Labor

A dozen Guatemalan workers filed a federal lawsuit Thursday accusing one of the nation's largest nurseries of engaging in human trafficking by forcing them to work nearly 80 hours per week, paying them less than minimum wage and denying them medical care for injuries on the job. Read More

Labor rights groups long have documented low pay and strict management in Chinese factories. But as Western firms increasingly move manufacturing to China to cut costs and raise profits, activists are adopting a strategy of publicizing conditions at globally recognized companies including Foxconn, which supplies dozens of international brands such as Apple Inc. from its Shenzhen facilities. Read More

Mr Ipatas said the agreement was done in such a way the State of Papua New Guinea and the landowners were mere observers on their own land while the developer got about 85 per cent of the takings. Read More

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the largest U.S. private employer, will pay $33 million in back wages plus interest under an agreement with the U.S. Labor Department Read More

The Bloomberg administration is devoting more than $180 million toward state-of-the-art technology to keep track of when city employees come and go, with one agency requiring its workers to scan their hands each time they enter and leave the workplace. Read More

Poor management and cost-cutting created a dangerous work environment at oil giant BP, according to a report released today based on hundreds of interviews with employees. Read More

If you think the Iraq war hasn't worked out very well for anyone, think again. Defense contractors such as Lockheed are thriving. And no wonder: Here's the story how Lockheed's interests- as opposed to those of the American citizenry- set the course of U.S. policy after 9/11. Read More

Dozens of workers at a Teesside chemical plant received hospital treatment after suffering burns and breathing difficulties following a leak of 4.5 tonnes of toxic chemicals. Read More

Hundreds of workers yesterday held a protest in Pingshan (Shenzhen) outside DeCoro, an Italian sofa company, accusing supervisors of severely beating three employees who dared to ask for respect of the minimum wage. In November 2005 disputes had already taken place between the employees and the company with mutual accusations of violence made. Read More

In Liberia, a war-ravaged country with 80 percent unemployment, almost any job is a good one. But Firestone is increasingly under fire from human-rights advocates here and in the United States who say conditions on the 80-year-old plantation in Harbel - Firestone's single-biggest source of raw material for its U.S. manufacturing operations - are scandalous. Read More