National Employment Law Project

Waffle House deducts a $3 meal credit from workers’ pay for every 7-hour shift they work, no matter if they eat or not. “I rarely get an opportunity to sit down and eat food,” explained Tommy Hinton in this important video about why Waffle House workers are fighting for better pay and safer jobs.

Waffle House Workers are Fighting and WINNING! Waffle House workers have faced some of the most challenging conditions, with pay that doesn't amount to a living wage, working a job that's well-known for i...

It’s NELP’s 55th anniversary!

In a commemorative blog, President & CEO Rebecca Dixon looks back at the ways we’ve uplifted the demands of both and newly-unemployed during the pandemic and continued to build Black and immigrant worker power. Read it here: https://www.nelp.org/55-years-of-fighting-for-racial-and-economic-justice/

55 Years of Fighting for Racial and Economic Justice - National Employment Law Project Learn about NELP's 55-year impact as a leading voice in the workers' rights movement.

Jobs hold are disproportionately affected by .

While existing laws like the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ( ) can provide protections from some of the impacts of , women need wraparound policy solutions that touch all the ways are affected by heat in their lives, writes National Partnership for Women & Families' Anushey Ahmed:

Extreme Heat Puts Women Workers in Danger | National Partnership for Women & Families Communities across the nation are seeing longer and more frequent heat waves as well as higher average temperatures. But the risks of heat to people's health and well-being don't fall equally on all workers. It is essential, and increasingly urgent, that our policy approaches to heat recognize the e...

New data show 7.1 million were unemployed in August. These jobless workers should be able to count on unemployment insurance, but the system isn’t ready to support a new surge in .

Read our analysis here:

August Jobs Report: Job Growth Slows, Signaling the Need to Cut Interest Rates and Fix Unemployment Insurance - National Employment Law Project The evidence of a weakening job market is unmistakable. It is time to substantially lower interest rates and fix UI.

Delivery organizing with Los Deliveristas Unidos are calling on DoorDash to stop deactivating their accounts & cutting off their livelihoods when they take rest breaks during heat waves.

As they call for accountability and from their employer, are working to create hubs where they can cool off in . Learn more about their work at Grist.org.

NYC's food delivery workers are sweltering in the heat — and demanding more protection New York City, the city that never sleeps, is also an incredibly hard place to take a break — if your job is jetting across town on a bike delivering takeout and groceries. “As things stand, there isn’t a designated place for us to rest while working,” Antonio Solis, an app-based delivery w...

All , regardless of their status, have a right to be paid for their work. That’s why we, along with Legal Aid at Work, Make the Road New Jersey, and 9 other organizations + unions filed an amicus brief yesterday in support of a worker’s petition to the NJ Supreme Court. In the brief, we ask the court to hear the worker’s case and reverse a harmful decision that would deny him and other undocumented workers this fundamental right.

Amici parties, including NELP, ask the New Jersey Supreme Court to take this case and reverse the appellate court’s ruling to ensure Mr. Lopez and other NJ workers like him are again fully protected under the state’s bedrock wage and hour laws.

Defending Undocumented Workers’ Access to New Jersey Wage and Hour Protections - National Employment Law Project Twelve immigrant and workers’ rights organizations and unions filed an amicus brief in Lopez v. Marmic LLC et al. defending undocumented workers’ rights.

Tell to enact a strong and comprehensive worker heat protection standard now! Submit your public comment on the proposed rule and help protect 36 million from preventable heat illness. Commonsense measures can save worker lives during heat waves. bit.ly/OSHA-HeatComment

This weekend, deserve lifesaving , writes the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health's Jessica Martinez in The Progressive Magazine.
Read her piece here: https://progressive.org/op-eds/workers-are-bearing-the-brunt-of-extreme-heat-martinez-20240829/

Workers Are Bearing the Brunt of Extreme Heat It's time to implement heat safety standards and protect workers from the scorching temperatures induced by climate change.

Last summer, UPS Teamsters locked in a contract with historic . One year later, are still wrestling with the "gap between contract language and the day-to-day reality of the workplace."

Mother Jones has the scoop: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/08/ups-drivers-teamsters-heat-protections/

UPS drivers won “historic heat protections.” They say the company hasn't lived up to that promise. A new contract's heat safety rules are among the first of their kind, but some workers say they have brought little relief.

Remaking the Economy: Escaping Corporate Capture Explore how to escape corporate capture and advance economic justice with experts from Cooperation Jackson, Debt Collective, and Georgetown University. Register now for valuable insights and strategies!

There will be a private screening of “No Somos Maquinas (We are Not Machines)” for the members of New Labor on Friday, August 16 at 6:30pm at the Rutgers Labor Education Center (50 labor Center Way, New Brunswick, NJ 08901). If you would like to join us in support of the New Labor organization, please register here: bit.ly/NLDoc2024

A small donation is requested for entry in support of the organization.

This month we want to highlight a MO JwJ leader that is passionate about advocating for working people, ✨Karissa Varga✨ in Kansas City! Karissa has been a leader for the past two years, remaining very engaged even after moving from Springfield to Kansas City!

The energy and curiosity she has brought has been vital to helping us grow power among working folks in Kansas City. This has been especially evident in her participation in our most recent campaign:
✅Healthy Families for Fair Wages

She is also now helping lay the ground for a local campaign we are building in KC! Karissa is the kind of leader whose determination, enthusiasm and curiosity is contagious and makes folks want to take action. We're super excited and grateful to have her on the MO JwJ team!💙

Workers coordinated a series of protests yesterday to demand better protections from . Only 6 states have rules for outdoor workers to protect them from heat stress. “We ought to be able to have the right to have , the right to have shade, the right to have rest from the heat. But that’s not the case. I know that one job is not worth my life.” Read more about workers' demands:

Workers across the US rally after string of heat-related deaths Airport, retail, and agricultural workers in 13 cities are demanding elected officials enact heat protections.

“With all that money he’s got, [Bezos] can provide us with clean, cool water. Instead, we have to go buy it at the break room," said worker Karen Tucker to the Atlanta Civic Circle.

Learn how lack of & consistently low wages drove her & her coworkers to go :

East Point Amazon workers protest heat, other unsafe working conditions Workers say they often have to pay for cold water as warehouse temperatures rise in the summer.

As summers get hotter, Cal/OSHA is able to do even fewer investigations.

Farmworkers who were fired in retaliation for stopping work due to are joining with advocates like UFW to call for better protections and new policies to save worker lives.

Read more in CalMatters.org:

Californians say they were fired for leaving their jobs in sweltering heat. Is the state on their side? Despite state rules to protect California farmworkers, inspections and citations are down. A bill would make workers' comp claims easier.

Access to and the dangerous work could have prevented the death of Ronald Silver II, a sanitation worker in . Unsafe work conditions, including broken refrigerators and ice machines, and racist assumptions about Silver's symptoms, belie a “culture of disrespect” at the Baltimore City Department of Public Works.

More in the The Baltimore Banner:

Sanitation worker’s death sparks call for new safety measures The heat-related death of a Baltimore sanitation worker has prompted City Council members and city worker unions to demand more stringent safety-measure for municipal workers. The city Department of Public Works paused trash and recycling collection Tuesday to focus on heat safety training sessions.

TOMORROW 📣 Join us at 1PM for our , “Winning the UI Battle: Highlighting Responses to Misclassification Schemes.” We’ll discuss how are developing advocacy strategies to make app-based companies pay their fair share into state funds. Don’t miss it; sign up 👉http://bit.ly/UIBattle-Webinar

Victory for in !

Today, the Michigan Supreme Court reinstated a 2018 ballot measure seeking to increase the to $12 & gradually phase out the harmful subminimum tipped wage. As a result, approximately 494,000 workers will benefit! Read more:

On the Michigan Supreme Court Restoring a 2018 Minimum Wage Ballot Initiative Increase - National Employment Law Project The Michigan Supreme Court finds that the 2018 state legislature’s gutting of a popular minimum wage ballot initiative was unconstitutional.

Last up in our Deep Dive series on how cities & states can protect against TRAPs is by Khandice Lofton and Johnathan F. Harris of the Student Borrower Protection Center.

Law enforcement & consumer regulators can look to their own consumer laws to expand protections for from TRAPs. https://www.nelp.org/when-employers-turn-employees-into-consumers-state-and-local-regulators-must-turn-to-consumer-protection-law/

In The Guardian, NELP President & CEO Rebecca Dixon spoke about how occupational segregation compounds on the job for Black and immigrant . Read the full piece here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/29/worker-protections-heatwave-extreme-temperatures-weather

One of the reasons app-based companies embrace misclassification of their employees as is so they can avoid payroll taxes, including contributing to state funds. But are seeing through company schemes and fighting back.

If you haven’t already, sign up for our on Tues, Aug 6 at 1 PM ET where we’ll discuss worker strategies and advocacy for the benefits they deserve. Register here: http://bit.ly/UIBattle-Webinar