AOL's "Community Leaders" -- Workers or Volunteers?
A group of former AOL "community leaders" -- the people who supervise chat rooms and answer subscriber questions -- have complained to the Labor Department that they should be paid for their work. In addition to its 12,000 employees, AOL uses more than 10,000 volunteers, who are given a free account worth $21.95 a month. The company says the volunteers are simply doing what people love to do online.

Steel Workers Denounce Paltry Profit-Sharing
With this year's proposed profit-sharing bonus checks averaging $360, angry employees of U.S. Steel want a return to old-fashioned pay raises. The sum this year is down 19 percent from last year. The company's labor agreement, which expires August 15, includes profit-sharing for hourly workers based on the company's pretax income.

Clinton Calls for End to Wage Gap
President Clinton has endorsed a new equal pay bill that would require the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to improve the way it collects information about wage inequalities. Last June, a White House study found that women still earn 75 cents for every dollar a man earns, even for jobs of a similar skill level. Clinton himself, however, has earned less than his wife, Hillary, for most of his political career.

Court Says No to Workplace Safety Plan
A federal appeals court has blocked, for now, a government program aimed at improving safety on the job. The judges said that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration said employers were not given enough time to critique the new rules. Thousands of employers had been notified of the stringent new rules for promoting healthier, safer workplaces.