Yesterday, a conservative panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision that sharply undermines the power of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and, more broadly, of the government as a whole to regulate business. The ruling marks the second time this year that the court has radically undercut the NLRB. In January, the court held that Obama’s 2012 recess appointments to the b...

Carlos Azcoitia, the Board of Education's newest member, is insisting on a case-by-case review of 54 schools slated for closure. (Chicago Board of Ed)   Since at least 1995, the mayor-appointed Chicago Board of Education has signed off on every proposal placed before it by the mayor's office, often with no discussion or dissent. A new board member, however, is calling for a more deliberative proce...

A merchant mariner aboard a replenishment oiler prepares to attach a cargo net to a helicopter. Unions believe the Obama administration's proposed changes to a U.S. humanitarian food aid program could mean a loss of jobs for upward of 1,200 Merchant Marine personnel .   (U.S. Navy / Flickr / Creative Commons) Washington mostly yawned last month when President Barack Obama presented his official bu...

Florida's online unemployment claim form takes 30 minutes to an hour to complete, and begins with pages of warning messages.   If you think being jobless is tough, try applying for unemployment benefits. In Florida, simply filling out the form requires considerable talent and endurance. According to a recent ruling by the federal Department of Labor, the state’s new online application process is s...

Striking restaurant workers protest.   ROCNY On May 1, International Worker’s Day, a half circle of Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC) members and supporters surrounded the entrance to Fat Salmon, a high-end sushi restaurant in Philadelphia. They watched as Diana A. (she asked her last name not be used) walked into the restaurant to deliver a prepared statement denouncing, among other things, w...

Good news has been rare in the Rust Belt since the 2008 economic collapse. But in Milwaukee, the rise of Bucyrus International Inc. provided a sorely needed model of how a company with a unionized workforce can lasso in global profits. Now, the company’s new owner, Caterpillar, is threatening those gains, announcing major layoffs and failing to reach a new contract with its workers. In 2009, Bucyr...

This week, the British High Court of Justice will decide whether to allow a  lawsuit  to proceed in British courts on behalf of 2,300 workers who acquired silicosis working in South African gold mines. The case, against British-based mining giant Anglo American, is just one of several silicosis lawsuits in South African and British courts brought against numerous companies by a total of 17,000 min...

You'll be able to eat Twinkies again, but without the delicious knowledge that they're union-made. (Mamiejeanjean, via Wikimedia Commons)   The new owners of Twinkies snack cakes announced last week they will re-open four shuttered production plants in the coming months, but have no intention of doing business with the labor unions that have represented the workers at those bakeries for generation...

A child rallies in support of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Tampa, Fla., highlighting undocumented farm workers' critical role in food production.   (National Farm Worker Ministry / Flickr / Creative Commons) Last week, immigrants’ rights groups finally got the papers they’ve been waiting for, an 844-page whopper of a bill that attempts to “fix” the immigration system by promising a little...

New York's dissident teachers caucus, the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators, protest Bloomberg's school closings plan. (MORE)   The United Federation of Teachers, the union that represents some 200,000 New York City teachers and public school workers, re-elected its president, Michael Mulgrew, and his Unity caucus to another term on Thursday, April 25. As expected, Unity, which has been in power...

A Bangladeshi volunteer carries an injured garment worker from the Rana factory near Dhaka, Bangladesh, after the 8-story building collapsed Wednesday.   (Munir Uz Zaman/Getty) There are few ways to make a decent living in Bangladesh, but there are many ways to die trying. The cruel weight of that reality bore down on a Dhaka factory complex on Wednesday as it crashed to the ground and instantly e...

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attend a memorial service at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for the firefighters who were killed in a huge blast at a Texas fertilizer plant last week.   (Jewel Samad/ AFP / Getty Images) Today, President Obama spoke at a memorial service at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, for the 15 people who were killed in the West Chemical and Fertilize...

Workers from MTA New York City Transit renewed a section of track near Hoyt-Schermerhorn in August of 2011. Railway maintenance work, even in situations like these, can be extremely dangerous.   (Metropolitan Transportation Authority/Leonard Wiggins/Flickr) Louis Moore, 58, was working overnight on subway tracks in Astoria, New York City when he fell from a catwalk onto the tracks and was  killed ...

Bangladeshi garment workers march in 2011 to commemorate the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in the United States and the deaths of over 500 Bangladeshi garment workers since 1990.   (Wikimedia Commons) I think that’s wrong. Bangladesh may or may not need tougher workplace safety rules, but it’s entirely appropriate for Bangladesh to have different—and, indeed, lower—workplace safety s...

Seven different government agencies were tasked with regulating the West, Texas fertilizer plant that exploded on April 18. (Wikimedia Commons)   The twin tragedies of last week—the Boston Marathon bombing and the West Texas Chemical and Fertilizer plant explosion—received vastly unequal media attention. While reporters pored over every detail of the Boston story (including some “facts” that turne...