A roundtable discussion featuring the RWDSU's Phil Andrews, former Mystique worker Carolina Ferreyra, and Paul Sonn, legal co-director of the National Employment Law Project, sheds light on the "crime wage against low wage workers."

Watch the discussion here

More about the RWDSU's Retail Action Project and its efforts to expose wage theft in New York City.

Working families who earn below a certain amount, or have children, may be able to receive tax breaks from the government. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EIC) is intended to lessen the burden on low-income families struggling to make ends meet. Families qualifying for tax credits will receive a rebate check from the IRS after taxes are paid. Even if taxes aren’t owed, the benefit check can still be received, as long as taxes are filed. 

Earned Income Tax Credit Aids Low-Income Families

RWDSU members at Voltronics Corporation in Denville, NJ, have a ratified a new three-year contract. The Local 262 members, who make electronics components such as diodes, capacitors, and relays, will see wage gains and benefit improvements over the course of the contract.

A report from the Center for Economic Policy and Research shows what union members already know: that union membership substantially raises wages and benefits for workers. The study, “The Unions of the States,” finds that in the typical state, unionization is associated with a 15 percent increase in hourly wages, a roughly $2.50 advantage per hour over non-union workers.

Earlier this month, the RWDSU’s Retail Action Project (RAP) sponsored a march through New York City's SoHo neighborhood, calling for an end to the wage and hour violations among retail workers that plague the trendy shopping district. One of the stores the activists targeted for underpaying its workers was Mystique Boutique (above).

RWDSU members with some of the moms and children who have been helped by K.I.D.S. 

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (at podium) and RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum (to her left). 

Watch video of this event

A report released last month by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives sheds light on the phenomenon of skyrocketing CEO pay that has continued throughout the recession. According to the report, “A Soft Landing: Recession and Canada’s 100 Highest Paid CEOs,” pay for top Canadian executives continues to dwarf the pay for average workers, while outpacing inflation by an astounding 70 percent between 1998 and 2008. Canadians earning the average income lost 6 percent to inflation over that same period.

 Labor activists were outraged last week when the nomination of respected labor lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board stalled in the Senate. The Senate blocked Becker's nomination as Democrats fell short of the 60 votes needed to break a Republican-led filibuster.

The vote also cast doubts on the chances of the approval of Mark Pearce, another nominee for the NLRB with a strong pro-worker background.