From The Blog of the Century

By Richard Kahlenberg - 03/05/2012 

Reaction has been spirited to a proposal Moshe Marvit and I outlined in theNew York Times last week to protect under the Civil Rights Act individuals who are discriminated against for trying to form a union. As the article, and our new book, Why Labor Organizing Should Be a Civil Right, suggest, labor laws technically protect individuals who are fired for supporting a union, but the sanctions are so weak that individuals deserve the full protection of the Civil Rights Act, which includes compensatory and punitive damages.

From The CHRONICLE of Higher Education 

March 4, 2012 - By Richard Kahlenberg

On Thursday, I published an op-ed in The New York Times with Moshe Marvit, a labor and job discrimination attorney, arguing that we should amend the Civil Rights Act to outlaw discrimination against workers trying to organize a union. Under current labor laws, dismissing an employee for union activities is technically illegal, but the law is routinely broken because the penalties are so weak. In the op-ed and a new book, Why Labor Organizing Should Be a Civil Right, we argue that the opportunity to organize in the workplace is a fundamental human right that deserves protection under the Civil Rights Act, which has much more powerful sanctions than our labor laws.

By Catherine Lei

Thursday, March 1st, 2012 - Princeton, NJ - The University will stop investing in the embattled hospitality firm HEI, ending more than three years of controversy on campus about the company’s alleged workers’ rights violations, Princeton University Investment Company  president Andrew Golden confirmed in a statement to The Daily Princetonian late Wednesday night. The decision followed the actions of Yale, Brown and the University of Pennsylvania, which have all declined to reinvest.

The decision was met with swift approval by rights group UNITE HERE, which claims that HEI “has a growing record of exploitative labor practices at their hotels.” Princeton for Workers’ Rights has also strongly advocated that the University remove its investments in HEI in light of the allegations.

Updated story From the HuffingtonPost. First Posted: 03/ 1/2012 3:04 pm Updated: 03/ 1/2012 3:52 pm

A group of Chicago homeowners, hospitality workers and community leaders is calling on Chicago's wealthiest family to pay their fair share of property taxes.

Unite Here, a hospitality union representing over 15,000 hotel and food service workers in Chicago, released a report Thursday titled "Tax Relief for Billionaires" that accuses members of the Pritzker family of routinely soliciting and obtaining local property tax reductions on their multi-million dollar Chicago homes.