Finally, overtime coverage for all domestic workers in California!

After nearly 75 years of exclusion from federal and state labor protections, domestic workers have finally scored two important victories in their fight for equal treatment. Late last week, Governor Brown signed AB 241, extending California overtime protections to domestic workers who spend a significant amount of time caring for children, elderly and people with disabilities. One week earlier the federal Department of Labor finalized new rules that significantly extend federal minimum wage and overtime protections to domestic workers who care for the elderly and people with disabilities. Together, these actions extend overtime coverage to all domestic workers in California

Radical Reconstruction: (Re) Embracing Affirmative Action in Private Employment

The history of employment in this country is the history of racism. Using public and private mechanisms as well as violence to devise and enforce segregation and preferential treatment, the white male institutionalized an unprecedented advantage in the labor market. Yet this is rarely acknowledged as a factor in the current widening economic disparity between whites and blacks. Today, many white Americans, cloaked in the myth of colorblindness and meritocracy, refuse to see the persistence of racial prejudice, disadvantage and discrimination in the labor market. This article is a call for a radical reconstruction of the private labor market through re-embracing affirmative action as an effective tool to achieve equality. Part II traces the growing income and wealth disparity between blacks and whites and links the history of segregation and implicit bias in the labor market as a factor contributing to economic disparity. Part III is a historical account of the movement for racial equality, tracing the alliance between nondiscrimination and affirmative action and the triumph of equal opportunity (formal equality) over equality of outcomes (substantive equality). Part IV examines the legal justification and viability of affirmative action programs under the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VII. Part V is a roadmap for how we can re-embrace affirmative action in the private employment sector, from reframing the dialogue to grassroots pressure on large employers and unions to adopt affirmative action plans that include race-conscious decisionmaking

Finally, overtime coverage for all domestic workers in California!

After nearly 75 years of exclusion from federal and state labor protections, domestic workers have finally scored two important victories in their fight for equal treatment. Late last week, Governor Brown signed AB 241, extending California overtime protections to domestic workers who spend a significant amount of time caring for children, elderly and people with disabilities. One week earlier the federal Department of Labor finalized new rules that significantly extend federal minimum wage and overtime protections to domestic workers who care for the elderly and people with disabilities. Together, these actions extend overtime coverage to all domestic workers in California

All California Companies Should Mind Their ABCs in Classifying Workers

What is the proper legal standard in determining whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under California’s wage and hour laws

Book Review of: Blackett, A. (2019). Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labor Law

Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labor Law. A. Blackett (2019). Everyday Transgressions: Domestic Workers’ Transnational Challenge to International Labor Law. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, an Imprint of Cornell University Press. 287 pp. $23.95 (paper). Reviewed by: Hina B. Shah, Women’s Employment Rights Clinic, Golden Gate University, San Francisco, CA, USA One in every twenty-five women workers worldwide is a domestic worker. They are largely invisible, undervalued, and lack the most basic labor protections. Professor Blackett’s book, Everyday Transgressions, tackles this invisibility head on and provides a much-needed conceptual framing that lays bare the inequities faced by domestic workers and the transnational movement for change

A Long Journey to Secure Permanent Overtime Rights for California Domestic Workers

Domestic workers are crucial part of the economic and social fabric of our country. However, isolated and hidden behind closed doors and mostly unprotected under the law, domestic workers face harsh working conditions

A Long Journey to Secure Permanent Overtime Rights for California Domestic Workers

Domestic workers are crucial part of the economic and social fabric of our country. However, isolated and hidden behind closed doors and mostly unprotected under the law, domestic workers face harsh working conditions

Cotton-Textile-Apparel sectors of Pakistan: Situations and challenges faced

"Cotton, textiles, and apparel are critical agricultural and industrial sectors in Pakistan. This study provides descriptions of these sectors and examines the key developments emerging domestically and internationally that affect the challenges and opportunities they face. One-quarter of Pakistani farmers, of whom about 40 percent have household incomes below the poverty line, grow cotton. Export controls and taxes kept cotton prices below international levels until the mid-1990s but have subsequently tracked export parity international levels following reforms to trade and pricing policies and a greater role for the private sector. Pakistani farmers have not formally adopted genetically modified Bt cotton but there is some field evidence of its unregulated use. Despite constraints in its production, storage, and ginning sectors, the production of cotton yarn increased at an annual rate of 4.7 percent during 1990–2005 and Pakistan's share of world output increased to nearly 10 percent. Cotton-related products account for nearly 60 percent of Pakistan's export earnings. The textile industry still produces mostly fabrics of relatively low count (low quality) although it has been successful in expanding its exports of some higher-value products. The industry will need further entrepreneurial initiatives to remain competitive in international markets. Among the farm households that produce cotton, about 40 percent of total income comes from its production. The decline in world prices that occurred in the late 1990s adversely affected these households. Household-level simulations suggest that a counterfactual 20 percent increase of cotton prices, which reflects the extent to which real cotton prices declined in Pakistan during this period, would have reduced the percentage of cotton-producing households below the poverty line in 2001 from 40 percent to 28 percent. The estimated effect from declining cotton prices explains about one-sixth of the overall observed increase of rural poverty in the period." from authors' abstractCotton, textiles, Apparel, Rural poverty, subsidies, Industry policy, World markets, Globalization, Markets, trade,