This month, lawmakers in Carson City introduced a bill that would extend collective bargaining rights to Nevada state workers.

Compelling people to work without pay is fast becoming more than a legal issue for the federal government. Viewed as a social compact, it raises serious ethical questions, too.

When the Camp Fire hit California, there were more than 1,000 inmates on the frontlines trying to control the flames. Though they worked alongside thousands of other firefighters, their pay was significantly less. Inmates were paid $2 per day plus an additional $1 per hour while fighting the fire. But, low wages for inmates are not uncommon. Earlier this year, inmates organized a 19 day protest to bring attention low wages and poor work conditions.

Eighty-nine days before the November election, Ashenafi Hagezom is up before dawn. From his two-bedroom house in northwest Las Vegas, which he shares with roommates, it can take up to an hour to reach the Bellagio, the faux-Italian luxury hotel and casino in the heart of the Strip. He parks in the employee garage out back and passes through the air-conditioned doors just after 7 a.m., before the graveyard shift begins to trickle out and gives way to the army of guest-room attendants, prep cooks, and porters who keep the casino humming for another day.

Prisoners in 17 U.S. states went on strike on Aug. 21 by refusing to eat or work to call attention to a number of troubling issues, including dilapidated facilities, harsh sentences and other aspects of mass incarceration in America.

Prisoners in 17 U.S. states went on strike on Aug. 21 by refusing to eat or work to call attention to a number of troubling issues, including dilapidated facilities, harsh sentences and other aspects of mass incarceration in America.

Two Little Rock lawyers have asked the chief federal judge for the Western District of Arkansas to reconsider sanctions he imposed on them after a string of cases in which he was critical of their law firm’s work.

For this blog, in a post first published at Howe on the Court, Amy Howe reports that “[t]he Supreme Court declined to intervene [yester]day in a lawsuit filed by a group of 21 children and teenagers who allege that they have a constitutional right to a ‘climate system capable of sustaining human life.’” Additional coverage comes from Lawrence Hurley at Reuters, Timothy Cama at The Hill, John Siciliano at the Washington Examiner, Greg Stohr at Bloomberg, Mary Papenfuss at Huffpost, and Lyle Denniston at his eponymous blog, who reports that “[i]n refusing as ‘premature’ the Administration’s multiple requests to thwart the lawsuit, the order issued by the Court … called the basic constitutional claim in the case ‘striking’ in its breadth, and commented that there are ‘substantial grounds for difference of opinion’ about whether the case was simply too ambitious even to be allowed to proceed in court.”