhones, and more, was breaking labor laws; workers at the company were averaging more than 60 hours per week at...

Protests Head for Apple Stores Today

6 stores will be hit in protest of suppliers' treatment of workers

(Newser) - Consumers are planning to flock to one of a half-dozen Apple stores around the globe today—and not to wait in line for the latest gadget. Protests are set to hit "marquee locations" in Washington, DC; New York City, San Francisco, London, Sydney, and Bangalore. The gripe? The way...

Apple: We Don't Turn 'Blind Eye' to Factories

Cook rejects charges that company overlooks working conditions

(Newser) - Accusations that Apple overlooks serious safety issues with its suppliers are "patently false and offensive," said company CEO Tim Cook in an email to Apple employees, reports Reuters . Cook's email, excerpted at 9to5mac.com , came after a scathing article in the New York Times about factory working...

Apple's Own Reports Reveal Awful Working Conditions

Chinese suppliers are supposed to adhere to a code of conduct ... but most don't

(Newser) - The news that the Chinese workers who pump out Apple's iPads and iPhones suffer fairly awful working conditions gets a new and very long look in today's New York Times , in an article sourced from Apple's own audits of its suppliers, along with interviews with some 40...

Foxconn Workers Vowed to Jump Off Roof in Protest

Chinese employees take action against assembly line conditions

(Newser) - Close to 150 Chinese workers gathered on the rooftop of their Foxconn factory in Wuhan and threatened to leap to their deaths in a "suicide protest" against poor working conditions. The workers were talked down by the local mayor and company officials after spending two days on top of...

In Amazon's Warehouse, Shades of Grapes of Wrath
In Amazon's Warehouse, Shades of Grapes of Wrath
Ezra Klein
Sep 29, 2011 1:00 PM CDT

In Amazon's Warehouse, Shades of Grapes of Wrath

LeHigh warehouse like something out of Grapes of Wrath , Ezra Klein observes

(Newser) - In the Grapes of Wrath, the Joad family gets a hard lesson in economics, when they follow a handbill for jobs to California—only to find there are no jobs. Why, he asks, did they put out the handbills? A fellow homeless man replies that if you’ve but one...

Amazon's Pa. Warehouse Was Hellish, Workers Say

Temps penalized for collapsing during heatwaves

(Newser) - Former workers at a vast Amazon warehouse in eastern Pennsylvania say the LeHigh "fulfillment center" was a hellish place to work, a lengthy exposé by the Allentown Morning Call finds. Workers—most of whom were employed by a temp agency instead of Amazon itself—say they had to endure...

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