Boss Watch

  • BOSS WATCH: 8/11 – 8/18

    BOSS WATCH: 8/11 – 8/18

    Illegal activities of Southern Bosses for the week ending on Friday, August 18 TENNESSEE RETALIATOR The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s ruling that a Memphis Starbucks violated the National Labor Relations Act when it fired seven workers over union organizing efforts. The NLRA gives workers the right to form a…

  • Illegal activities of Southern Bosses for the week ending on Friday, August 11 | BOSS WATCH

    Illegal activities of Southern Bosses for the week ending on Friday, August 11 | BOSS WATCH

    We’ve had a great reaction to our most recent recurring segment on The Valley Labor Report, so we’re going to be sending this out as a newsletter every week. It’s important that people understand how often bosses break the law – with working people as their victims – because of how skewed our media structure…

  • America’s child labor epidemic is only just getting started

    America’s child labor epidemic is only just getting started

    The issue of child labor in the United States seems to be only just warming up, as the U.S. Department of Labor releases some startling statistics in the middle of the investigation it has been carrying out across the Nation, with a special emphasis on the South. According to a statement the DOL released about…

  • Ivey forces Early Childhood Education Secretary to resign over teacher training book

    Ivey forces Early Childhood Education Secretary to resign over teacher training book

    ov. Kay Ivey Friday forced Secretary of Early Childhood Education Barbara Cooper to resign over a book designed to train teachers to be aware of the different backgrounds and challenges of their students. In a Friday afternoon news release, Gina Maiola, communications director for the governor’s office, said Ivey had accepted Cooper’s resignation after learning…

  • What did Kentucky Teamsters Win After Their Sysco Strike?

    What did Kentucky Teamsters Win After Their Sysco Strike?

    eamsters Local 89 Sysco drivers voted overwhelmingly in support of ratifying a new offer from the company, concluding a strike that lasted nearly two weeks. The drivers had joined the Teamsters in 2022 due to issues involving wages, benefits, workplace safety, and destructively long work shifts, and since organizing there’s been a bit of back-and-forth…

  • Alabama Democrats eliminate youth, LGBTQ+, disabled caucuses at contentious meeting

    Alabama Democrats eliminate youth, LGBTQ+, disabled caucuses at contentious meeting

    The Alabama Democratic Party approved new bylaws Saturday that eliminated youth, LGBTQ+ and disabled caucuses and reduced the powers of others. The proposed bylaws, which passed the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) 63-49, eliminated the three caucuses because they don’t represent 15% of the executive council. The bylaws also reduced the powers of affirmative action;…

  • Birmingham Writers Walk Out After Three Years of Bad Faith Negotiations

    Birmingham Writers Walk Out After Three Years of Bad Faith Negotiations

    en workers at Hearst Magazine in Birmingham, Alabama, staged a walkout recently in protest of bad faith negotiations. These workers successfully voted to unionize in 2020, joining up with the Writer’s Guild of America East, but claim that, since then, they have been stuck in “negotiation hell” with their employer, who has consistently and intentionally…

  • Parents face jail when their children work illegally, but not the bosses

    Parents face jail when their children work illegally, but not the bosses

    e tend to think of child labor as a thing of the past, a peculiarity of the early days of the Industrial Age. We call to mind black and white photographs of kids laboring in factories and warehouses, blanketed in grime and soot. The reality is that child labor is still “alive and well,” even…

  • What to do if your boss calls you into the office

    What to do if your boss calls you into the office

    o you’ve been called into the boss’s office…and it ain’t to exchange pleasantries! Do you think the meeting will lead to discipline? Is this an “investigatory interview” being conducted? Are you working under a union contract? Are you a public school employee in Alabama? Or are you working in a place without any union protections?…

  • Conservative talk show host violates Federal Law on the air

    Conservative talk show host violates Federal Law on the air

    he Valley Labor Report (TVLR) shares the WVNN airwaves in North Alabama with Conservative talk radio host Dale Jackson (The Dale Jackson Show). And from time to time, Jackson — an employer — will go on power trips and tirades against the working class while on the air. One such recent “power trip” could end up…

  • The workforce benefits of Medicaid expansion in Alabama

    The workforce benefits of Medicaid expansion in Alabama

    or nearly a decade, Alabama has been outside looking in on a good deal. While hundreds of thousands of Alabamians continue to struggle without health insurance, state leaders have failed to expand Medicaid. A few loud voices have politicized an issue that never should have been political. And our state has paid the price in…

  • BOSS WATCH: 12/15/23 – 1/5/24

    BOSS WATCH: 12/15/23 – 1/5/24

    Illegal activities of Southern Bosses for the weeks between Friday, December 15 and Friday, January 5 —TEXAS HARASSER— South Austin Nissan, a car dealership in Austin, Texas, operated by NICPA Central Auto Group, LLC, subjected female employees to sexual harassment and retaliated against employees when they reported the harassment the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission…