In the words of a former Bluestone worker, "we live from pay to pay, we depend on our wages to be in our account so that we are able to pay our bills and rent". Bluestone's collapse has left some workers missing out on rent and mortgage payments leaving them feeling "sick" and "anxious". When you put in a day's work you should get a fair day's pay.

We work at the IKEA store in Seattle, Washington. Together we have close to 10 years of experience. We enjoy our jobs at IKEA, and take a lot of pride in delighting our customers. However, like many part-time workers in retail, we struggle to pay our bills. Sometimes we work almost full-time, but many times we have to make ends meet on less than 25 hours per week. After co-workers spoke out about the need for higher pay, IKEA responded by raising starting pay to match the living wage for our community. Beginning January 1, the national starting pay will average $10.76/hour. We think raising starting pay is a step in the right direction, but co-workers with years of experience may receive no raise at all. We think that investing in co-workers will lead to happier employees, better retention, and higher sales growth. That’s why we’re asking Ikea to offer full-time jobs to every co-worker who wants one and raise pay for all co-workers, not just new hires. We’re calling on our coworkers and customers in the United States and around the world to join us in supporting this petition. We know that when we speak up Ikea listens. Together we’ll convince the company to do what’s right. Thank you for standing with us! Kwesi, Martina, Ruthe Ikea Seattle

Walmart says that it prides itself on its commitment to veterans. Last year, the company got a lot of press about hiring veterans. But as a disabled veteran and former Walmart employee, I think they can do more. A lot of members of the military and veterans are on a fixed income and some are even on public assistance. These people fought to uphold the freedoms and rights that we are afforded today and a retailer as big as Walmart can help them by offering a discount for active servicemembers and veterans. A lot of people who serve our country rely on Walmart because of its low prices, but an additional discount could really go a long way in helping these families and would show that Walmart really supports them. I worked for Walmart for four years in Pennsylvania and it was so disappointing when soldiers from local military bases would ask if we had discounts and I had to say no. There’s a lot that Walmart needs to do to treat veterans better -- especially the ones who are store employees -- but offering a discount to the servicemembers and veterans who have sacrificed so much for our country is a good place to start. Please show your support to our vets and military by signing this petition.

Here in Liberia, we are in an urgent cross-border fight to contain the deadly virus Ebola that is killing both health workers as well as our citizens. It’s believed to be the worst Ebola outbreak ever and has claimed the lives of hundreds of people with many more infected. The Ebola virus has penetrated 8 of the 15 counties in Liberia and is impacting many of our neighboring West African countries as well. We experienced some 14 years of civil war and crisis in Liberia that caused a serious brain drain in the health sector. Ebola is now threatening the lives of the few health workers we do have -- along with all of our citizens. The long-term impact on our health system could be devastating. Ebola is highly contagious and has a high mortality rate. Because it is spread through contact with body fluids, appropriate protective gear is absolutely critical to reducing the spread of the virus and ensuring that the health workers helping to treat the victims do not contract the virus. Health workers are dying daily because the Government of Liberia and its partners are not providing the necessary tools and gear to keep them safe. We need more technical, logistical (such as protective gear, tools and vehicles) and financial support. We're also concerned that families of health workers who die from Ebola are not being compensated for their loss, leaving their families to struggle after tragic loss. While we've been working with communities to raise funds for these families, we believe the government should do more to help. As health care workers on the frontlines of fighting Ebola, we’re asking you to join us in calling on the Government of Liberia to ensure that all health workers throughout all counties and districts of Liberia have the best protective gear and that families of health care workers are compensated for their losses.

Having worked at restaurants for 15 years -- including at the Olive Garden for six years -- I know the industry well. Olive Garden’s parent company, Darden Restaurants, can do a lot more to make its restaurants better places to work, but first they need to listen to their employees. For example, in January, the company got rid of automatic gratuity for large parties. It might not seem like much, but when a large party takes up a lot of your shift, those tips make a big difference. Managers told us it was for legal reasons, but I later learned it was because Darden wanted to save a little money on its taxes. I wish the company would've first considered the impact on its servers. We depend on those tips to pay our bills. Another issue is what I call "stuttering breaks." We are told to take a 30 minute break, then asked to wait another hour before returning to work -- all of it off the clock. This seems like a terrible way to run a business, and it takes its toll on staff. How can we make a living when we're not sure how many hours we'll work from week to week? In six years of working at Olive Garden, I've noticed that it's getting harder and harder for employees to make ends meet.  I've had to move back in with my parents in order to afford to finish my college degree in software engineering. I can't imagine how my coworkers with kids -- coworkers who I care deeply about and spend much of my time with -- are able to make it. I want to see the Olive Garden, and all Darden restaurants (which also include LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, The Capital Grille, Eddie V's, and Yard House) become great places to work.  Darden is such a large employer that if they do more to support employees like me, they can set a standard for the industry -- and they'll get to have their pick of the best employees, too. Now is the time for company leaders to meet with the staff at their restaurants. We all belong to this company and we've got a stake in its survival. At the end of July, longtime Darden CEO Clarence Otis announced that he would be stepping down. As our company faces a leadership vacuum, Wall Street hedge funds are playing a much bigger role in deciding the future of this company. They called for the ouster of Otis and have lobbied for a potential scheme to sell off Darden's assets. These outside firms must consider the concerns and challenges facing the staff at their restaurants. These restaurants are not just assets to be sold off but are how 130,000 workers feed and care for their families.   
 Customers, shareholders, and fellow employees -- please join me in calling on Darden leadership and hedge fund stakeholders to meet with employees and hear our concerns. It's time we had a seat at the table when it comes to deciding the future of this company! Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/people/jeepersmedia/

A lockout and a cancelled Met Opera season would be devastating to the artists, craftspeople, and other workers who make the Met Opera one of the world's finest cultural institutions. It would also harm businesses in New York City's cultural sector and the Lincoln Center area that depend on the Metropolitan Opera for their livelihoods. We believe the Met’s problems are solvable without a cancelled season. We wish the Met to remain an engine of the NYC cultural and tourism economy—and to continue to thrill audiences young and old for decades to come.

Tuan is 31. He is a big Brisbane Broncos fan. He has worked at Alphapharm since 2007. Recently, not long after being married, Tuan was diagnosed with cancer. A month after he finished his treatment, his baby girl arrived. Tuan has so many good things to look forward to, but after 7 years of hard work at Alphapharm management would not support him in the process of getting back to full health. Any one of us could suffer a debilitating illness. Adding unnecessary financial burdens at a time like that is simply callous. Where will Don get future employment to support his young family if his employer of 7 years is not willing to assist him?

Lite n Easy workers are paid significantly below food processing industry standards in Australia, and the company has so far refused to offer a guaranteed annual pay rise for more than 1 year. Instead, Lite n Easy are promising to pass on any increases in the minimum wage (if there are any). This has real impacts on our life. Many of us just can't afford to be sick. Many of us don't have anything left after we have paid for rent, bills and food at the end of each week. We don't get to keep enough of the value we create to lead a decent quality of life.

In 2013, when I was 63 years old, Centennial Coal made me redundant. When people are made redundant, they rely on their entitlements to feed their families, stay in their homes, and pay for necessities. But Centennial Coal has refused to pay retrenched people like me -- anyone close to age 60 and over -- the full entitlements we’re owed. Centennial -- which started as a local company, but is now owed by a giant multinational company called Banpu -- is the only company in the Australian coal industry that does not pay proper entitlements to workers of my age. At the same time, Centennial Coal reported that its Australian operations brought in over $213 million (USD) profit in 2013. It is just not fair. To be honest, I feel like I was targeted for my age. I worked at the Myuna mine for over 31 years. I am fit and healthy and I wanted to keep working, but now that I’m unemployed and without my entitlements, I'm facing trouble in my old age. But this isn’t just about me and the other miners losing our jobs. Our families and communities are deeply impacted too. I have two children -- one of whom lives across the country with my two grandchildren. Centennial’s decision to deny us entitlements means that I’m not able to visit them as often and see them grow up. Work doesn’t stop at 60 and neither should the entitlements we’re owed. Please join me in calling on Centennial Coal to do the right thing and pay older workers the retrenchment entitlements we are owed.

My name is Olivia Guzman. For 17 years, my husband Fausto and I have been coming to the U.S. each season from our hometown in Mexico as H-2B guestworkers. We worked with thousands of other guestworkers who process and pack seafood for big retailers like Walmart and Whole Foods. The guestworker visa requires us to work for only one employer. The name of our boss is inscribed in our passport, and if we are fired or leave to seek work somewhere else we can be detained and deported by ICE. Our employers paid us a piece rate—by the weight of seafood we cleaned—that often came out to be less than the minimum wage no matter how fast we worked. They housed us in decrepit labor camps on company property where snakes crawled up through cracks in the floor. Bosses and managers surveilled us in the camps, humiliated us, and even physically abused us. To keep us silent, they constantly threatened us with firing, deportation, and blacklisting so we could no longer find work as guestworkers. There comes a time you can’t take the abuse any more, and in spite of the threats, you have to speak up. I did that when I became of member of the National Guestworker Alliance (NGA). I traveled across the Gulf Coast and organized my fellow guestworkers into committees to try to change conditions in the industry. I traveled to Washington, DC, and Mexico City to tell political leaders about the abuse. But when I hosted NGA meetings in my house, the recruiter spied on us. She said we were all trouble makers and threatened to have us blocked from coming back to the United States. And I learned that the threats were real, because this year, my employer blacklisted me in retaliation for my organizing. I was removed from the employment list, accused of being a trouble maker, and blocked from coming back on an H-2B visa to my employer. Walmart says it wants to stop forced labor on its supply chain, but continues to buy from suppliers who abuse guestworkers every day. Whole Foods tells customers all about where its fish were caught, but not that the fish were packed by workers who were trapped in severe labor abuse. Walmart and Whole Foods set the standards that thousands of suppliers follow. My fellow NGA members and I are calling on them to sign the NGA’s Forced Labor Prevention Accord. The Accord is a binding agreement that would ban retaliation and blacklisting, ensure basic labor standards, and create a binding dispute resolution process that includes employers and workers. We are urging retailers to sign the Accord to ensure that their suppliers don’t trap guestworkers in exploitation and forced labor.

Employees that are loyal and dedicated to the airline should be the first priority, Wherever we came from - Legacy AA, US, AWA, we will soon be one. The employees made the choice to miss holidays, birthdays and go the extra mile to keep the system operating on time. Pilots, Flight Attendants, Gate Agents, Rampers, Schedulers, Management, the list goes on to include every employee at the New American. We are the New American and our value and importance should be recognized as we move forward in becoming the largest and best airline in the industry

As it stands, active non-wholly owned crew members will go after Buddy Passes on stand-by. Be it wholly or non-wholly owned, we all operate under the American banner. It is important to the integrity of the entire operation. Commuting crew members need to get to work so they can operate American flights. In the past American Airlines hasn't had very many non-wholly owned employees, so this hasn't been much of an issue. The new American Airlines now has thousands of non-wholly owned commuting employees. It is to everyone's benefit that working crew go ahead of friends traveling on a pass. This is our Livelihood! Also, having priority on one's own metal has always been accepted as an industry standard. Under the new rules we will lose this. We ask that we retain the right to have priority on our company owned and operated aircraft.