Recently in Day Labor Category

Source: Eli Naduris-Weissman, Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, Vol. 30 no. 1, 2009
(subscription required)

From the Lexis Nexis summary:
This Article explores how traditional labor laws, primarily the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), should apply to worker centers. ... According to Fine's study, fifty-six percent of worker centers engage in industry-specific organizing, meaning that they build organizations of workers and engage in campaigns intended to improve wages and working conditions in a particular industry in some geographic area. ... The study also found that most day-laborer worker centers do the following: (1) provide a defined space for workers to assemble, as well as a job-allocation system (either a lottery, list of available workers, or some other selection mechanism) that imposes order or a hiring queue on the day-laborer hiring process; (2) require job seekers and employers to register with center staff, which helps workers identify employers and hold them accountable to labor standards; (3) set minimum wage rates; and (4) monitor labor standards, employer behavior, and worker quality.

Source: American Prospect, Special Report, Vol. 20 no. 8, October 2009

Today, the country's primary labor market - regular jobs with reliable wages, benefits, and terms of employment - is being drained by a rise in temporary and contract work with no security. By using its power as a contractor and by enforcing laws already on the books, government can turn millions of bad jobs into good ones.
Articles include:

• Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers - Annette Bernhardt, Ruth Milkman and Nik Theodore
Rebuilding our economy on the back of illegal working conditions is morally untenable -- and it is bad economics.

• Dark and Bitter - Nancy Cleeland
Food workers increasingly exist in a legal limbo with no protections for wages, benefits, job security, or life and limb. Why are employers like Hershey off the hook?

• Decent Work - Robert Kuttner
How government can get back on the side of promoting good jobs.

• Forgotten Corners of the Economy - Stephen Franklin
As unemployment rises, the illegal treatment of day laborers only worsens. Where's the government?

• Good Jobs, Healthy Cities - Peter Dreier
Some city governments are using their economic muscle to promote good jobs.

• Government Paves the Way - Paul Sonn and Annette Bernhardt
A decent work agenda for the Obama administration.

• Stuck on the Low Road - David Bensman
Deregulation turned truck driving from a good job into a bad one. Now, thanks to local organizing and government action, there's a better road.

• The Good War and the Workers - Steve Fraser
World War II defense contracts raised labor standards. Government could use the same leverage in peacetime.

• Which Side Is Government On? - David Moberg
Millions of contract workers whose salaries are ultimately paid by government live in poverty. Uncle Sam should demand high standards, not pay as little as possible.

Source: edited by Annette Bernhardt, Heather Boushey, Laura Dresser, and Chris Tilly, Labor and Employment Relations Association, July 2009

From the summary:
Across the United States, growing numbers of employers are breaking, bending, or evading long-established laws and standards designed to protect workers, from the minimum wage to job safety rules to the right to organize. This "gloves-off economy," no longer confined to a marginal set of sweatshops and fly-by-night small businesses, is sending shock waves into every corner of the low-wage - and sometimes not so low-wage - labor market. What can be done to reverse this dangerous trend?

This report, based on the book The Gloves-Off Economy: Labor Standards at the Bottom of America's Labor Market (a Labor and Employment Relations Association volume published by Cornell University Press), provides a comprehensive yet compact summary of gloves-off practices, the workers who are affected by them, and strategies for enforcing workplace standards. The editors, four prominent labor scholars, have brought together economists, sociologists, labor attorneys, union strategists, and other experts to offer varying perspectives on both the problem and the creative, practical solutions currently being developed in a wide range of communities and industries. Bernhardt, Boushey, Dresser, and Tilly and the volume's 18 other authors combine rigorous analysis with a stirring call to renew worker protections.

Source: Tiffany Ten Eyck, Labor Notes, #353, August 2008

While some union members in Portland resisted the center, others backed it vocally. Day labor organizers say that unions-and city governments-should support day labor centers because they help raise wages closer to the union scale.

Source: National Conference of State Legislatures, June 2008

At the request of NCSL's Legislative Research Librarians (LRL) staff section, NCSL has developed this resource of 50-state compilations covering various issues that concern state legislators and legislative staff. Here you will find a topical, alphabetical listing of legislative and statutory databases, compilations and state charts/maps.

[NOTE: Some of these tracking services are currently out of date. PLEASE NOTE THE DATE of the item you are reviewing].

Labor & Employment

•At-Will Employment
•Day Laborer Laws (statutes)
•Drugtesting in the Workplace
•State Divestment Legislation
•Equal Pay (statutes and legislation)
•Family/Medical Leave Laws (statutes)
•Living Wage (legislation)
•Medical Donar Leave Laws (statutes)
•Minimum Wage Laws (legislation and chart)
•Minors - Employment Laws (statutes)
•Non-compete Agreements (statutes)
•Overtime Laws (statutes)
•Sick Leave Laws (statutes)
•Telecommuting (statutes and legislation)
•Whistleblowers (statutes)
•Workforce Development (legislation and resources)

Source: Jane Slaughter, WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society, December 2006, Volume 9, no. 4

In New Orleans, as corporate profiteers scramble to benefit from the aftermath of the flood, the history of Black-Brown relations has been compressed into a volatile six months. As contractors welcome Latino immigrants, displaced Black New Orleanians find they neither have jobs nor homes to return to. Unions and grassroots groups, using different methods, are trying to build unity as they fight for a voice for workers in the city's rebuilding.