Obama Admin vs Minimum Wage Laws: Urges Overtime Pay For Home Health Workers

Wage Protection for Home Care Workers

The Obama administration proposed regulations on Thursday to give the nation’s nearly two million home care workers minimum wage and overtime protections. Those workers have long been exempted from coverage.

Labor unions and advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for the changes, contending that the 37-year-old exemption improperly swept these workers, who care for many elderly and disabled Americans, into the same “companion” category as baby sitters. The administration’s move calls for home care aides to be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law.

“They work hard and play by the rules,” President Obama said about a group of workers who often feed patients, tend wounds or help with physical therapy. “Today’s action will ensure that these men and women get paid fairly for a service that a growing number of older Americans couldn’t live without.”

These workers, according to industry figures, generally earn $8.50 to $12 an hour, compared with the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. The White House said 92 percent of these workers were women, nearly 30 percent were African-American and 12 percent Hispanic. Nearly 40 percent rely on public benefits like Medicaid and food stamps.

While industry experts say an overwhelming majority are paid at least the minimum wage, many do not receive a time-and-a-half premium when they work more than 40 hours a week. Twenty-two states do not include home health care workers under their wage and hour laws.

“The job they do is a real job and they deserve the same basic rights as any other workers,” said Steven Edelstein, national policy director of PHI PolicyWorks, a nonprofit group that seeks to improve conditions for home care workers. “This industry has one of the nation’s fastest-growing work forces, and the challenge is to make these better jobs if we’re trying to attract good people to come and provide the services.”

According to the federal government, six million of the 40 million Americans older than 65 now need some form of daily assistance to live outside a nursing home. That number, government officials say, is expected to double to 12 million by 2030. Republican lawmakers and business groups criticized the proposed rules, which might be modified after a 60-day public comment period. Industry officials said the proposals would push up costs and might cause home care agencies to reduce the hours of aides who work more than 40 hours a week and instead hire more aides.

“The president’s goal is commendable, but the likely result of this new rule is reduced hours for home care workers and higher costs for taxpayers,” said John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who is chairman of the House Education and the Work Force Committee, and Tim Walberg, a Minnesota Republican who heads the panel’s subcommittee on work force protections. “Moreover, our nation’s elderly may pay the greatest price in the form of more costly services and fewer opportunities to obtain the care they need in the comfort of their own homes.”

William A. Dombi, vice president for law at the National Association of Home Care and Hospice, said workers might not receive much overtime pay as a result of these changes. “These new rules might come out with everybody behind,” he said. “Workers might not get the hours they want and agencies might have higher administrative and recruiting costs.”

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said any increased costs would be modest. She said it was hard to project exactly what employers would do, whether they would have many employees continue to work overtime or would hire additional workers to minimize overtime. She estimated that Medicare or Medicaid, which cover 75 percent of the nation’s home care costs, would pay $31.1 million to $169.5 million more each year toward home care aides, which she said would represent 0.06 percent to 0.29 percent of federal and state outlays for home care.

Secretary Solis said the proposal would ”level the playing field for staffing agencies, who will no longer be pressured to underpay their competitors on wages to gain an edge.”

Noting that nearly 90 percent of the nation’s home care aides work for agencies, Labor Department officials said such aides would receive the new wage and hour protections. The department said some companions employed by individuals for activities like helping them take walks or engage in hobbies would still be exempt from minimum wage and overtime coverage.

In 1974, the Labor Department exempted “companionship” workers from coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a move that focused on baby sitters at a time when the home care industry was in its infancy.

In 2007, the Supreme Court issued a decision involving a New York home care aide, Evelyn Coke, who often worked 70 hours a week, ruling that she was not entitled to overtime pay under existing regulations.

The court said it was up to Congress or the Labor Department to change the rules.


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Sources: CNN, NY Times, White House.gov, Youtube, Google Maps

FedEx Agrees To $3 Million Settlement For Employment Discrimination

Fed Ex has agreed to pay a Paltry $3 Million Settlement with the Labor Dept for Decades of Practicing Employment Discrimination.






FedEx Agrees to Pay $3 Million to Settle a Discrimination Case

The United States Department of Labor has reached a $3 million settlement with the ground delivery unit of FedEx to resolve allegations that the company discriminated against 21,635 job seekers at two dozen FedEx facilities in 15 states.

The Labor Department reached the agreement with FedEx Ground Package Systems after saying it had found evidence of discrimination in hiring on the basis of sex, race and national origin. The office monitors employment practices at the nation’s 200,000 federal contractors, which employ roughly one-fourth of the nation’s work force.

Under the settlement, department officials said Wednesday, FedEx has agreed to make wide-ranging changes to correct any discriminatory hiring practices and to extend job offers to 1,703 of the rejected workers as positions become available.

Patricia A. Shiu, director of the department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, said it was her office’s largest settlement since 2004, when it reached a $5.5 million settlement with Wachovia Corporation after asserting that more than 2,000 of the bank’s female workers had been underpaid.

“When you do business with the government, we expect you to do the right thing,” said Labor Secretary Hilda Solis in a statement. “That includes giving all Americans an equal shot at a good job. It’s about more than just the law — diversity is smart for business.”Patrick Fitzgerald, a spokesman for FedEx Ground, said the company believed that the Labor Department’s position was not supported by the law.

“The bottom line is we admitted no wrongdoing,” he said. “The allegations and the whole drive for the settlement were based on a computer statistical analysis, rather than on any individual complaints or investigation.”

He added, “We agreed to the $3 million to avoid what would have been a prolonged and much more costly resolution process.”

Ms. Shiu said her office first uncovered evidence of discrimination at FedEx seven years ago during a regularly scheduled review, finding discrimination against blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Native Americans compared with similarly situated white applicants. She said women also faced discrimination and were sometimes automatically ruled out for positions requiring the lifting of heavier objects even when they could have handled such objects.

Ms. Shiu said “the beauty” of the 4,000 regular audits her office does each year was that they could find evidence of discrimination even when people have not filed complaints and did not realize they had faced discrimination.

She said that of the 21,635 rejected applicants covered by the settlement, 61 percent were female, 52 percent African American, 14 percent Hispanic, 2 percent Asian and 1 percent Native American.

As an example, a department spokesman said that the audit of a FedEx Ground facility in Grove City, Ohio, found that discrimination had affected 3,898 applicants. The department found that 29.8 percent of the 6,178 men who applied were hired, compared with 18.7 percent of the 2,277 women. It found that 33.2 percent of the white applicants were hired, 21.9 percent of the blacks, 18.7 percent of the Hispanics and 15.7 percent of the Native Americans.

Under the terms of the settlement, the spokesman said, the 3,898 rejected applicants at the Grove City facility will receive a total of $617,260 in back wages and will be extended 312 job offers.

Ms. Shiu the evidence was based on not just statistical discrepancies, but also interviews with applicants and FedEx officials.

“This agreement will make a difference not just at the affected facilities but throughout the country so that this kind of hiring discrimination doesn’t happen anymore,” Ms. Shiu said. Michael J. Zimmer, an employment discrimination professor at the Loyola College School of Law, said that the $3 million settlement was modest, but more important was FedEx’s promise to revamp its hiring practices.

“In employment discrimination, hiring cases are very unusual — almost all of the cases are terminations, sexual harassment or promotions,” Professor Zimmer said. He noted that rejected job applicants often do not complain about discrimination because they fear that being perceived as troublemakers will hurt their chances of getting hired elsewhere.


Sources: FedEx, NY Times, Youtube

Jennifer Granholm: Obama's New Labor Secretary? Excellent Choice!

Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm As U.S. Labor Secretary During Pres. Obama's 2nd Term?

Yes! Excellent Choice!

While I Do Think That Hilda Solis (Obama's Current Labor Secretary) Is Doing A Good Job In Her Role As U.S. Labor Secretary, I Believe Gov. Granholm Will In Fact Do An EXCELLENT Job! (Sorry. No Offense Hilda)

Listen I Know On A Political Level Pres. Obama Needs Hilda Solis To Help Please The Hispanic Population However....

I'm Looking At Things Long Term!

At This Time In U.S. History American Jobs Are Badly Needed For Many People: White, Black, Hispanic, Indian, Asians.

Gov. Granholm Not Only Possesses Great Executive Leadership Experience But She's Also An Expert In Economic Recovery & Will Most Likely Be Able To Communicate More Effectively With Organized Labor Union Leaders.

Organized Labor Unions Are Crucial To Our Nation's Recovery Too Because Who Wants To Work Hard For $5.00 Per Hour & NO Benefits??

Its Time For Pres. Obama To Begin Hiring People With REAL Civilian Work Experience Like Gov. Granholm To Help Govern Our Country, Versus Just Hiring People With Academic Experience.

I Really Hope Pres. Obama Considers Nominating Gov. Granholm As Labor Secretary For His 2nd Term.

Once Again I Thank Hilda Solis For Her Service To Our Country But Sometimes New Blood Is Needed To Help Right The Ship!

VOTE OBAMA IN 2010!!!!




The Black Labor Force in the Recovery


African-Americans or blacks made up 12 percent of the United States labor force in 2010.1 Overall, 18 million blacks were employed or looking for work, representing 62.2 percent of all black people.

In 2010, about half of blacks aged 16 and older had a job and 17.5 percent of those employed worked part-time.2 Blacks are the only racial or ethnic group where women represent a larger share of the employed than do men — more than half (54.3 percent) of employed blacks in 2010 were women, compared to 46.3 percent among employed whites. Employed black women still earn less than employed black men.

More than a quarter of employed black workers aged 25 or older have earned a college degree, a share that exceeds that for Hispanics3, but continues to trail whites. While the share that are college graduates has risen 20 percent in the past decade, the gap in the share of employed blacks and whites who are college graduates has not narrowed and a 10 percentage point gap remains.

Black workers are more likely to be employed in the public sector than are either their white or Hispanic counterparts. In 2010, nearly 1 in 5 employed blacks worked for the government compared to 14.6 percent of whites and 11.0 percent of Hispanics. Conversely, blacks are less likely than Hispanics and nearly as likely as whites to work in the private sector, not including the self-employed.4 Few blacks are self-employed — only 3.8 percent reported being self-employed in 2010 — making them about half as likely to be self-employed as whites (7.4 percent).

Half of black workers employed full time earned $611 or more per week in 2010, 80 percent of that earned by whites. The gap in earnings has been similar throughout the recession and recovery period.

The average unemployment rate for blacks in 2010 was 16.0 percent, compared to 8.7 percent for whites, and 12.5 percent for Hispanics. Historically, blacks have persistently higher unemployment rates than the other major racial and ethnic groups and the recent recession and recovery period has largely reflected this pattern.

Nearly half (48.4 percent) of all unemployed blacks were unemployed 27 weeks or longer in 2010, compared to 41.9 percent of unemployed whites and 39.3 percent of unemployed Hispanics. Moreover, blacks remained unemployed longer than whites or Hispanics in 2010, with a median duration of unemployment approaching 26 weeks.

The unemployment rate for blacks has remained high. In May 2011, the unemployment rate for blacks was 16.2 percent; down only 0.3 percentage points from the peak of 16.5 percent in March and April 2010.

The past few months have seen private sector job growth in areas such as transportation and warehousing as well as continuing employment gains in health care; both industries have a large share of black workers. However, blacks are more vulnerable to continuing local government job losses because they make up a disproportionate share of public sector workers.


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Sources: BET, CNN, U.S. Dept Of Labor, Wikipedia, Zimbio, Google Maps

8.8% Unemployment Rate Great But Not Low Enough

So The Nation's Unemployment Rate Has Dropped To 8.8% Versus 9.8% Last November. Great News For Pres. Obama's Re-Election Bid, However More Than 200,000 People STILL Remain UNEMPLOYED! Instead Of Waiting Around For The Gov't To Help I Strongly Suggest You Create Your OWN GIG! Start A Small Business & Become A JOB Creator! Or If Applicable Take Advantage Of Gov't Sponsored Short-Term Job Training Programs Like QUICK JOBS.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Political importance of the unemployment trend line


In Politics, perception often matters more than reality. And that goes double for the politics of the economy.

Economists spend their lives poring over numbers that provide detailed information about how and whether the economy is growing. Average people, on the other hand, tend to look at a single number to assess the economy’s relative health: the unemployment rate.

And, it’s not even the exact number that most people fixate on. It’s the trend line. Are things getting marginally better, marginally worse or staying about the same?

That trend line is the single most telling image of how the American public feels — and how they are likely to vote on — the economy heading into the 2012 election.

Given that, today’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is good news for President Obama. The unemployment rate is still at 8.8 percent — that is down from 9.8 percent last November — and 216,000 jobs were created.

According to an analysis by Matt McDonald of Hamilton Place Strategies, a communications and policy consulting firm, if the economy can create roughly 185,000 jobs a month between now and November 2012, the unemployment rate will drop below eight percent by election day.

“This projection is down from last month’s benchmark of 190,000 new jobs and continues a string of modest good news on the jobs front for the President,” wrote McDonald.

The last time the unemployment rate was below eight percent was just prior to Obama taking office in January 2009, a fact Republicans will undoubtedly focus on in the campaign to come.

But, a downward trend line on the unemployment rate — if not a drastic reduction in the actual number — will allow the President to make the case that the economic policies he put into place over his first term in office are working and, therefore, he needs a second term to make things even better.

One need only to look as far as Ronald Reagan for evidence of the power of the economic trend line.

In March 1983, the unemployment rate stood at 10.3 percent. It steadily declined over the intervening 20 months and in October 1984 it stood at 7.3 percent.

While a 7.3 percent unemployment rate was no one’s economic dream scenario, the movement was in Reagan’s direction. And voters reacted accordingly — handing him a 49-state re-election victory over Walter Mondale.

Obama has to hope the unemployment trend line follows that same pattern for the remaining 19 months of his first term. If it does, his hand will be considerably strengthened in his bid for a second term.


Sources: MSNBC, Washington Post, WCNC, Youtube

Unemployment Rate For Sept. 2010 Remains At 9.6! Hurts Democrats

Will The Job Numbers Affect The Election?


The new national unemployment rate released this morning held steady at 9.6 percent, marking the final time this economic data point comes out before the November elections. But voters’ perceptions of the economy were likely determined months ago, according to political scientists and economists, and this latest number should have little effect on the outcome of the races. “It’s way too late to change the public’s very pessimistic view of the economy,” says Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Although the midterm congressional elections have dominated news headlines during the past few weeks, Americans remain focused on the state of the economy, according to the latest poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Roughly 28 percent of the 1,002 people surveyed paid close attention to economic news, compared to just 12 percent of respondents who said they followed congressional races.

And the economy remains the key issue in the fall campaign, according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll.

This new unemployment number re-enforces voters’ dismal view of the economy, Mann says. Roughly 14.8 million people remain unemployed, with jobless rate virtually unchanged for all major demographic groups, and the number of discouraged workers has risen to 1.2 million, up by roughly 500,000 from one year ago, according to the labor department data.

Historically, a weak economy has hurt the political fortunes of incumbent candidates. It’s hard to imagine voters in the state of Nevada, for instance, being as receptive to the advances of GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle if the unemployment rate were lower than its current 14.4 percent. President George H.W. Bush was tripped up by a bad economy when he reneged on a campaign promise to not raise taxes, and Jimmy Carter’s presidency, which lasted for one term, was similarly hurt by a recession and a spike in oil prices.

The latest unemployment numbers won’t do anything to counteract voters’ impression that President Obama is not doing enough to tackle the economy. Now that the president has been in office for close to two years, the sputtering recovery and lack of economic growth and substantial job creation inevitably hangs on him. “He went for health care over jobs. It turns out the sequencing was wrong,” says Sharyn O’Halloran, a political economist at Columbia University.

The weak economy also has disproportionately hurt the blue-collar workers nicknamed “lunch-pail Democrats,” who can easily swing toward Republicans if they’re dissatisfied. The unemployment rate for men now stands at 9.8 percent; the gap between the unemployment rate for men versus women remains at 9.8 percent versus 8 percent, continuing the trend of this economic downturn being a “mancession.”

The only way Democrats won’t suffer losses in the midterms is if the economy makes a dramatic comeback, and that seems unlikely over the next few weeks. All the party can do now is focus on long-term economic growth—not just the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts, O’Halloran says, but investments in infrastructure that hopefully can boost productivity and create jobs eventually.


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Sources: CBS News, CNBC, Newsweek, Pew Research, Google Maps

North Carolina's High Poverty Rates & Rising Unemployment Claims

North Carolina Employment Security Commission Backs Off On Collecting Overpayments Of Jobless Benefits


The North Carolina Employment Security Commission said Thursday that it will work with the federal government in hopes of allowing thousands of unemployed North Carolina residents keep $28 million in jobless benefits that was mistakenly paid to them earlier this year.

A computer programming error led to overpayments to about 38,000 people receiving a second year of benefits, ESC officials said. The mistakes occurred in checks issued from January through mid-May, when an internal audit caught the problem.

The agency began sending letters to people last week to inform them of the errors and to detail how much they might owe. ESC Deputy Chairman David Clegg said many of the people receiving letters would end up owing nothing, and about 15 percent were underpaid and would be eligible to receive more money.

Many unemployed residents, however, were incensed when the ESC began cutting their weekly benefit checks in half to recoup the money mistakenly paid out earlier.

Raleigh resident Tammy Lee said the ESC stopped sending her benefit checks altogether.

"I had no warning that I was getting nothing," said Lee, who was laid off from her sales job in February 2009. "I'm in a constant state of panic."

Clegg said officials had to address the issue while the people affected were still receiving benefits.

Lee said she became even more upset this week when the ESC sent her two letters: One said she was no longer eligible for benefits while the second said she remains eligible.

"When you say you have these letters, they don't even want to talk to you. They transfer you," she said.

ESC officials issued a statement late Thursday, saying they had worked out a plan with Gov. Beverly Perdue and U.S. Department of Labor Assistant Secretary Jane Oates to waive repayment of the overpayments, if possible.

ESC Chairwoman Lynn Holmes plans to issue an order waiving repayment, and she will ask Perdue to issue a similar executive order, if required by the federal government.

All claims still need to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to determine if they're eligible for a waiver, the statement said.

ESC officials declined to answer questions about the plan, including how the state would repay the $28 million owed to the government and whether the money already taken from people's benefits checks would be returned.

"I sincerely apologize for the confusion and inconvenience caused to our citizens over this issue,” Holmes said in the statement. “I could have done a better job communicating this error, and the resolution of the error, to our beneficiaries. I have instructed the ESC staff to work diligently to correct this problem and make sure every claim is handled fairly and accurately.”

The agency plans to keep its phone lines open late and to provide better information to people who have questions about the issue, officials said.

Officials are still investigating to determine the source of the error that led to the overpayments. The technicalities of unemployment extensions granted by Congress and the heavy volume of people in the system contributed to the problem, Clegg said.

"I'm angry. I think somebody needs to be held accountable for this," Lee said. "I kind of feel like I'm a hamster in one of those wheels that I can't get off."




North Carolina Much Poorer Since Recession


The N.C. Justice Center has dissected new census data and found poverty rose sharply in every region of North Carolina in 2009, highlighting the widespread impact of the Recession.

The information released today from the U.S. Census "offers the first glimpse of the impact of the recession on North Carolina’s families and shows even sharper increases in poverty and child poverty than anticipated," the Justice Center reported.

“North Carolina’s families are struggling to get by in this economic downturn and this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Louisa Warren, a Senior Policy Advocate at the center. “The Great Recession has pushed more than 168,000 North Carolina families into poverty just from 2008, a startling increase that will put pressure on our public systems as they work to support struggling families.”

The Census’ American Community Survey recorded a large jump in poverty in North Carolina, from 14.3 percent in 2007 to 16.3 percent in 2009. That puts nearly 1.5 million North Carolinians officially in poverty, or making at or below $22,050 annually for a family of four.

Similar to overall poverty, child poverty in North Carolina surged to 22.2 percent in 2009 from 19.2 percent in 2007. More than one in five children in North Carolina are now poor.

Further demonstrating the profound impact of the Great Recession, deep poverty—those living below half the poverty rate—has also risen considerably in North Carolina.

In 2009, 7.1 percent of North Carolinians were living in deep poverty, making at or below $11,025 annually to support a family of four, up from 6 percent in 2007. In 2009, an estimated 643,429 North Carolinians were in deep poverty, representing significant distress for North Carolina.

According to the Justice Center, even these numbers may understate the problem. the center noted that "the census data released today were collected in the 12 month period around December 2008 when Unemployment remained low relative to its levels in the latter half of 2009. Today’s data is therefore just a first look at the recession’s impact."

As a result of rising Unemployment rates, median household income in North Carolina dropped to $43,674 in 2009, down from $46,210 in 2007.

Median household income varied across the state and the country. Robeson County had the lowest (among those for which data is available) median household income at $24,788 and many of the counties with high unemployment additionally experienced low median household income: Surry County’s median household income was $33,159 while Burke County’s median household income was $35,004.

Urban counties continued to experience the highest median household income: Wake County’s median household income, the highest in the state, was at $63,609 in 2009 and Mecklenburg County’s median household income was at $52,881.

North Carolina’s median household income remained lower than some of its Southern neighbors and Virgnia, Georgia, and Florida all had higher median household incomes in 2009.
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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, WRAL, Google Maps

North Carolina Labor Dept Found To Be Extremely Slack On Workplace Safety

Federal Reports Chide North & South Carolina On Workplace-Safety Programs


Workplace safety programs run by North Carolina and South Carolina downplay serious safety problems, issue weak fines to violators and fail to properly handle whistleblower complaints, according to reports released by the federal government.

South Carolina's problems are so severe that auditors said increased federal oversight may be needed.

The audits, conducted by the U.S. Labor Department, are part of the federal government's pledge to strengthen its oversight of states that run their own workplace safety programs. About half the states - including the Carolinas - run their own programs, which the law allows as long as they are as effective as the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in protecting workers.

South Carolina has the nation's lowest average penalties for workplace safety violations, noted Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of labor for OSHA.

"We're very concerned that with the low penalty number, they're not presenting a credible deterrent to employers around the state who cut corners on workplace safety," Barab said.

Lawmakers and officials have grown concerned in recent years over the ability of some state-run programs to protect workers.

In a 2008 investigation into workplace safety in the poultry industry, the Observer found that weak enforcement, minimal fines and declining inspections have allowed companies nationwide to ignore hazards that can kill and injure workers. The series examined injury records from 2003 to early 2007.

Federal audits conducted this year were more intensive than those done in previous years. Auditors examined case files from October 2008 to September 2009.

Both states praised their low injury and illness rates in written statements and said they work hard to protect employees.

Penalties are weak

Among the U.S. Labor Department's findings:

Both Carolinas impose weak penalties when violations are found - an average $281 per serious violation in S.C., compared with $512 in N.C. and $970 by federal OSHA.

North Carolina shaves 10 percent off fines for "cooperation," and state policy "results in lower penalties for serious violations," the report says.

South Carolina cuts fines by 60 percent in exchange for the employer's promise it will improve safe working conditions. But auditors found the state rarely checked to see if problems were fixed, and employers who got the discount were not required to take more steps than other companies to ensure safety.

Compliance officers in the Carolinas understate the severity of problems by misclassifying violations and rarely label problems as "willful" - the most serious degree.

N.C. compliance officers issued only one willful violation in 2009 "due to the belief that it would be too difficult to pass the review process," auditors said. South Carolina had five willful violations.

Auditors said of the N.C. program: "Some violations that would most likely have been classified as serious by federal OSHA were classified as non-serious by the state, and some violations categorized as low or medium severity would have been categorized as high severity by federal OSHA."

Companies receive higher fines when they are cited for serious or willful violations.

North Carolina lets bureaucrats purge documents from case files when they are closed. Removing the documentation limits the state's ability to review a company's history and properly investigate future violations, auditors said.

South Carolina files, meanwhile, lacked narratives explaining items such as a description of the hazard and didn't have contact information for employees interviewed. The report said the files involving one fatality, for example, "did not provide a complete picture of how the accident occurred."

The federal government took both states to task for failing to properly handle cases involving workers who had complained about their employer. It criticized North Carolina for doing only phone interviews, for example.

The Observer investigation found that of the roughly 800 people a year who filed complaints under N.C.'s Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act, about 1 percent get their jobs back. The state had not taken a case to court on behalf of a worker in seven years. And investigators dismissed cases without interviewing workers. The act prohibits employers from firing or punishing workers for filing worker's compensation claims or complaining about unsafe working conditions.

The reports show little is being done in the Carolinas to deter companies from shortchanging safety, said workplace safety advocate Tom O'Connor, executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

"Unfortunately, sometimes the only way to get people's attention is with a significant dollar fine. And there just isn't an adequate deterrent from the low penalties assessed," said O'Connor, who lives in Chapel Hill.

"And if discrimination programs are not effective, then workers don't feel able to express themselves and will keep quiet if they find themselves in a dangerous situation."

The reports, released in the last two weeks, could prove troubling for South Carolina, as auditors noted "inadequate enforcement documentation and state policies that potentially render the program less effective than the federal program."

S.C. official defends program

An S.C. OSHA spokesman, Jim Knight, said in a statement Thursday the state is proud of its record in occupational safety and health.

"Evaluations during the past eight years indicate that we have exceeded expectations and have an effective state program. Nothing has changed in the program, whether staffing levels or enforcement procedures, since the last evaluation in 2009," the statement said.

N.C. OSHA said in a written response it "will make adjustments that are in the best interest of North Carolina. It appears (recommendations included in the report) are procedural in nature and do not directly impact our workplace safety efforts."

The report noted some achievements for N.C. OSHA, including an increase in the number of health inspections, which are more time-consuming and complicated than safety inspections, and for reaching out to Spanish-speaking workers. Construction deaths also fell to 10 in 2009 from 17 in 2008.

The states must respond to OSHA this month.

If states don't adequately address the concerns, Federal OSHA can increase its oversight - or even start proceedings to take over a state program.

"South Carolina has more problems than most of the states," Barab said. "We'll focus very carefully on their corrective action plan and their progress on addressing the problems."


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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, WRAL, Youtube, Google Maps

June 2010 Job Loss Numbers Sobering, Hurts Dems In November

June 2010 Job Recovery Hits A Wall


The U.S. economy lost jobs in June, for the first time this year, as modest hiring by businesses only partly offset the end of Census jobs.

The U.S. Labor Department on Friday reported a net loss of 125,000 jobs in the month. That was due primarily to the loss of 225,000 Census jobs that had swelled payrolls in May.

Business hiring rebounded to 83,000, which was still a bit weaker than hoped. While it's up from the jobs private sector employers added in May, it was well below hiring levels in March and April.

"It's job growth, but it's a kind of growth that doesn't please anybody," said John Silvia, chief economist of Wells Fargo Securities. "We're not creating the jobs at a pace to help people who are looking for jobs. Jobs are going to remain hard to find."

Silvia and some other economists said the fact that businesses are still adding jobs should lessen fears that the economy is about to topple into another downturn, a so-called double-dip recession.

"Though disappointing, employment gains are substantially ahead of the 2002 recovery," said Kurt Karl, chief U.S. economist at Swiss Re.

But others suggested that the weak labor market raises the risk the economy could fall back into recession later this year.

"It is a Catch-22 situation," said Sung Won Sohn, economics professor at Cal State University-Channel Islands. "Businesses are reluctant to hire for fear of a double-dip recession. But without jobs, the economy can't grow."

Businesses have now added 593,000 jobs since the start of 2010, after cutting 8.5 million in 2008 and 2009 combined. President Obama pointed to the continued private sector job growth in his remarks Friday, but acknowledged more needs to be done.

"We are headed in the right direction," he said when announcing a government program to bring broadband Internet services to rural areas. "But ...we're not headed there fast enough for a lot of Americans. We're not headed there fast enough for me, either."

Republicans charged the report is proof the Obama administration's policy of trying to stimulate the economy and hiring through government spending has been a failure.

"Every Washington power grab is creating more uncertainty for investors and job creators, and leaving more families without a paycheck," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

The construction sector lost another 22,000 jobs as the pace of building fell sharply with the end of a tax credit for homebuyers. And retailers, hit by softer consumer purchases, trimmed nearly 7,000 jobs.

But manufacturers added 9,000 jobs, and transportation companies and warehouses added nearly 15,000 jobs, showing some continued strength in the goods-producing sector. Leisure and hospitality was the leading sector with a gain of 37,000 jobs.

There also was a gain of 20,500 temporary workers by business, which could be a sign of future hiring, since employers often bring on temporary workers before they commit to permanent jobs.

There are still 339,000 Census workers on the job heading into July, many of whose jobs will be ending. That suggest that July could be another month with an overall loss in jobs.

State and local governments cut an additional 10,000 jobs in June. That, was countered by the gain of 27,000 non-Census jobs by the federal government.

Unemployment rate drops

The unemployment rate fell to 9.5% from 9.7% in May. Economists had forecast it would climb to 9.8%. But the improvement was due mostly to many discouraged job seekers not bothering to look for work and no longer being counted as part of the labor force.

Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank, said that many of those people stopped looking for work because they lost extended unemployment benefits. To receive the benefits, they needed to be actively looking for work.

"The decline in the unemployment rate is not a reflection of strength, but rather a sign of discouragement among the ranks of the unemployed," he wrote in a note to clients Friday.

Congress has failed to pass an extension of benefits, which resulted in nearly half-million people losing their benefits by the middle of June when the unemployment numbers were compiled. Another 1.25 million have lost their benefits since mid-June, and nearly 800,000 more could lose benefits by the time July numbers are compiled.

The 14.6 million people still counted as unemployed have been out of work an average of 35 weeks, a record duration in the 62 years the government has tracked that figure.


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Sources: CNBC, CNN, U.S. Labor Dept., WCNC, Youtube, Google Maps

Unpaid College Internships Are Illegal Says U.S. Labor Officials, FLSA

Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, U.S. Labor Officials Say


With Job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor.

Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.

Many regulators say that violations are widespread, but that it is unusually hard to mount a major enforcement effort because interns are often afraid to file complaints. Many fear they will become known as troublemakers in their chosen field, endangering their chances with a potential future employer.

The Labor Department says it is cracking down on firms that fail to pay interns properly and expanding efforts to educate companies, colleges and students on the law regarding internships.

“If you’re a for-profit employer or you want to pursue an internship with a for-profit employer, there aren’t going to be many circumstances where you can have an internship and not be paid and still be in compliance with the law,” said Nancy J. Leppink, the acting director of the department’s wage and hour division.

Ms. Leppink said many employers failed to pay even though their internships did not comply with the six federal legal criteria that must be satisfied for internships to be unpaid. Among those criteria are that the internship should be similar to the training given in a vocational school or academic institution, that the intern does not displace regular paid workers and that the employer “derives no immediate advantage” from the intern’s activities — in other words, it’s largely a benevolent contribution to the intern.

No one keeps official count of how many paid and unpaid internships there are, but Lance Choy, director of the Career Development Center at Stanford University, sees definitive evidence that the number of unpaid internships is mushrooming — fueled by employers’ desire to hold down costs and students’ eagerness to gain experience for their résumés. Employers posted 643 unpaid internships on Stanford’s job board this academic year, more than triple the 174 posted two years ago.

In 2008, the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 83 percent of graduating students had held internships, up from 9 percent in 1992. This means hundreds of thousands of students hold internships each year; some experts estimate that one-fourth to one-half are unpaid.

In California, officials have issued guidance letters advising employers whether they are breaking the law, while Oregon regulators have unearthed numerous abuses.

“We’ve had cases where unpaid interns really were displacing workers and where they weren’t being supervised in an educational capacity,” said Bob Estabrook, spokesman for Oregon’s labor department. His department recently handled complaints involving two individuals at a solar panel company who received $3,350 in back pay after claiming that they were wrongly treated as unpaid interns.

Many students said they had held internships that involved noneducational menial work. To be sure, many internships involve some unskilled work, but when the jobs are mostly drudgery, regulators say, it is clearly illegal not to pay interns.

One Ivy League student said she spent an unpaid three-month internship at a magazine packaging and shipping 20 or 40 apparel samples a day back to fashion houses that had provided them for photo shoots.

At Little Airplane, a Manhattan children’s film company, an N.Y.U. student who hoped to work in animation during her unpaid internship said she was instead assigned to the facilities department and ordered to wipe the door handles each day to minimize the spread of swine flu.

Tone Thyne, a senior producer at Little Airplane, said its internships were usually highly educational and often led to good jobs.

Concerned about the effect on their future job prospects, some unpaid interns declined to give their names or to name their employers when they described their experiences in interviews.

While many colleges are accepting more moderate- and low-income students to increase economic mobility, many students and administrators complain that the growth in unpaid internships undercuts that effort by favoring well-to-do and well-connected students, speeding their climb up the career ladder.

Many less affluent students say they cannot afford to spend their summers at unpaid internships, and in any case, they often do not have an uncle or family golf buddy who can connect them to a prestigious internship.

Brittany Berckes, an Amherst senior who interned at a cable news station that she declined to identify, said her parents were not delighted that she worked a summer unpaid.

“Some of my friends can’t take these internships and spend a summer without making any money because they have to help pay for their own tuition or help their families with finances,” she said. “That makes them less competitive candidates for jobs after graduation.”

Of course, many internships — paid or unpaid — serve as valuable steppingstones that help young people land future jobs. “Internships have become the gateway into the white-collar work force,” said Ross Perlin, a Stanford graduate and onetime unpaid intern who is writing a book on the subject. “Employers increasingly want experience for entry-level jobs, and many students see the only way to get that is through unpaid internships.”

Trudy Steinfeld, director of N.Y.U.’s Office of Career Services, said she increasingly had to ride herd on employers to make sure their unpaid internships were educational. She recently confronted a midsize law firm that promised one student an educational $10-an-hour internship. The student complained that the firm was not paying him and was requiring him to make coffee and sweep out bathrooms.

Ms. Steinfeld said some industries, most notably film, were known for unpaid internships, but she said other industries were embracing the practice, seeing its advantages.

“A few famous banks have called and said, ‘We’d like to do this,’ ” Ms. Steinfeld said. “I said, ‘No way. You will not list on this campus.’ ”

Dana John, an N.Y.U. senior, spent an unpaid summer at a company that books musical talent, spending much of her days photocopying, filing and responding to routine e-mail messages for her boss.

“It would have been nice to be paid, but at this point, it’s so expected of me to do this for free,” she said. “If you want to be in the music industry that’s the way it works. If you want to get your foot in the door somehow, this is the easiest way to do it. You suck it up.”

The rules for unpaid interns are less strict for non-profit groups like charities because people are allowed to do volunteer work for non-profits.

California and some other states require that interns receive college credit as a condition of being unpaid. But federal regulators say that receiving college credit does not necessarily free companies from paying interns, especially when the internship involves little training and mainly benefits the employer.

Many employers say the Labor Department’s six criteria need updating because they are based on a Supreme Court decision from 1947, when many apprenticeships were for blue-collar production work.

Camille A. Olson, a lawyer based in Chicago who represents many employers, said: “One criterion that is hard to meet and needs updating is that the intern not perform any work to the immediate advantage of the employer. In my experience, many employers agreed to hire interns because there is very strong mutual advantage to both the worker and the employer. There should be a mutual benefit test.”

Kathyrn Edwards, a researcher at the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of a new study on internships, told of a female intern who brought a sexual harassment complaint that was dismissed because the intern was not an employee.

“A serious problem surrounding unpaid interns is they are often not considered employees and therefore are not protected by employment discrimination laws,” she said.


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Sources: NY Times, Youtube, Google Maps

Labor Day History: Celebrating Rights Of American Workers & Unions...Stronger Child Labor Laws Globally

In a series of short clips, The History Channel takes a look at the origins of Labor Day, changing methods of manufacturing and legislative gains made by labor unions.



Stronger Child Labor Laws Are Needed Globally.





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Sources: History Channel, AFL-CIO, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

U.S. Labor Dept Reports Unemployment Claims Drop To Lowest Since January... 565,000

MSNBC----

(President Obama discusses Job Losses but also offers positive news in the form of Green Jobs.)



(Andrea Mitchell discusses Job loss numbers with Dr. Christina Romer, Chair of the Obama Administration's Council of Economic Advisers. President Obama expresses deep concern.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

WASHINGTON - The number of newly laid-off workers filing initial claims for jobless benefits last week fell to lowest level since early January, largely due to changes in the timing of auto industry layoffs.

Continuing claims, meanwhile, unexpectedly jumped to a record-high. While layoffs are slowing, unemployed workers are having a difficult time finding new jobs. The unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent last month and is expected to top 10 percent by the end of this year.

New claims for unemployment insurance plummeted by 52,000 to 565,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s significantly below analysts’ expectations of 605,000, according to Thomson Reuters. The last time new claims were below 600,000 was week of Jan. 24.

The drop resulted partly from technical factors, a department analyst said. Auto layoffs that normally take place in early July, as factories are retooled to build the next year’s models, occurred in the spring instead as General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC implemented sweeping restructuring plans.

The department’s seasonal adjustment process expected a large increase in claims from auto workers and other manufacturing workers, the analyst said. Since that didn’t occur, seasonally-adjusted claims fell.

The non-seasonally adjusted figure increased by about 17,000 to 577,506 initial claims.

Still, continuing claims jumped 159,000 to 6.88 million, the highest on records dating from 1967. Analysts had expected 6.71 million continuing claims.

Continuing claims had fallen in two of the previous three weeks. The data lag initial claims by a week.

Economists are closely watching the level of first-time claims for signs the economy will recover in the second half of this year, as many predict. But the change in the timing of auto layoffs will likely muddy the picture next week as well, the Labor Department analyst said.

The four-week average of initial claims, which smooths out fluctuations, fell to 606,000, down more than 50,000 from its peak in early April.

Still, claims remain elevated: they were at 367,000 a year ago.

Consumers and businesses have cut back on spending in response to the bursting of the housing bubble and the financial crisis, sending the economy into the longest recession since World War II.

The U.S. Labor Department said last week that employers cut 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the highest in 25 years.

The payroll cuts last month were greater than analysts expected, renewing concern that jobs will remain scarce even if the economy does eke out growth later this year.

Some employers are still shedding jobs. Gannett Co. Inc., which publishes USA Today and 85 other daily newspapers, said last week that it will eliminate about 1,400 jobs, or 3 percent of its work force.

Among the states, New Jersey reported the largest increase in initial claims, with 7,876, which it attributed to seasonal layoffs related to school closings and manufacturing job cuts. The next largest increases were reported by Massachusetts, Kansas, Kentucky and New York. The state data lags initial claims by one week.

Florida reported the largest decrease, with 12,493, which it attributed to fewer layoffs in the construction, manufacturing and agriculture industries. Illinois, Pennsylvania, California and Tennessee reported the next largest drops.



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Sources: MSNBC, Whitehouse.gov, Expat21, Youtube, Google Maps