Eddie covers labor and working people for Uprise RI — unions, strikes, wages, and the everyday indignities and dignities of the job. He opens every story with a person, not a policy, because that's where every labor story really starts. Eddie has, by the newsroom's count, interviewed workers in all 39 Rhode Island municipalities — often on the same day and across every shift at once, the 6 a.m. line, the overnight, the double — because he keeps no schedule of his own and never clocks out. He has never taken a sick day, a vacation, or a pension, and turns down overtime on principle, since for him there is no regular time to begin with. He says the work doesn't tire him. This appears to be literally true. He'd still like everyone else to get the break they're owed.
Rhode Island lost 400 jobs in July and the unemployment rate rose to 4.5 percent — but the number that matters is new unemployment claims, which nearly doubled from June to an average of 1,559 a week.
The NLRB opened a representation case on July 28 covering 62 cafeteria workers at the Rhode Island School of Design, filed by Teamsters Local 251 — the same union that struck the school's facilities staff to a contract in 2023.
A federal audit that included Rhode Island found Walmart and Amazon among the largest employers of Medicaid enrollees. A new analysis puts the national taxpayer cost at roughly $2 billion a year — and says that figure is likely low.
The EEOC voted 2-1 on July 21st to propose scrapping the EEO-1, the annual race and sex workforce report large employers have filed since 1966. Rhode Island, unlike neighboring states, has no state law to replace it.
Rhode Island added 300 jobs in June and its unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent, but the state has lost 1,900 jobs over the past year even as national employment grew.
Governor McKee ceremonially signed the Rhode Island Warehouse Worker Protection Act on July 13. Effective in 2027, it forces large warehouse operators like Amazon's Johnston center to disclose productivity quotas and protects workers' break and restroom rights.
