New York City Council meets today to discuss wage theft in the fast food industry. 

Workers’ groups plan to rally outside the meeting. They want New York State to let New York City set its own minimum wage for the fast food sector. The state legislature voted to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.00 over the next three years. Nine dollars an hour is a step in the right direction, activists say, but it’s still nowhere near a living wage in New York City. 

Advocates for low-wage fast food workers will call on the state Legislature to bequeath wage-setting powers to the City Council at a rally planned at City Hall Thursday afternoon.

Under pressure from unions, progressive groups and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, state lawmakers voted to increase the minimum wage to $9 an hour over the next three years from the current rate of $7.25. But employees at fast food restaurants such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s and Burger King should be earning more than that, and the city should have the power to set those wages, advocates plan to argue Thursday. [Crain’s Insider]

The state is already turning up the heat on fast food. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is reportedly investigating wage theft in the industry. 

[Photo credit: A_Minor, Creative Commons.]

Labor leader Nazma Akter talks with two World Policy Journal editors about the Bangladeshi garment industry. Akter, the founder of the Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation, describes working conditions in local factories and explains why designated garment districts with modern infrastructure are a vital part of any plan to make the industry safer. Akter also explains why weak protections for freedom of association are hampering the labor movement in Bangladesh. Workers are regularly fired for attempting to organize their workplaces. 

[Photo credit: Dhaka street scene, AdamCohn, Creative Commons.]

Thirty-three-year-old reporter Michael Hastings died Tuesday in a car crash in Los Angeles. Hastings is best known for his devastating Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McCrystal, which led to the general’s resignation.

Hastings wasn’t afraid to make enemies to expose the truth, but he also cultivated many friendships. National security reporter Ali Ghirab was one of those friends. He recalls Hastings as a generous mentor to younger journalists, a sentiment echoed by many who knew him:

Michael the reporter was a thing to behold, and no less Michael the friend. He disdained low-level aides and flacks—”his target was always the principal,” Smith wrote. That parsing of the pecking order, though, didn’t extend to his personal life or interactions with colleagues. It can be tough to get a word with star reporters, but not Michael. Young journalists flocked to him, and he talked freely with them. He cared about what even his most junior colleagues thought. He gave and gave and gave to young reporters, who wanted to know his secret (“devote your life to journalism”—and he did); he employed his well-honed bullshit detector and, if everything was copacetic, deferred to them.

[…]

Watching Michael with younger reporters, or doling out advice to aspirants, it was easy to see him years down the road, still baby-faced and energetic, but with some gray hair and a couple extra pounds on his slender waistline. He’d still be coaching, still be helping colleagues achieve their ambitions, and still making time for his friends, to discuss grave matters or just laugh for a while (or both at the same time). Then there’re the expectations for the important work he would have produced. The journalism industry, the country and the world are worse off for losing him. He was a model journalist just as he was a model friend—it’s impossible to know which he was better at. He will be sorely missed.

Dave Weigel of Slate remembers Hastings fondly from the 2012 campaign trail, where Hastings’ utter disinterest in currying favor with powerful sources set him apart from most of his colleagues. 

It’s been a hard spring for socially conscious foodies. Last month, we learned that our unctuous Greek yogurt is polluting the enviornment. Today, we find out that our plump, juicy shrimp might be processed by child slaves in Asia. Tom Philpott delivers the bad news in Mother Jones:

Over the past 20 years, the rapid rise of South Asian shrimp farms has transformed our relationship to the tasty crustaceans, shifting it from an occasional luxury to an all-you-can-eat commodity. Twenty years ago, most of our shrimp came from domestic wild fisheries. Today, we import 90 percent of it, almost all of it farmed. But who works on these foreign farms and processing facilities—and under what conditions? A new briefing paper by the well-respected International Labor Rights Forum and the Warehouse Workers United (WWU) alleges serious labor abuses, including illegal use of underage workers, at the Thai shrimp producer Narong Seafood, at least until recently a major supplier of Walmart and a leading shrimp processor for the US market, according to a recent analysis by the consultancy Accenture for Humanity United. [MoJo]

WalMart claims it stopped buying from Narong, but Philpott’s reporting suggests otherwise. 

If you’re looking for a more ethical and environmentally sustainable alternative to farmed Asian shrimp, the Marine Stewardship Council recommends wild-caught pink shrimp from Oregon.

[Photo credit: Phú Thịnh Co, Creative Commons.]