Latest news with #laborers
Al Arabiya
18-07-2025
- Climate
- Al Arabiya
Lightning strikes in India kill at least 33 people, injures dozens
Lightning strikes during monsoon storms in eastern India this week killed at least 33 people and injured dozens, officials said Friday. The deaths in Bihar occurred during fierce storms between Wednesday and Thursday, a state disaster management department statement said, with the victims mostly farmers and laborers working in the open. More heavy rain and lightning are forecast for parts of the state. Bihar state's disaster management minister, Vijay Kumar Mandal, told AFP that officials in vulnerable districts had been directed to 'create awareness to take precautionary steps following an alert on lightning.' The state government announced compensation of 4 million rupees ($4,600) to the families of those killed by lightning. At least 243 died by lightning in 2024 and 275 the year earlier, according to the state government. India's eastern region, including Bihar, is prone to annual floods that kill dozens and displace hundreds of thousands of people during peak monsoon season.
Washington Post
13-07-2025
- General
- Washington Post
Horse racing depends on immigrants who are suddenly working in fear
The modern backbone of an ancient sport quivers and quakes amid a relentless fear hovering at the barns of American horse tracks. The fear, almost like some smothering yet invisible blanket, howls at wake-up, lingers through the rigors in the stables and harasses eyelids at bedtime. The backbone, the laborers from Mexico and Guatemala and other lands who feed, water, walk, wash, massage, sustain, coddle and converse with the racehorses, finds the fear even in periphery: 'Like if you [dropped] something over there' and it made a noise, one laborer said through an interpreter while pointing across a room, 'you're scared of what you might see [next].'
Harvard Business Review
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Harvard Business Review
Research: The Gender Wage Gap Tipping Point
The gender wage gap has been in existence at least since the U.S. Civil War era, when an 1869 letter to The New York Times exposed unfair treatment of women working in government and argued that 'equal work should command equal pay without regard to the sex of the laborer.' Fast forward 156 years and women still only earn 83 cents for every dollar that men make, a number that has barely budged over the past two decades and is consistent across OECD countries. While there are numerous proposed explanations for this persistent gender wage gap—including women choosing to work in lower-paying jobs or working fewer hours than men, leaving the workforce for caregiving responsibilities, or facing gender bias and discrimination —some have argued that simply increasing the representation of women in the workforce is enough to naturally eliminate the gap. We know that this ' add women and stir ' approach is important and can yield some improvements, but it isn't enough on its own to solve the persistent wage gap problem. However, we wondered whether there is a specific point where the proportion of women in a given occupation meaningfully affects how much they're paid compared to men. Our research, published in Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: An International Journal, found that having more women in a job category does, in some capacity, help close the wage gap. But there's a tipping point: Once women make up a certain proportion of an occupation, the wage gap narrows more slowly. This shift suggests the relationship is more complex than it might appear; it is not as simple as 'the more women, the smaller the gap.' The Research Our analysis focused on the Canadian labor market, which compared to the U.S. offers a more representative view of OECD countries based on the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Gender Gap Index. The data is also widely inclusive of 40 diverse job categories like professional occupations, senior and middle management, office support, and care providers across different industries, making it particularly useful for examining the wage gap. The 40 job categories cover nearly all of Canadian employment. We analyzed 22 years of annual data from 1997 to 2018 for each of the job categories. For each job category, the gender wage gap is defined as female full-time workers' median earnings divided by male full-time workers' median earnings. Our results showed that the gender wage gap closed more quickly when there were fewer than 14% women in the category—in other words, when women were more underrepresented. But once women made up a certain proportion of the occupation—the 'tipping point'—progress continued but at a much slower pace. For example, before the tipping point, adding just 1 percentage point more women to a job category, say from 8% to 9%, shrinks the wage gap noticeably. But after that point, progress slows such that it takes adding about 3.6 percentage points more women, say from 20% to 23.6%, to achieve the same improvement. Why Is There a Tipping Point? The 14% data point we identified echoes findings from Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter's landmark work on tokenism. Kanter's research examined group dynamics when one group heavily outnumbers another, defining a 'skewed' group as one where there's 85:15 majority-to-minority ratio. Up to the point of 15%, underrepresented individuals are known to face polarization from the majority or be pressured to conform to stereotypes. Ultimately, these people are often seen as symbols or 'tokens' rather than individuals, and may feel isolated based on how they are treated. However, their sparse presence and anomaly status also heightens their visibility. And when there are social or legal pressures to improve equity or to achieve diversity goals —in our case, to improve gender equity specifically—the incentives to protect the organization's reputation and image may motivate companies to increase the proportion of women and/or improve pay equity. In short, a more deliberate effort is made to close the gap and early gains are made. However, once these initial gains are achieved and the pressure lessens, organizations may assume the problem is resolved and scale back their efforts too soon. As women become better represented, it can create a perception that gender barriers are breaking down and that equity is improving. Akin to reaching a 'false summit,' where a hiker mistakenly believes they have reached the top of a mountain when there is still more to climb, organizations might make the hasty determination that pay equity has been sufficiently achieved and cease making changes. Making Headway Despite a slowdown in the closure of the gender wage gap after the tipping point, there is some good news. Our analysis found that by 2002, there were meaningful improvements in the wage gap across almost all occupations compared to 1997. This improvement continued throughout the rest of the years studied, and by 2018 the wage gap was smaller for 36 of 40 occupations. As noted by Harvard economist and recent Nobel laureate Claudia Goldin, 'equalizing earnings within each occupation matters far more than equalizing the proportions by each occupation.' If pay equity within occupations is achieved, the overall wage gap shrinks, even if more societally embedded practices like occupational segregation remain. That said, we also found that those occupations with a rising share of female workers exhibited more improvement in the closure of the gender wage gap. Across the years of the study, for 31 of 40 occupations with improving female representation, the wage gap closed by an average of 10.6 percentage points from 1997 to 2018, almost twice the 5.6 percentage point average improvement for the nine occupations with declining female representation. Ultimately, closing the wage gap is about ensuring equal pay for equal work in concert with representation, and organizations not lessening efforts before real progress is made. . . . The false summit illusion we've identified doesn't mean pay equity is out of reach; it just means the journey takes longer than it first appears and organizations may be easing their efforts toward pay equity too soon. After the tipping point, our research also showed continued improvements in the wage gap closure, just at a slower pace, indicating that closing the gender wage gap requires both increasing representation and ensuring equal pay for equal work. Organizations must stay committed, push beyond early progress, and avoid complacency to achieve the sustained goal of pay equity.
Washington Post
09-07-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Indian workers go on a daylong nationwide strike against Modi's economic reforms
NEW DELHI — Hundreds of thousands of workers across India went on a nationwide strike on Wednesday in opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts to privatize state-run companies and other economic reforms , partially disrupting public services and manufacturing. A coalition of 10 major trade unions that represent laborers and several other groups that speak for farmers and rural workers called for the one-day industrial action, dubbing it Bharat Bandh,' Hindi for 'Shut Down India.'
The Sun
03-07-2025
- General
- The Sun
Who REALLY built Egypt's Great Pyramid is ‘revealed' in hidden inscriptions dating back 4,500 years
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have unearthed hidden inscriptions inside Egypt's Great Pyramid which could reveal who built the iconic structure. The groundbreaking discovery could hold the key for who is responsible for the monument's construction nearly five thousand years ago. 2 2 According to the Ancient Greeks, 100,000 slaves who worked in three-month shifts over 20 years produced the Great Pyramid of Giza. However, fresh discoveries suggest that paid laborers who took three days off a month are responsible. Egyptologist Dr Zahi Hawass and his team recently explored a series of narrow chambers above the King's Chamber using imaging technology, finding never-before-seen markings left by work gangs from the 13th-century BC. They subsequently stumbled upon tombs of the laborers which included statues of the workers during the pyramid's construction. "[The discoveries] confirm that the builders were not slaves. If they had been, they would never have been buried in the shadow of the pyramids," Hawass said during an episode of the Matt Beall Limitless podcast. "Slaves would not have prepared their tombs for eternity, like kings and queens did, inside these tombs." The Great Pyramid of Giza, is the oldest and largest of the three pyramids in Giza, Egypt. River Nile close to Cairo. It was built as a tomb for the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Khufu, also known as Cheops, and his queen. Khufu is believed to have reigned during the 26th century BC from 2589BC to 2566BC. Astonishing moment a dog is spotted at the top of 455ft Great PYRAMID of Giza after climbing up to bark at birds Few details about the ruler are known, with all the information coming from inscriptions in his necropolis in Giza and later documents. He is thought to have had two wives, Meritites I and later Henutsen. Inside the pyramid are three chambers - the Queen's Chamber and the King's Chamber, connected by the Grand Gallery. The latest findings also shed light on how the pyramid was built, revealing that limestone from a quarry just 1,000 feet away was hauled to the site using a rubble-and-mud ramp, remnants of which were found southwest of the monument. Inscriptions were previously found inside the Great Pyramid during the 19th century, sparking debate that the writings were forged hundreds of years after it was built. "There was some debate on whether or not that could be a forgery, but now you're saying that you've discovered three more cartes within the King's Chamber,' Beall asked Dr Hawass. "They were found in chambers that are difficult and dangerous to access, and they use writing styles that only trained Egyptologists can accurately interpret,' said Dr Hawass. "It's nearly impossible that someone in recent times could have forged something like this. You must climb about 45 feet and crawl through tight spaces to even reach those chambers." Dr Hawass and his team also scooped a number of tools inside the tombs which were likely used to build the pyramid, including flint tools and pounding stones. He added: "The base of the Great Pyramid is made from solid bedrock, carved 28 feet deep into the ground. "This means that after marking the square base, the builders cut down into all four sides of the rock until they created a level platform of solid stone, no blocks, just bedrock. "You can still see this today on the south side of Khufu's pyramid." Pyramid building in Egypt reached its peak with the Fourth Dynasty of Pharaohs which saw constructions in both Giza and Dashur. Pyramids were not built in isolation but formed only one part of a pyramid complex. Other elements usually included a satellite pyramid, other small pyramids for queens, a mortuary temple, a valley temple, and a causeway between them. A brief history of Ancient Egypt Here's everything you need to know... The Ancient Egyptians were an advanced civilization who at one point owned a huge portion of the globe The civilization began about 5,000 years ago when ancient humans began building villages along the River Nile It lasted for about 3,000 years and saw the building of complex cities centuries ahead of their time – as well as the famous Great Pyramids The Ancient Egyptians were experts at farming and construction They invented a solar calendar, and one of the world's earliest writing systems: The hieroglyph The Egyptians were ruled by kings and queens called pharaohs Religion and the afterlife were a huge part of Ancient Egyptian culture. They had over 2,000 gods Pharaohs built huge elaborate tombs to be buried in, some of which were pyramids – at the time among the largest buildings in the world The Egyptians believed in life after death, and important people's corpses were mummified to preserve their bodies for the afterlife The Ancient Egyptian empire fell due to a mix of factors, including wars with other empires and a 100-year period of drought and starvation
