Job Safety
Following passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, safety and health conditions in our nation's workplaces have improved. Workers' lives have been saved and injury and illness rates have dropped in many industry sectors of the economy. However, too many employers continue to cut corners and violate the law, putting workers in serious danger and costing lives. Many hazards remain unregulated. The job safety law needs to be updated to provide protection for all workers who lack coverage and to strengthen enforcement and workers’ rights. It's our job to continue this fight for safe jobs.
More about this issue:
Roughly a hundred organizers have been calling workers from Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama, warehouse in recent weeks, making the case for why they should unionize.
"Nobody feels safe in the subway. Not the riders and certainly not the workers. Daily ridership was down 3.5 million last year. But more people were robbed, raped and murdered in the system than in 2019," writes Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Tony Utano in a NY Daily News Op-Ed.
New York’s Attorney General, Letitia James, sued Amazon on Tuesday evening, arguing that the company provided inadequate safety protection for workers in New York City during the pandemic and retaliated against employees who raised concerns over the conditions.
Mass incarceration of Black and brown communities has led to an ever growing labor pool of vulnerable, disadvantaged and discriminated-against workers.
New York City restaurant workers, taxi drivers, and residents in developmentally disabled facilities are now eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Biden administration has tapped New York's Amanda Lefton to serve as the new Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).
After a one-week strike, 1,400 Hunts Point Produce Market workers are back on the job with historic raises. Teamsters Local 202 members approved their new union contract on Saturday.
Workers at a warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, will vote next month on whether to unionize. The largest, most viable effort to unionize Amazon in many years began last summer at a Fairfield Inn outside of Birmingham in the right-to-work state.