Posts tagged United States
Editorial: Against the Hollywood bailout
October 1, 2026 // The greatest job decline after Covid was in 2023, before Hollywood’s chief competitor, the U.K., expanded its film subsidies. That was the year of the industry’s “double strike,” when actors and writers simultaneously walked off studio lots for months. Hundreds of projects were delayed or outright canceled as filming rolled to a halt, costing the entertainment industry billions of dollars. When studios finally signed contracts to end the strikes, they had to accept unions’ core demands, ballooning their compensation in perpetuity. Is it any wonder they have looked to film elsewhere? The proposed federal tax credit would bail out the union workers who bargained for more than they were worth. It would subsidize almost all labor costs — for employees and contractors, both pre-production and post-production — of film crews, animators, special-effects artists, writers, actors, and even producers and directors. There are no limits on eligible compensation, so taxpayers would pick up a good chunk of the salaries of Christopher Nolan and Tom Cruise.
United States Announces Successful Resolution of Rapid Response Labor Mechanism Matter at Modern Metal Alloys, S.A. de C.V.
July 22, 2025 // Department of Labor: United States has resumed liquidation of tariffs on goods from the MMA facility, which manufactures aluminum for the production of auto parts. The RRM, developed under the first Trump Administration, is an unprecedented trade tool that helps to level the playing field for American workers and businesses, by preventing Mexican businesses from gaining a competitive advantage by violating labor laws
Back-to-work order issued for two major Canada railroads. Union will comply, but lawsuit planned
August 26, 2024 // Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon order the lockouts to end just over 16 hours after they began because government officials couldn’t bear to watch the economic disaster unfold if the railroads remained shut down. MacKinnon noted the board’s decision in a post on the social platform X and said he expects the railroads and employees to resume operations as soon as possible. Businesses all across Canada and the United States said they would quickly face a crisis without rail service because they rely on freight railroads to deliver their raw materials and finished products. Without regular deliveries, many businesses would possibly have to cut production or even shut down.
Behind the AI boom, an army of overseas workers in ‘digital sweatshops’
August 31, 2023 // In the Philippines, one of the world’s biggest destinations for outsourced digital work, former employees say that at least 10,000 of these workers do this labor on a platform called Remotasks, which is owned by the $7 billion San Francisco start-up Scale AI. Scale AI has paid workers at extremely low rates, routinely delayed or withheld payments and provided few channels for workers to seek recourse, according to interviews with workers, internal company messages and payment records, and financial statements. Rights groups and labor researchers say Scale AI is among a number of American AI companies that have not abided by basic labor standards for their workers abroad.
Canada, U.S. shippers brace for possible CP Rail strike, latest supply-chain disruption
March 19, 2022 // Numerous U.S. farm industry groups wrote a joint letter to President Joe Biden this month asking him and the Canadian government to avert a strike.