April 2015 | Hillman Foundation

Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

April 2015

Children's Place Agrees to Pay $2 Million to Rana Plaza Survivors Fund

Photo credit: 

JeepersMedia, Creative Commons.

The Children’s Place, a retailer whose goods were being made in the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh at the time of its 2013 collapse, has agreed to pay $2 million to a fund to help survivors of the catastrophe. The deal was brokered by Workers United SEIU.

The labor organization Workers United SEIU reached an agreement with The Children’s Place last Thursday, the day before the second anniversary of the disaster that killed more than 1,100 garment workers in the Rana Plaza factory building in Dhaka, Bangladesh. As a result of that agreement, protests planned at Children’s Place stores for last Friday were canceled. The activist groups plan to continue to press other U.S. retailers, including J.C. Penney and Wal-Mart, for contributions.

Activists hope to raise a total of $30 million for the survivors fund. 

Sidney’s Picks: Cirque du Soleil is a Death Trap & Sex Offender Registries are a Joke

Photo credit: 

Focka, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

US Senate Cafeteria Worker Has No Place to Call Home

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jsnsndr, Creative Commons.

Charles Gladden works in the cafeteria at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, but he has not had a fixed address for 5 years. Instead of going home at night, the 63-year-old diabetic grandfather sleeps in the McPherson Square Metro Station, near the White House.

Gladden recently took part in a one-day strike to draw attention to the fact that the U.S. government is the single biggest indirect creator of jobs that do not pay a living wage. 

Sidney-Winning Domestic Violence Exposé Goes on to Win Pulitzer Prize

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Doug Pardue, Glenn Smith, Jennifer Berry Hawes, and Natalie Caula Hauff of the Post and Courier.

In September 2014, Doug Pardue, Glenn Smith, Jennifer Berry Hawes, and Natalie Caula Haff won the Sidney Award for “Til Death do Us Part,” a fearless, masterfully reported investigation into the domestic homicide crisis in South Carolina.

Read our Backstory Interview about the making of this landmark series 

Today, “Til Death” went on to win the gold medal for Public Service, the most prestigious of all the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism

Our warmest congratulations to Doug, Glenn, Jennifer, and Natalie. We knew they were destined for big things! 

 

Sidney’s Picks: Lead Hurts New York Kids

Photo credit: 

Cat Sidh, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • The New York City Housing Authority is way behind on lead abatement and kids are paying the price. (Hat Tip: Liz)
  • 65% of migrants who died in 2014 drowned in the Mediterranean. How one NGO is trying to save lives at sea.
  • NYU made 10,000 construction workers on its Abu Dhabi campus second-class citizens, denying them wage and hour protections that the rest of NYU’s employees enjoy.

Sidney’s Picks: Today's GOP Is the Party of Jefferson Davis

Photo credit: 

Portrait of Jefferson Davis, by CanonFire09, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • What happens when prisoners get sent home early because of computer glitches? What happens when they have to go back?

Spencer Woodman Wins April Sidney for Exposing Amazon's Outrageous Non-compete Agreements

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Courtesy of Spencer Woodman.

We are very pleased to announce that Spencer Woodman has won the April Sidney Award for exposing the outrageous non-compete agreements that Amazon has been enforcing on its temporary warehouse workers. Woodman found that the mega-retailer was forcing workers to sign 18-month non-compete agreements in order to qualify for a 3-month stint in an Amazon warehouse. The language of the non-compete clause is so sweeping that, if it were enforced, it would appear to bar workers from almost any job anywhere in the world, for a period 6 times longer than they actually worked at Amazon. 

Learn more about Spencer’s reporting and Amazon’s subsequent promise to stop imposing non-competes on hourly workers in The Backstory

Sidney’s Picks: Special War on Women Edition

Photo credit: 

Anthony Chammond, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

  • Texas bill would name judges who authorize abortions for minors.