Do wage theft laws in Ohio harm or help workers?

To change its culture of overwork, South Korea passed a law capping the workweek at 52 hours for many employees. The move follows the introduction of the five-day workweek in 2004. Young people are especially supportive of the changes, but some issues remain unclear such as how to record the hours required for business trips and entertaining clients, as well as how to prevent bosses from giving their employees work to do from home.

The early impact of Germany’s wage transparency law has been limited because it only applies to large companies and, while it permits an employee to inquire whether she is paid differently than her male colleagues, she must still sue her employer herself in order to rectify the situation. In the fight for fair pay, it’s more effective to put the onus on companies to demonstrate responsible behavior rather than leave individuals to battle entrenched power structures by themselves.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Berkeley say that Connecticut’s “permit-to-purchase” law requiring people to get a purchasing license before buying a handgun - despite early criticism - was actually a huge success for public safety in reducing gun homicides, especially relative to other states.

Workers at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island voted to unionize after two years of organizing by the independent Amazon Labor Union. The union was started by a worker who was fired from the warehouse after protesting unsafe conditions during the COVID-19, and a current employee. The union raised funds through GoFundMe to carry out innovative organizing tactics, like making TikTok videos and bringing free food from diverse cultural backgrounds to feed workers coming and going from their around the clock shifts.

A court in Costa Rica decided that a local municipality was illegally polluting a stream and this ruling set the stage for the country to ensure that a clean and healthy environment is a human right. They ingrained this right in their constitution joining about 110 other countries that have constitutionally recognized it. Although the law is not perfect, it has allowed courts to rule that killing endangered green sea turtles is unconstitutional, for example. Costa Rica’s success with this legal pathway could be used in other countries seeking to adopt the right to a healthy environment.

Gender Equality Funds is a tool that makes it possible for people to know if the mutual fund companies in their 401(k)’s are gender inclusive. The tools pulls data from 4,000 mutual funds companies and gives them a gender score. The aim is to empower people to invest their money in socially responsible funds. “I believe this is going to be a tsunami of capital shifting away from companies that are not responsive on gender equality.”

Host governments tend to be wary of allowing refugees to move freely and work legally. However, integrating refugees into the labor market as quickly as possible reduces the concentration of newcomers in the informal sector, benefiting both locals and refugees in the long run.

Spurred by student activism and a research study on outsourcing, Harvard University implemented a parity policy in 2002. This means all university workers, regardless of whether the university or an outside contractor pays them, receive full benefits and higher pay. For an institution like Harvard that can afford to pay workers substantially more, there is greater employee satisfaction. However, researchers are still exploring if higher wages for some mean lower wages for others or fewer employees hired in the future.

In the 1900s Lewis Hine posed as a bible salesman so he could get inside factories and take pictures of child workers. At the time children from 10-15 were put to work, and had no legal protections. Years later his pictures became a catalyst for passing child labor laws.

France, Italy, Germany, and now the U.S. are passing “anti-stress” laws, which make it illegal or harder for workers to receive emails after work. Research shows that when employees expect to be contacted after work through email, their levels of anxiety and stress go up. "I think this will lessen a lot of the anxiety that goes with having a job in the city and allow people to draw their own lines about when work ends."