Jun 20 Watch 5:40 Tough times for U.S. towns powered by fossil fuel energy jobs By PBS News Hour Plummeting fuel prices are usually considered a good thing, but in rural Wyoming -- where fossil fuels like coal employ 10 percent of the state’s private sector workforce -- they can spell disaster. For the people of Gillette, dropping coal… Continue watching
Apr 07 Watch 8:03 Dusty mining conditions trap Indian workers with deadly lung disease By PBS News Hour In India's Rajasthan desert, the work of mining sandstone can be lethal. Silicosis, a slow, irreversible loss of lung function, is easily preventable with masks, but workers wear little protection in the blazing heat. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro… Continue watching
Jul 30 Watch 8:42 Do labor-saving robots spell doom for American workers? By PBS News Hour The onslaught of automation that's replacing human workers -- from golf caddies to bank tellers -- may be putting us on a path to humanitarian crisis, says Jerry Kaplan, author of "Humans Need Not Apply." As technology grows and jobs… Continue watching
Feb 25 TJ Maxx parent company will raise workers’ pay to $10 an hour in 2016 By Jasmine Wright The parent company that owns retailers T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and HomeGoods announced on Wednesday a plan to raise their workers' wages to $9 an hour in June, with an eventual rise to $10 an hour by 2016. The move makes… Continue reading
Feb 20 Will your job exist in the future, or will a robot have replaced you? By Simone Pathe In the long view of history, technological advancement unleashed by the Industrial Revolution has come to be seen as a net positive for economic development and everyone’s well-being, even those workers who initially lost their jobs. There’s reason to wonder,… Continue reading
Dec 01 This is why the middle class can’t get ahead By Nick Hanauer Billionaire venture capitalist Nick Hanauer explains why today's middle class is feeling stuck, how that hurts the whole economy and what President Obama can do about it -- with a stroke of his executive pen. Continue reading
Apr 17 Watch SeaTac airport workers fight exclusion from $15 minimum wage By PBS News Hour In SeaTac, Wash., home of the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, citizens voted last year to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. However, a court decision — now being appealed — has excluded the 5,000 or so workers on airport… Continue watching
Apr 16 Proposed minimum wage hikes still won’t benefit workers in exempt jobs By Alan Fram, Associated Press WASHINGTON -- Some low-paid workers won't benefit even if a long-shot Democratic proposal to raise the federal minimum wage becomes law. More than a dozen categories of jobs are exempt from the minimum, currently $7.25 an hour. Those exclusions, rooted… Continue reading
Dec 06 Watch As fast food workers protest low pay, some argue wage increases would kill jobs As fast food workers protest low pay, some argue wage increases would kill jobs… Continue watching
Nov 29 Watch How holiday business openings impact workers How retailer pressure to compete for holiday dollars impacts workers, culture… Continue watching