WEEKEND READER: Stopping Corporate Looters

Aditi Ramaswami -

Earlier this month, the U.S. Labor Department ordered Iowan pork processor Seaboard Triumph Foods to shell out $331,000 in back pay to workers from whom they had stolen wages. Seaboard’s illegal wage theft is part of a larger trend of labor violations among corporations — many of which receive generous government subsidies — that has finally started to attract regulators’ attention.

As Pat Garofalo writes for Boondoggle in a story we highlight below, “By pairing vigorous labor law enforcement with antitrust reform and an end to corporate subsidies, states and localities can begin to break the hold corporations have over local labor markets and ensure that workers are paid a fair wage for a fair day’s work.”

Read all about it in this week’s Weekend Reader, exclusively for supporting subscribers.

Also In Today’s Weekend Reader:

  • The reporters who documented the crisis in Mariupol.
  • A call to stop burning things.
  • Teachers are feeling the impact of federal COVID funding cuts.