Ten years after the collapse at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, the garment industry’s deadliest disaster, reforms are incomplete. The opaqueness of today’s complex supply chain is part of the problem.
What a ‘gig worker’ is remains ill-defined, which can suit employers. But the spread of the gig economy means more workers don’t have the same rights and protections as employees.
Ning Ma, University of British Columbia and Dongwook Yoon, University of British Columbia
Rating services on ride and task apps disadvantage gig workers, whose future work assignments are affected by their ratings. Women workers are made vulnerable, and have to contend with harassment.
Jeb Barnes, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Thomas F. Burke, Wellesley College
American ambivalence about government has left the courts to play an outsized role responding to public health crises like lead poisoning, asbestos-related illnesses and now, the coronavirus pandemic.
Some members of Congress want to grant businesses total immunity from coronavirus-related civil liability. A legal scholar explains why it’s unnecessary – and may be counterproductive.
Regulations are catching up with toxic chemicals we’re exposed to as products’ end users. But workers in un- or underregulated places are still at risk, even from chemicals designed to be “green.”
A year has now passed since an 8-storey building in Dhaka known as Rana Plaza collapsed killing 1,134 workers in just an hour. Much of the commentary since has focused on the need for Western brands to…
Visiting Senior Faculty Fellow, Ash Center for Democracy Harvard Kennedy School / Professor, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University