Labor

SAN JOSE, Calif. — They may top the list of the country’s “best companies to work for,” but the thousands of nonunion contract workers who serve gourmet lunches in the luxury cafeterias of Silicon Valley high-tech firms don’t see it that way.

Anyone who believed there was going to be a bipartisan effort in Congress to reflect the voters’ views got doused with a bucket of cold water last week when GOP senators tried to block a bill that would increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 over two years.

The Communist Party of Venezuela (CPV) is about to introduce a proposal that the National Assembly establish workers councils and include them under the new “Organic Law for Citizen Participation and People’s Power.”

Health care advocates slammed President Bush’s latest health care proposals as free-market fantasy that would dismantle employer-provided health coverage, enrich insurance companies and worsen the nation’s health care crisis.

Instigated by a company hell-bent on keeping out a union, the U.S. government raided the world’s largest pork processing plant, Smithfield Packing, in Tar Heel, N.C., on Jan. 24.

SAN JOSE, California — Las paredes del salón de conferencia tenían fotos de docenas de mujeres con caras amistosas, sonrientes que eran un contraste con las imágenes de sus manos cicatrizadas por el trabajo.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has introduced legislation, the Healthy Americans Act (HAA), that purports to guarantee “universal, private health insurance for all Americans.” The HAA is, in fact, one of the most radically destructive proposals ever put forward to address the failings of the American health care system.

Jim Adams started at Smithfield Packing on the hog kill floor assembly line. He was hurt on his first day, and by the time his second shift ended he knew he’d better keep his mouth shut and try to ignore the pain if he wanted to keep his job.

Two prominent labor organizations have sued the Bush administration for failing to protect nearly 20 million workers from job injuries.

California’s citrus and other crops have been devastated by five consecutive nights of sub-freezing temperatures that struck Jan. 12, dealing a sharp blow to growers and putting thousands of farmworkers out of work, especially in the Central Valley.