Free Republic

Workers Remove Litter from Iraqi Streets The street-cleaning project focuses on the busiest streets first, then moves to residential areas. By U.S. Army Spc. Cassandra Groce 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment HAWIJA, Iraq, July 11, 2006 -- Piles of trash and litter, the scourge of many Iraqi cities, are being removed by local workers from the street and alleys of Hawija, Iraq.Sanitation has been a continual concern for Coalition Forces and the Iraqi leadership. The street-cleaning project currently cleans the busiest streets, but will soon move to residential areas. The project employs many civilians. “This was a good project...

More Rain Likely for Soaked NortheastBy STEPHEN MANNING Tuesday, June 27, 2006 WASHINGTON - Workers pumped water from the IRS headquarters' flooded basement Tuesday and mopped up at other government buildings Monday after heavy rain swamped the nation's capital. A brief break from the two-day deluge gave crews a chance to reopen commuter routes and set up sandbags to prevent more water from getting inside buildings. More than 7 inches of rain fell on the nation's capital in a 24-hour period Sunday and Monday, shutting down several federal buildings and closing some of the city's busiest tourist attractions just days...

Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly said yesterday it is not his responsibility to crack down on Massachusetts employers that hire undocumented immigrants, and he said he will continue his policy of taking no action against the companies. In 2001, Reilly established a policy, saying his office would aggressively fight for the rights and wages of immigrant workers, legal or not, and promise not to report them to federal authorities. He also said he would enforce wage and labor laws against companies, but not act against them for employing undocumented immigrants. Yesterday he stood by that, even as a Globe story...

A lawsuit has been filed in U.S. District Court here by three migrant farmworkers from Thailand against two local growers and a Los Angeles-based labor contractor, alleging that the workers were underpaid and housed in substandard conditions. In the suit filed on Monday, some of the workers said they were forced to go into personal debt in order to get a job in the United States. They said they were promised work that didn't materialize. A number of alleged violations of state and federal law were outlined in the suit. It seeks class action status for all Thai workers brought...

WASHINGTON - Remember the Department of Homeland Security's "no-fly'' lists that erratically flagged 3-year-old children and dozens of men named David Nelson as terrorists seeking to board commercial airplanes? Well, now privacy experts are warning America to prepare for the "no-work'' list. As Congress debates immigration reform, experts say a little-discussed aspect of the bill, mandatory employee eligibility verification, is likely to have a colossal impact on the lives of every person in the U.S. labor market -- citizen and foreigner alike. "Everyone who wants to work will feel this provision,'' said Tim Sparapani, legal counsel for the American Civil...

The work of harvesting sugarcane is grueling - even worse than picking cotton. With a knife, a cutter slices the cane stalk as close to the ground as possible. Standing in wet, soft muck soil, he chops off the leaves and the top of the stalk, tossing the cane into a pile. He does this thousands of times a day - stooping, cutting, standing, cutting, stacking, stooping. To guard against the sharp leaves and the swinging knife, cutters wear aluminum shields on their wrists and legs, as well as many layers, even in the hot Florida sun. Given those conditions,...

USA Citizens Day - July 1st Immigration Control Rally Nationwide Rally on Saturday, July 1st, at noon, at your City HallMay 1st - Million of Illegal Aliens Marched in our StreetsTwelve million illegal aliens demonstrated their political power, and declared May 1st to be A Day Without Undocumented Workers ( illegal aliens ). They boycotted the USA, all US businesses and institutions. Millions of them marched in our streets, carried Mexican flags, shouted "Si se puede!", and demanded new laws from our Congress. July 1st - U.S. Citizens Nationwide Rally for Immigration ControlRally to stop our continuous invasion by...

Washington -- The current migration of Mexicans and Central Americans to the United States is one of the largest diasporas in modern history, experts say. Roughly 10 percent of Mexico's population of about 107 million is now living in the United States, estimates show. About 15 percent of Mexico's labor force is working in the United States. One in every 7 Mexican workers migrates to the United States. Mass migration from Mexico began more than a century ago. It is deeply embedded in the history, culture and economies of both nations. The current wave began with Mexico's economic crisis in...

Propelled by a free trade agreement with the United States, apparel manufacturing is booming in Jordan, its exports to America soaring twentyfold in the last five years. But some foreign workers in Jordanian factories that produce garments for Target, Wal-Mart and other American retailers are complaining of dismal conditions — of 20-hour days, of not being paid for months and of being hit by supervisors and jailed when they complain. [...] "We used to start at 8 in the morning, and we'd work until midnight, 1 or 2 a.m., seven days a week," said Nargis Akhter, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi who,...

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungarian builders who drank their way to the bottom of a huge barrel of rum while renovating a house got a nasty surprise when a pickled corpse tumbled out of the empty barrel, a police magazine website reported. According to online magazine www.zsaru.hu, workers in Szeged in the south of Hungary tried to move the barrel after they had drained it, only to find it was surprisingly heavy and were shocked when the body of a naked man fell out. The website said that the body of the man had been shipped back from Jamaica 20 years...

Chinese food or a hamburger were easy to come by in the Mission District on Monday. Doughnuts or bagels? No problem. But in a neighborhood where every other storefront seems to house a tacqueria, you would have been hard-pressed to find a burrito. With leaders of the national "Day Without Immigrants" calling for an economic boycott, many Hispanic-owned businesses closed for the day in the city's unofficial Latin quarter and throughout California, encouraging employees to participate in the massive protest marches. "Today, no - no working and no buying," said Enrique Varguas, 28, who rescheduled a dozen or so landscaping...

The U.S. has benefited from illegal immigrants, most economists say, though some low-skilled workers have been hurt. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - In the heated debate over the impact of illegal immigration on the U.S. economy, Andrew Sum is one of those focusing on the negative. The economist - the director of labor market studies at Northeastern University in Boston - argues that the large supply of immigrants has displaced low-skilled U.S.-born workers, particularly the young and the poor, from jobs. "About 85.5 of every 100 new workers are new immigrants in this decade," he said. "At no time in the...

Well .. here we go again. It's May 1st. May Day. A day which, ironically enough, was once a huge holiday in the Communist World. No ... it's not Lenin's birthday. In the U.S. we celebrate Lenin's birthday with something called "Earth Day." That in itself is rather strange, considering the fact that Earth Day has become somewhat of an anti-capitalist celebration. But, I digress. The Marching Mexicans will be at it again today ... they're filling the streets with the avowed attention to "close down" some major American cities. First of all, boycotts, especially short ones like this, don't...

Ever since President Bush unveiled his first guest worker plan, employer claims of labor shortages have dominated the economic side of the national immigration debate. Moreover, as Bush and his allies keep repeating, legal and illegal immigrants alike are mainly doing "the jobs Americans won't do" – physically demanding labor in low-paying but essential industries. However, the most important statistics available show conclusively that, far from easing shortages, illegal immigrants are adding to labor gluts in America. Specifically, when adjusted for inflation, wages in sectors that are highly dependent on illegals have either been stagnant or have actually fallen. When...

COVERT, Mich. - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission launched a special inspection at the Palisades Nuclear Plant after several workers were exposed to radiation, officials said Thursday. The workers were not expected to suffer any adverse health effects and no medical treatment was necessary, the agency said in a statement. About six workers were handling a two-part storage container underwater in the refueling area early Wednesday when an inner portion of the container briefly rose to the surface, the NRC said. The employees were exposed to radiation emitted from highly radioactive equipment inside the container. According to radiation detectors worn by...

Ninety workers of the PARS IRAN textile company who have not been paid in more than 14 months in a letter to Ahmadinejad demanded that the he investigate and resolve their labour issues. The regime-run news agency ILNA printed the letter which also indicated: "We the workers of the PARS IRAN textile company of the province of Gilan (also known as Rasht) have been laid off for 10 months now and have not received our salaries for over 14 months. Our employer also owes us our severance package as well as all other legal benefits, totaling to more than $5500...

NEW YORK - The majority of American workers think they'll be able to retire comfortably, but most aren't saving nearly enough to meet that goal, according to a new study. The Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual retirement confidence survey, released Tuesday, found that about 68 percent of workers are confident about having adequate funds for a comfortable retirement, up slightly from 65 percent in 2005. At the same time, more than half of all workers say they've saved less than $25,000 toward retirement, according to the Washington, D.C., based research group. Even among workers 55 and older, more than four...

by Edward Hudgins, Executive Director, The Objectivist Center & Atlas Society. ehudgins@objectivistcenter.org We can always count on the French to show us how holding the wrong moral values and following the wrong economic policies will produce a comedie that becomes tres tragique. Hundreds of thousands of students have been taking to the streets from Paris to Lyon demonstrating and rioting against a new labor law that will allow employers to dismiss without cause employees 26 years old or younger within the first two years of being hired. France has some of Europe's most stringent laws restricting the freedom of employers...

By Bob Haran; The recent marches in opposition to Rep. James Sensenbrener’s bill, H.R. 4437, that would make it a felony to be in the country illegally, has raised a question in my mind. Why don't we make the people responsible for causing people to enter our country illegally, felons? Congress should amend H.R. 4437 and instead of making it a felony to be in the country illegally, make it a felony to illegally hire someone in the country illegally. To make people who are for the most part, law abiding, into felons, is ludicrous. Why does our government refuse...

Riot by migrant workers halts construction of Dubai skyscraper Brian Whitaker and agencies Thursday March 23, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Construction of what is expected to be the world's tallest building was halted yesterday after 2,500 workers in Dubai rioted over pay and conditions, causing damage estimated at £500,000. The trouble broke out on Tuesday night when buses due to take labourers to a residential camp at the end of their shift were delayed, witnesses said. Workers from the Burj Dubai tower site and surrounding housing developments then chased and assaulted security officers, broke into offices, smashed computers and files,...