More than four in 10 private-sector workers and 80% of low-wage workers do not have paid sick days. This means people, especially women who are more likely to work in low-wage jobs, constantly have to choose between their health and a paycheck. 

Overtime, Over State Lines? is a cross-post from Working America’s Dear David workplace advice column.

Question:

My son works part-time at a shipping/receiving business. He was hired by an outside trucking company to work there. His co-workers who are actual employees of the shipping/receiving business are full-time. They are told that they cannot receive time and a half for overtime because the company is from Tennessee and the contract (not a union contract) was signed under Tennessee rules. The company is in Georgia. (My son is not affected because he is hired from the outside and only gets about 32 hours at most per week.) I’ve never heard of this before. Is that true, or is the employer ripping them off?

—Concerned Parent, Georgia

Mahoma Lopez and his mostly immigrant co-workers at the Hot & Crusty Bakery on 63rd St. and Second Ave. in Manhattan have a collective bargaining agreement that includes wage standards, vacations, sick  days and more. But organizing their independent union and winning that contract was a struggle as a new “Op-Doc” video on The New York Times website shows.

You may have heard by now about the McDonald's budgeting tool that assumes people only pay $20 for health insurance and doesn't account for food, gas or other living expenses. 

The AFL-CIO, MomsRising.org and AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth Shuler hosted a tweetchat yesterday on what workplace issues women care most about. 

See some highlights from the tweetchat after the jump. 

Washington State has a world-class aerospace cluster, employing more than 130,000 people making products the rest of the world wants to buy. In 2003, the Boeing Co. cast a chill on the state, moving its headquarters to Chicago. In 2009, the chill deepened with the decision to assemble some 787s in South Carolina.

In 2012, MedStar Washington (D.C.) Hospital Center—where some 1,850 registered nurses and members of National Nurses United (NNU) work—unilaterally instituted sweeping reductions and changes in the nurses’ health benefits.

A federal judge last week upheld an arbitrator's ruling that MedStar acted unlawfully and must reimburse the nurses for any increased costs they paid and roll back the reductions and changes.  

The AFL-CIO and MomsRising.org invite you to a tweetchat today at 2 p.m. EDT to discuss the well-being of and most pressing issues facing women and moms in the workplace. Join us to share your comments, resources or questions by adding the hashtag #WellnessWed to your tweets at that time.

You’ve probably heard it from a colleague, or maybe from a friend or family member:  

“Kids these days… they’re just too ambivalent to care about labor unions or workers' rights.”

But as it turns out, that’s just not true. Young people are actually big fans of unions. Fully 61% of young people view labor unions favorably – and that’s more than 10 points higher than the national average, according to a new Pew poll.

Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) President David B. Durkee issued the following statement in response to the impending re-entry by Hostess Brands, LLC, into the snack cake market:

“This coming week, Hostess Brands, LLC, is expected to re-enter the wholesale snack cake market.  Despite the fanfare, the long-term viability of this effort is highly uncertain. Rather than hire professional, experienced bakers who have produced quality snack cakes in the company’s bakeries for decades, Hostess management has chosen instead to hire primarily workers with little or no experience in the demanding wholesale snack cake baking industry.