News & Commentary

October 9, 2016

Hannah Belitz

Hannah Belitz is a student at Harvard Law School.

The Harvard University dining service workers’ strike continues.  Students are rallying to the cause by joining the picket lines, buying food for the striking workers, setting up a fundraising page, writing op-eds, and more.

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Photos: Hannah Belitz

At the New York Times, Isabel Escolar argues for a “bill of rights” for housekeepers.  After Escolar filed a wage theft lawsuit against an employer who refused to pay her earned wages, she “was shocked to learn how few rights [she] had under Illinois law.”  Many federal labor laws do not cover domestic work, and although a handful of states have passed some form of a domestic workers’ bill of rights, most have not.  That said, some efforts — including those of Escolar — have been successful: in August, Illinois became the seventh state to adopt a law to protect the rights of domestic workers.  The six other states include Massachusetts, California, New York, Oregon, Hawaii, and Connecticut.

The Supreme Court of British Columbia has issued a judgment allowing three Eritrean workers to file a lawsuit against a Canadian company for alleged human rights abuses that took place in Eritrea.  According to the Chicago Tribune, this is the first time that a Canadian court has recognized the ability of foreign claimants to file a lawsuit against a Canadian company for violations that took place overseas.  The Canadian Centre for International Justice also notes that this “marks the first time that a mass tort claim for modern slavery will go forward in a Canadian court.”

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