San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/category/labor/)
During the pandemic, nurses have been given a lot of praise for the vital, frontline work they do, but some nurses working for San Francisco’s Department of Public Health would like to be paid the overtime they have put in. In a lawsuit against the city, several nurses claim that due to chronic understaffing, the public health department is forcing them to work overtime to cover the gap. They are demanding thousands of hours in back pay.
The United States Postal Service is running out of money — the agency requested $75 billion in emergency funding in April, saying it would be out of money by September. Lower demand for its services and the health impacts of the pandemic have hit the agency hard, and legislators had planned to give the postal service $25 billion in the CARES Act. But the Trump administration blocked the funding. The postal service does have access to $10 billion in loans, but Donald Trump has suggested that the postal service should raise its prices. Louis DeJoy, a longtime Trump supporter and fundraiser, took over as the US Postmaster this month.
The coronavirus pandemic has cost millions their jobs, and that means many tenants haven’t been able to pay rent, landlords have had trouble making mortgage payments and other bills are also stacking up. Debts can be sold to collections agencies, and even keep renters from accessing affordable housing.
An estimated 3 million people work on farms in the United States every year to raise and harvest the nation’s produce. The meat and poultry industry is estimated to employ another half million. Working conditions in both industries tend to be harsh, and many workers have limited access to health care to begin with.
California doled out a record $4.4 billion in jobless benefits last week, more than triple the amount it paid out the previous week, data from the state’s Employment Development Department shows. In the week ending April 25, the state disbursed $1.4 billion in benefit payments.
Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:107%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}
Nonprofits that serve people who need emergency help with their rent are seeing requests surge from a new class of clients — those who were previously financially secure but have lost their jobs due to COVID-19. But red tape is complicating their efforts to help the newly jobless, the groups say.
A group of Stanford-affiliated volunteers has set out to develop a tool to make accessing financial support, whether public or private, easier. The project, called Healthier Finance, is part of Stanford’s COVID-19 Response Innovation Lab, in which volunteers from a broad range of disciplines including medicine, business and media hope to collaborate to create technology and systems that are needed during the pandemic.
Normal
0
false
false
false
EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Arial”,sans-serif;
mso-ansi-language:EN;}
At San Francisco’s cable car barn on Mason Street, the large looms of wire that power one of the city’s most popular tourist attractions used to produce a loud, uninterrupted whirring. Now, the building’s interior is so quiet it’s unnerving.
One side effect of the coronavirus crisis appears to be labor unrest across the country. In California, political leaders and union advocates are pushing for new labor protections and expanded workplace rights in response to the pandemic’s impacts on workers and the economy.
Carlos Ramos, who drives for Lyft and is also an organizer with Gig Workers Rising, says gig workers including drivers should get the full protections and rights of employees under California’s AB 5.
Career and life coach Marty Nemko shares some tips on how to stay productive and focused while working from home.
