Chinese Court Orders Man to Pay Ex-Wife for Housework in Landmark Ruling
A Chinese man has been ordered to pay his ex-wife almost $8,000 for years of unpaid housework, in a landmark divorce case that has sparked furious debate in China.
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Labor
Judge to Rule on Grocers’ Bid to Block Hazard Pay For Workers
An ordinance approved by the Long Beach, California, City Council provides an extra $4 an hour in hazard pay for grocery store workers who face greater health risks in the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Vaccine Delays Leave Grocery Workers Feeling Expendable
As panicked Americans cleared supermarkets of toilet paper and food last spring, grocery employees gained recognition as among the most indispensable of the pandemic’s front-line workers.
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Singer Fined by German Court for Son’s Stage Performance
A Bavarian court found a folk singer guilty Friday of violating Germany’s strict child labor laws for having his 4-year-old son perform on stage with him during an evening concert.
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Autoworkers Face Dimmer Future in a New Era of Electric Cars
It won’t happen overnight. But the likelihood is growing that legions of autoworkers who trained and worked for decades to build machines that run on petroleum will need to do rather different work in the next decade — or they might not have jobs.
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EU Countries Can Require Licensing for Dockworkers
The EU’s top court found Thursday that European law allows countries to require specialist training for dockworkers, but such national rules cannot violate the freedom of movement for workers from other member states.
Read moreOvertime
In a Fair Labor Standards Act dispute, weekly per diem benefits were improperly excluded from the regular rate of pay for two classes of clinician who worked for health care staffing company AMN Services, the Ninth Circuit ruled. Those benefits should be considered part of the rate of pay for the purpose of calculating overtime.
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Employers Add Only 49,000 Jobs, Signaling Long Road to Recovery
The paltry increase was driven by gains in the government sector and the professional and business services industry. (CN)
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Pandemic Job Loss Cause for Moving, Pew Study Shows
Americans moved over the summer to get away from the risk of getting Covid-19; now another Covid-19 risk has got them packing.
Read moreOvertime
A federal district court improperly ruled in favor of a janitorial cleaning company that misclassified employees to avoid paying overtime wages, the Ninth Circuit ruled after the California Supreme Court answered a certified question holding that the “ABC test” in Dynamex Ops. W. Inc. v. Superior Court applied retroactively to the case.
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Immigrant Worker Advocates Demand Changes After Deadly Leak at Poultry Plant
After a deadly liquid nitrogen leak inside a Georgia poultry plant Thursday, legislators and worker advocacy groups called for changes to federal policies which they say prevented the plant’s many undocumented workers from getting necessary health care.
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Fiat Chrysler Agrees to Pay $30M to End Federal Corruption Probe
Federal prosecutors announced a plea agreement with auto giant Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on Wednesday, concluding their investigation into the company’s multimillion-dollar kickback scheme with auto union executives with a hefty $30 million payment.
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EU Employers Must Treat All Disabled Workers Equally, Court Rules
EU labor laws protect disabled workers from being treated differently than both nondisabled co-workers and others with disabilities, the union’s highest court said on Tuesday.
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French Woman, Declared Dead, Fights to Prove She’s Alive
A 58-year-old French woman, who was wrongfully declared dead in a long-running dispute with a former employee, goes to court Monday in the city of Lyon to try resurrect her existence.
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Economy Loses 140,000 More Jobs to End Year on a Low Note
A stalled economy recovery took a backslide in December, shedding 140,000 more jobs as coronavirus cases surged during the holiday season.
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Virginia Officials Hear Debate Over Stricter Labor Rules
A battle between labor and industry groups played out before a Virginia regulatory board on Tuesday morning as the state’s emergency, coronavirus-driven workplace regulations near their expiration.
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Google Workers Form New Labor Union, a Tech Industry Rarity
A group of Google engineers announced Monday they have formed a union, creating a rare foothold for the labor movement in the tech industry.
Read morePoultry Plant
A Foster Farms chicken processing plant in California must supply face masks to workers, conduct temperature and health screenings before anyone can enter the plant, and follow other precautions to protect employees from Covid-19, a Merced County judge ruled Wednesday. More than 400 employees have contracted the virus since June, according to a complaint filed by the United Farm Workers of America.
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Railroad Strike
Union Pacific Railroad wants a federal judge to block the union for its maintenance workers from going on strike over demands for more paid Covid leave, since the parties are actively negotiating a collective bargaining agreement.
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