An unlikely big player in digital media: unions

The minimum wage issue has been debated endlessly, with arguments both for and against its effectiveness. An increase, tested in some states and enacted in others, immeasurably betters the quality of life for low-income families.

Bangladesh has often struggled maintaining safety in the workplace. But a new effort ensures that Bangladeshi workers are trained about how to better follow security and safety restrictions to create a safer working environment.

Americans often want to connect to a cause beyond writing a check. Crowdsourcing is creating new forms of philanthropy globally, giving donors more choice and a stronger connection to the projects they fund.

In prison, most inmates are alienated from social practices and can be a tax burden for the states. The Colorado Correctional Industries is a program that positions inmates in different forms of labor such as making stuffed toys, farming fish, picking fruit, tending livestock, and creating crafts to be sold at grocery stores. The program makes inmates into taxpayers instead of tax burdens and offers skills that are useful for future employment once they leave prison.

America’s system of health care is based on an old industrial-era model, without taking into account a decentralized, mobile, independent workforce that remains largely unprotected without health and unemployment insurance. The Freelancers Insurance Company, based in New York State, offers competitive premiums by having their executives receive salaries at low wages. The model keeps costs under control, which in turn makes health care more accessible to independent workers.

In the past five years, as federal and state minimum wage levels failed to keep pace with the cost of living, and as the recession took its toll, the living wage movement has accelerated. Across the United States, more than 125 cities and counties have enacted ordinances or passed ballot initiatives to lift the wages of the working poor.

After years of banning labor unions in Bangladesh, garment workers unionized to fight for higher wages and safer working conditions. For women, this isn't traditionally a space they were welcomed in, but now they’re holding their own meetings to ensure women’s safety is ensured on the job.

Areas of High Point, North Carolina have suffered from crime, poverty, and neglect, until the city began implementing Operation Ceasefire, a policing program that uses data collecting, community support against crime. High Point is now leading the country in its success of Operation Ceasefire, boasting dramatic reductions in violent crimes, domestic abuse, robberies, and drug-related offenses.

Throughout India, wastepickers – people who scour landfills for garbage they can sell to recyclers – live at the bottom of society. But the city of Pune did something radical: with the help of a collective, they did away with expensive garbage trucks, and now all household garbage is collected by wastepickers with pushcarts. Pune saves millions of dollars each year and recycles more – and the wastepickers have decent wages and social standing. The concept is now spreading globally.

For decades, migrant workers in Florida have been employed under dreadful conditions, picking produce without breaks under extreme temperatures and women being sexually harassed. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has demanded that growers increase wages, mandate rest breaks, and prohibit sexual harassment. The Coalition has partnered with big food companies, notably McDonald’s, Yum Brands, and Walmart, which have pledged to buy only from growers who follow these standards.