Dunkin’ Donuts original location in Quincy after restoration. (Photograph by Victor Grigas, Creative Commons.)
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Workers are filing a class action lawsuit against the 16-store Dunkin’ Donuts franchise in downtown Chicago.
The suit was announced Wednesday. It alleges wage theft and unsafe conditions at the stores.
Tens of Thousands of People March and Rally to Defend Public Schools in 80 Cities
In about 80 cities nationwide May 4 was a national day of action to reclaim public schools. The Alliance to Reclaim Our schools, consisting of more than a hundred community and labor organizations, organized the day of rallies, marches and walk-ins for Schools All Our Children Deserve.
It’s a movement to defend public schools against privatization, attacks on teacher unions and the erosion of public school budgets to feed private charter schools.
“We had more than 150 public schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District participate. And we know we are joined by tens of thousands of our counterparts in around 80 cities in all regions of the country who are staging a series of demands that we want resources for our sustainable public community schools,” said Arlene Inouye, treasurer of the United Teachers of Los Angeles.
The Alliance To Reclaim Our Schools wants public schools that are well-funded and immune from corporate agendas where all students get equal high quality educations and where educator and community voices are respected.
“In Los Angeles we have the Broad and Walmart Foundation saying in a report that their intention is to wipe out, is to take out half of our public schools and replace them with unregulated charter schools. And we feel strongly about this and we will continue to fight against the billionaires. They may have all the money but we have a lot of people who are rallying around our public schools,” Inouye said.
FLOC Protests Tobacco Field Child Labor and Working Conditions At Reynolds American Shareholders Meeting
The Farm Labor Organizing Committee says the tobacco industry is turning a blind eye to child labor and dangerous working conditions in America’s tobacco fields.
FLOC is protesting at the Reynolds American shareholders’ meeting Thursday in Winston-Salem, N.C., demanding Reynolds American humanize these working conditions and give workers a voice on the job.
FLOC’s Justin Flores says farmworkers will take their message directly to Reynolds American inside the shareholders meeting and also rally outside.
“We’re going to have 40 people—the majority of whom are farmworkers themselves and young FLOC members—that are there to speak about their experiences and talk about the wage theft, retaliation and all the problems that are really just all throughout the Reynolds supply chain. Farmworkers from different states, people from all over the place coming together at Winston-Salem, and try to get the word out about what’s happening so that Reynolds American can’t keep hiding the facts from the public,” Flores said.