Archive for January 9th, 2009
Book by Chicago workers advocate explores wage theft
The Koran says to pay a worker before the sweat on his brow dries.
A verse in the Hebrew Scriptures says employers must pay their workers before sundown, lest a worker “cry to the Lord against you, and you will be held guilty.”
And of course, there’s always the classic: “Thou shalt not steal.”
There’s nothing subtle about these admonitions, says Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice, a Chicago-based nonprofit that connects organized labor and the religious left.
Bobo knows her chapter and verse; her family attended an evangelical church three times a week while she was growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio. She majored in religion at Barnard College and leads the choir at her church in Rogers Park.
US mine deaths fall to 51, the lowest on record
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — The number of miners killed on the job in the United States fell to 51 in 2008, the fewest number of deaths since officials began keeping records nearly a century ago, according to preliminary data released by federal regulators Thursday.
The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration reported that 29 of the deaths occurred in coal mines, down from 34 in 2007; and 22 were in copper, stone and other types of mines, down from 33 in 2007.
The previous low was 55 in 2004.
