The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein
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The Best of the Week’s News
[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]
Yesterday, Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to exempt public sector workers in union shops from paying union dues to cover the costs of collective bargaining. Until now, these workers were exempt from paying dues to cover the union’s political activities, but they still had to pay their fair share of the cost of bargaining on their behalf.
[Photo credit: Harris v. Quinn Press Conference, SEIU, Creative Commons.]
Some timely commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision that the contraceptive mandate of the Affordable Care Act violates the religious freedom of Hobby Lobby, a family-owned chain of craft supply stores. The Court ruled that, under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Hobby Lobby is a person who cannot be required to pay for insurance that covers certain forms of birth control, which Hobby Lobby’s owners falsely believe to be abortifacients.
To learn more about the legal issues involved, check out this very thorough backgrounder from Carmen Green, a recent graduate of Georgetown Law.
[Photo credit: Nicholas Eckhart, Creative Commons.]
The Best of the Week’s News
[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]
Activists in Detroit appealed to the United Nations to stop the city’s plan to disconnect water service to thousands of households that have fallen behind on their water bills. The activists argued that cutting off water would be a human rights violation. This week, three UN officials agreed with their argument:
Three U.N. experts responded Wednesday that the shutoffs could constitute a violation of the human right to water.
“Disconnections due to non-payment are only permissible if it can be shown that the resident is able to pay but is not paying,” human right to water and sanitation expert Catarina de Albuquerque said in a statement issued from the United Nations in Geneva. “In other words, when there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections.” [AP]
de Albuquerque and the UN have no direct enforcement power over the water company, but their solidarity strengthens the activists’ claim that cutting off water to those who legitimately cannot pay is a human rights abuse.
[Photo credit: Detroit fire hydrant, by Carl Ballou, Creative Commons]
Detroit’s water company announced in March that it would be shutting off the taps of over 3000 residents who are behind on their bills. The shutoffs are part of a new iniative to crack down on customers in arrears. Community activists have appealed to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation for help. They argue that the city is gouging its poorest residents and violating their human rights in the process:
“What we see is a violation of the human right to water,” said Meera Karunananthan, an international campaigner with the Blue Planet Project. “The U.S. has international obligations in terms of people’s right to water, and this is a blatant violation of that right. We’re hoping the U.N. will put pressure on the federal government and the state of Michigan to do something about it.”
The groups accuse DWSD of charging unaffordable rates to Detroit citizens, and placing the burden of the city’s fleeing tax base on its poorest residents. They say DWSD is trying to rid itself of low-income customers in a bid to make the utility more attractive for a private takeover. DWSD denies the charge. But the city has acknowledged that at least a partial privatization of DWSD is being considered as Detroit attempts to shed some of its $18 billion in debt. DWSD accounts for $5 billion of that sum. [Al Jazeera America]
The water company says it’s not being malicious. Half of its 323,000 accounts are reportedly in arrears and the company is owed $175 million dollars in unpaid water bills. Officials tried to ease the strain on the company by integrating it with the water systems of some wealthier communities, but the deal fell through. There is talk of privatizing Detroit’s water system.
[Photo credit: “Detroit River Days 2012,” by JoyVanBuhler, Creative Commons.]
The McCallen Monitor, a small newspaper serving the border city of McAllen, Texas, is using the social media compilation service Storify to aggregate coverage of the immigrant influx across the Mexican border, a story that is unfolding in part in the McAllen area.
Reporter Karen Antonacci is using the web service to aggregate infographics, documents, tweets, stories, and other information. It’s a good example of how a small paper can use social media tools to deliver more value to readers.
The Best of the Week’s News
[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]
The shortlists for the PEN Literary Awards have been announced. PEN awards recognize excellence in many different kinds of writing, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, translation, and the literary essay. Finalists for the prize for outstanding essay collection include feminist writer Rebecca Solnit and cultural critic James Wolcott.
The list for the Pen/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award includes neuroscientist Carl Hart and physician/journalist Sherri Fink. Hart is shortlisted for his book on addiction, “High Price,” and Fink is shortlisted for “Five Days at Memorial,” an account of tragic events at a hospital cut off from the world after Hurricane Katrina.
Kum Gang San, a popular Korean restaurant in New York City, is accused of blackmailing employees into unpaid labor with threats of deportation, Sukjong Hong reports for Gothamist:
Servers and bussers at a popular Korean restaurant say they were forced to work 18-hour shifts without overtime, attend church before work on Sundays, and “volunteer” their time picking vegetables at a farm outside the city. According to a federal lawsuit they filed against the management of the restaurant, any refusal to heed the owner’s extraordinary demands resulted in humiliation, termination, and threats of blacklisting and deportation.
Former employees report that if they declined the “invitation” spend their days off as unpaid farmworkers gathering kimchi ingredients, they were expected to drop to their knees and beg their boss’s forgiveness.
In addition to being forced to attend 90-minute unpaid church services before work on Sundays, former employees say they were expected to take turns paying $150 out-of-pocket for catering after the sermon!
The former employees aired their grievances in federal court during a civil trial that concluded on Monday.
[Photo credit: Word to Table, Creative Commons.]
