WASHINGTON -- Earlier this year, Missouri business leaders presented lawmakers with a six-point plan they said would bring jobs to the state during tough economic times. Since then, state Republicans have aggressively pushed the agenda and added their own legislative tweaks. Critics say the business-friendly platform is currently one of...

The next time you find calling technical support to be a brutally frustrating experience, just be glad you're not on the other end of the line.

A new study conducted by University of Maryland researchers and published in The Academy of Management Journal found that call-center workers are...

WASHINGTON -- David Micallef never thought he’d be involved in a labor dispute at age 25, much less assuming a lead role in one. But as president of his local fire union, Micallef has been leading his fellow firefighters in a long-running fight with the city of Harper Woods, Mich....

Raising the minimum wage wouldn’t cripple job growth and hurt businesses like some conservative groups have argued, according to a new study. To the contrary, it could pump money into the economy and reduce turnover in low-wage positions, the researchers found.

The current federal minimum wage...

Former cop Bill Fournier told the Maine state legislature last week about the time he responded to a crime scene and found a 4-year-old girl burned alive in an oven. The grisly 1984 murder sent his life off the rails, Fournier said, to the point where he once...

Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute, was recently doing some research for a textbook he’s revising when he stumbled upon a surprising entry in the Federal Registry. On March 21, the U.S. Air Force waived the “Buy American” provision of the American...

WASHINGTON- If Walmart were to pay its employees a minimum of $12 an hour, what would that wage baseline do to the retail behemoth’s famously low prices? According to a new study, probably not much.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Labor Research and Education...

When she isn’t sidelined by an injury, Nenita Ibe cleans 16 rooms a day at the Santa Clara hotel where she’s worked for 10 years. Since some rooms have two beds, that adds up to 25 mattresses per day, each of which needs to be lifted up on each side...

WASHINGTON -- Danielle Thomas spends much of her day with the phone to her ear, listening to hard-luck stories about Alabama workers still dealing with the fallout of last year’s Gulf oil spill. Thomas is an attorney with a legal-aid group that’s helping people navigate the sometimes-byzantine compensation process overseen...

The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Dukes v. Wal-Mart, the largest class-action civil-rights lawsuit in American history, and will soon decide whether the sex-discrimination case -- which could affect 1.6 million women -- can move forward.

Less attention has been paid to a much

WASHINGTON -- If the Obama administration and House leadership can’t strike a budget deal within the next few hours, here are just a few things that won’t be happening in the District of Columbia next week: trash collection, road repair, parking enforcement, traffic management, license and registration renewal,...

WASHINGTON -- As many speculate the economic implications of a government shutdown, here in the capital, jitters are felt by one economy in particular--the one that trades in hot dogs, snow cones, and CIA t-shirts down on the National Mall. Washington’s vendors, it turns out, are feeling pretty “non-essential” amidst...

WASHINGTON -- With American miners still succumbing to black lung disease, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has proposed a plan to reduce the number of such deaths through the stricter regulation of mining sites. But at a congressional committee meeting last week, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) voiced concern...