Minimum wage has room to grow
It is coming up on three years since the last increase in the federal minimum wage –to $7.25 per hour– in July 2009. By all of the most commonly used benchmarks – inflation, average wages, and productivity – the minimum wage is now far below its historical level. By all of these reference points, the value of the minimum wage peaked in 1968.
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/new-cepr-issue-brief-shows-minimum-wage-has-room-to-grow
BP whistle-blower seeks shutdown of Gulf rig
BP Plc’s Atlantis platform, its second-largest oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico, should be shut down until it’s proven to comply with U.S. safety and environmental laws, a whistle-blower’s lawyer told a judge. BP misled U.S. offshore regulators to win operating permits for the platform, located about 150 miles (240 kilometers) south of New Orleans, according to the whistle-blower.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-19/bp-whistle-blower-seeks-shutdown-of-atlantis-in-gulf-of-mexico
Protesters cloud Apple’s new iPad launch
Protesters asking Apple to change the labor practices in factories in its supply chain have mobilized at stores in Georgetown, San Francisco and New York City. Their goal was to remind Apple and its fans that the gadgets on sale today come from factories that have been criticized for poor labor practices.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/protesters-cloud-apples-new-ipad-launch/2012/03/16/gIQAveIZGS_story.html
The sad and infuriating Mike Daisey case
When I heard Daisey’s Shenzhen riff on C-Span late last year, I wrote to a longtime friend who is also a friend and supporter of Daisey’s and had been trying to get us together. I said: This doesn’t sound right. I also said that I was bleakly amused by Daisey’s presenting the far-off exotic territory of “Shenzhen, China” as some super-secretive realm that he alone had thought to unveil. I pointed out that I had done a gigantic cover story and on-line slide show about this unknown land back in 2007, plus later in a book and a video series; that the Wall Street Journal had done hundreds of stories with Shenzhen datelines before and since; that there had been countless books, picture shows, news features, etc, about the Shenzhen phenomenon; that “Foxconn” was hardly an unknown enterprise; etc.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/the-sad-and-infuriating-mike-daisey-case/254661/
Foxconn: No legal action after Mike Daisey story retracted from ‘This American Life’
Foxconn Technology Group, the top maker of Apple Inc’s iPhones and iPads, said on Monday it had no plans to take legal action over a U.S. radio program about its activity in China, parts of which have been retracted. But the company said the broadcast, which has generated public debate on journalistic ethics in the United States, had hurt its reputation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/19/foxconn-no-legal-action-a_n_1360108.html
Where pimps peddle their goods
I went on a walk in Manhattan the other day with a young woman who once had to work these streets, hired out by eight pimps while she was just 16 and 17. After Alissa testified against her pimps, six of them went to prison for up to 25 years. Yet these days, she reserves her greatest anger not at pimps but at companies that enable them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/kristof-where-pimps-peddle-their-goods.html
Jewett man killed in mining accident
Walter R. McAfee Jr., 55, of Jewett, Ohio, was killed in a mining accident Saturday at the OhioAmerican’s Redbird West Operations near Brilliant. According to the Mine Safety Health Administration, McAfee, a foreman at the mine, died at about 10 a.m. Saturday from crushing injuries.
http://www.cantonrep.com/newsnow/x1831800622/Jewett-man-killed-in-mining-accident
Sheriff: Searchers find body of hot-air balloon pilot who went missing when thunderstorm hit
A hot-air balloon pilot found a safe spot for his skydiving passengers to bail out just before a thunderstorm sucked in his craft and sent him plummeting to his death.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ga-authorities-search-for-missing-hot-air-balloon-pilot-from-nc-who-crashed-during-storm/2012/03/18/gIQA0XIhLS_story.html
