Five workers were transported to a hospital after authorities say a small explosion happened at Texas International Terminals in Galveston Thursday.

Dozens of workers outside the Bayboard Container Terminal in Seabrook holding signs saying “NO WORK WITHOUT A FAIR CONTRACT” and “ILA WORKERS OVER MACHINES; DEFEND OUR JOBS AND RIGHTS.”

Several canvassing workers submitted a wage theft complaint against a city council candidate after they alleged they have not been paid for helping with his campaign, according to a news release from civil rights organization FIEL.

The Biden administration is proposing a new rule that would make 3.6 million more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay, reviving an Obama-era policy effort that was ultimately scuttled in court.

The union organizing Starbucks workers says a strike timed to Pride month closed 21 stores over the weekend, including the company’s flagship Reserve Roastery in Seattle.

A 36-year-old man accused of shooting at restaurant workers over not having enough barbeque sauce is now being held in jail with no bond.

Vietnamese workers helping construct the first Chinese car tire factory in Europe say they're shivering in barracks without heat, going hungry and stuck in a plainland in Serbia because their passports have been taken by their Chinese employer.

Companies are confronting demands by hourly workers on terms that often used to be non-negotiable: scheduling.

But in most states, meatpacking workers are still waiting for their turn to be vaccinated and are ranked behind health care workers, residents of long-term care centers and people aged 65 and older. Marc Perrone, UCFW president, argues that meatpacking workers, grocery store employees and other essential workers should be vaccinated ahead of older people who don’t have other health conditions. In a recent union survey that also included grocery and other food production workers, 70% of respondents said they want to be vaccinated. The UFCW, which represents roughly 80% of the nation’s beef and pork workers and 33% of its poultry workers, estimates that at least 21,900 meatpacking workers have been infected or exposed, and 132 have died of COVID-19. “Meatpacking workers like me are still facing risks every day.”___Associated Press writer Stephen Groves in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, contributed to this report.

HOUSTON – A Harvard Medical School professor and doctor of internal medicine published a poem as an ode to essential workers fighting the coronavirus pandemic and their families and it’s now circulating widely on social media. Wendy Stead, MD authored the poem “An Essential Worker’s List of Pandemic Chores for the Kids”, written about the children of essential workers who were left home to take care of the chores, from laundry to schoolwork. In the poem published on the JAMA Network, she emphasized that she “is an essential worker” and called it a comfort of being one “while the dead (bodies) piled up.”“It’s OK to lose the game. Sometimes a leader needs to stay calm so everyone else knows it will be OK,” the poem said. Many of the readers on JAMA Network took the time to comment on her poem, saying it captured the conflict between a mom with her love for her children and her career as a frontline worker.

Workers prepare mail-in ballots for counting, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, at the convention center in Lancaster, Pa., following Tuesday's election. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)If you need help with the Public File, call (713) 778-4745.

In every recession since the 1970s, older workers had persistently lower unemployment rates than midcareer workers — partly because of seniority benefits. But in the current recession, older workers experienced higher unemployment rates than midcareer workers in each month since the onset of the pandemic. The older workers’ unemployment rates from April through September were 1.1 percentage points higher than mid-career workers — at 9.7% versus 8.6%. “The higher rate of unemployment for older workers might be because this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for employers to shed older workers and not fear investigation by the labor department," Ghilarducci said. The researchers who conducted the new study recommended that Congress increase and extend unemployment benefits for older workers, discourage withdrawals from retirement accounts, lower Medicare eligibility to 50 and create a federal Older Workers Bureau to promote the welfare of older workers.

New reality for front-line workersPublished: May 14, 2020, 5:54 pmThis portion of "Something Good" chronicles the front lines. Also, a look at how communities are stepping up to assist others, such as helping to make masks.

(CNN) – Frontline workers in the health care industry who are responding to the coronavirus can get a free tall brewed or iced coffee at Starbucks. Police officers, firefighters, paramedics, doctors, nurses, hospital staff and researchers can get a free beverage in stores until May 3, the company said. For the next two weeks, however, the free cup could be more difficult than usual to get as the company has closed a number of its US and Canada cafes because of the pandemic. It's temporarily only offering drive-thru and delivery only. However, some locations within or nearby hospitals remain open.