For one month in 2017, Alexis Marquez went to work every day at a courthouse in Lower Manhattan, where she served as the principal court attorney for a New York State judge. Her salary was paid by New York State. Her tax forms listed the state as her employer. But when Ms. Marquez sued New […]
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I dropped my freshly cooked lunch all over the carpet. It wasn’t the reason I broke down just outside my office, but it was all the excuse I needed. I fell to my knees, screamed at the carpet, and cried as I shakily cleaned up my food. Then I sat down to write this paragraph. […]
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When José Quizhi heard the news about a building collapse in the Bronx on Tuesday, he quickly made his way to the scene from New Jersey. Mr. Quizhi, an Ecuadorean immigrant whose seven relatives were working at the job site, said he feared the worst. While Mr. Quizhi’s brother walked away unscathed, another family member, […]
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One afternoon last February, in front of dozens of riled-up protesters and two police officers, a small, visibly distraught woman confronted her employer at Sunshine Shirt Laundry Center, a family-owned cleaner in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. In the back of the store, stacks of dirty shirts spilled from a few laundry carts alongside an ironing board, […]
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UPTON, N.Y. — As a technician at Brookhaven National Laboratory, one of the nation’s most prestigious science labs, Joseph Marino’s job in the late 1990s and early 2000s was to clean and maintain the supercomputers that have helped researchers unlock some of the world’s biggest scientific and medical mysteries. He polished copper connectors, he said, […]
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PARIS — Construction resumed at the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris on Monday, weeks after authorities had shut the site down over worries about lead contamination linked to the fire in April. The work restarted with stricter decontamination measures in place, but amid concerns that authorities still weren’t doing enough to contain the blaze’s toxic fallout. […]
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Jones Day, one of the nation’s largest law firms, faced a harsh spotlight this year when six female lawyers filed a class-action complaint saying they had faced gender and pregnancy discrimination while working there and had been subjected to a “fraternity culture.” Now the glare has intensified, with a couple formerly employed at Jones Day […]
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The United States is a nation of immigrants, and a nation that exploits immigrants. It’s been a tangled partnership in which both sides benefit, if unevenly, given the power employers have over their most vulnerable workers. Millions have gained citizenship and productive lives while the economy has thrived. Agriculture could not exist without an immigrant […]
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A mystery explosion at a Russian weapons testing range involved radioactive materials, the authorities admitted on Saturday, as the blast’s admitted death toll rose and signs of a creeping radiation emergency, or at the least fear of one, grew harder to mask. In a statement released at 1 a.m. Saturday, Russia’s nuclear energy company, Rosatom, […]
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A 21-year-old man was charged with murder last week after shooting another man in the parking lot of a Walmart in Auburn, Me. At the retailer’s store in North Bergen, N.J., a woman squirted pepper spray at people around the customer service desk in February, temporarily blinding some employees and customers. She then retreated into […]
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The United States is the only advanced industrial nation that doesn’t have national laws guaranteeing paid maternity leave. It is also the only advanced economy that doesn’t guarantee workers any vacation, paid or unpaid, and the only highly developed country (other than South Korea) that doesn’t guarantee paid sick days. In contrast, the European Union’s […]
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Around 10 most nights, Nikeisah Newton hops into her car for a 10-minute drive into downtown Portland, Ore., so that she can deliver healthy meals that include ingredients like massaged kale to strippers working the evening shift. “One of the best forms of activism is feeding people,” Ms. Newton said. Her company is called Meals […]
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When it comes to lawsuits alleging discrimination, the wheels of justice sometimes turn even more slowly than usual. “It’s a difficult process, more difficult than it needs to be,” said Jeff Vardaro, a civil rights attorney in Columbus, Ohio. These cases can become complex and expensive, and defendants and their attorneys have incentives to drag […]
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I had just started my lunch shift when the phone pinged: Uber Eats, pickup at Cocina del Sur on West 38th Street in Manhattan, five blocks away. Great! I pedaled down West 40th into congealing crosstown traffic. Seconds later my phone ponged — different sound. Postmates, another delivery app: Pick up two orders at Shake […]
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Eugene Scalia, whom President Trump intends to nominate as labor secretary, is often hired by companies when they are sued by workers, or when they want to push back against new employment laws and regulations. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised him as an “excellent choice,” saying he would be a valuable asset to the […]
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Smoking pot cost Kimberly Cue her job. Ms. Cue, a 44-year-old chemical engineer from Silicon Valley, received an offer this year from a medical device manufacturer only to have it rescinded when the company found out that she smoked prescription marijuana to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. “My email was set up with the company,” she […]
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The metal detector at the Jackson County Detention Center in Kansas City, Mo., beeped repeatedly when Laurie Snell, a lawyer, tried to enter the facility on May 31. She was passing through security on her way to visit a client, but something she was wearing was setting off the detector. She removed her shoes, her […]
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[Read all Times reporting on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. | Sign up for the weekly Science Times email.] Despite NASA’s successful Apollo landings, humans have spent very little time on the moon. In total, 12 Apollo astronauts lived on the lunar surface for roughly 10 days, and traveled outside their […]
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The invisible nature of my chronic illness protects me from a whole universe of discrimination and microaggressions, but it also insulates me from potential support. Of course, I acknowledge that my position is a privileged one. Some disabilities announce themselves as soon as a job candidate enters an interview room, along with all of the […]
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SAN FRANCISCO — In February, about a dozen employees at a small technology company called NPM embarked on an effort that is often frowned upon at start-ups: trying to unionize. For more than three months, the workers had battled the company’s new management over their hours, a changing workplace culture and diversity issues, said seven […]
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