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The garment factory collapse in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,000 people in April, has spurred the parliament into action.

The legislature approved a law Monday that makes it easier for workers to unionize. The vote comes amid scrutiny of working conditions in the country after the building collapse outside Dhaka, the capital.

The building, Rana Plaza, housed garment factories that churned out products for some of the world's top brands.

The collapse, the worst disaster in the history of the garment industry, highlighted the global nature of the business — goods made in low-cost, low-wage countries such as Bangladesh being sold in popular Western chains like Zara, H&M and Gap.

Reuters has more on the new law:

"The legislation puts in place provisions including a central fund to improve living standards of workers, a requirement for 5 percent of annual profits to be deposited in employee welfare funds and an assurance that union members will not be transferred to another factory of the same owner after labor unrest."

We have news this Monday that automaker Nissan is reviving the Datsun name for the Indian market — where the larger auto sector is struggling.

The new Datsun Go — priced at below $6,700 — doesn't look like the iconic 240z, which for many years was the top-selling sports car in the U.S. Here's an old ad for it:

The next couple of days will bring fireworks, hot dogs — and a new unemployment report.

At least the first two will be fun.

As for Friday's job-market assessment, the Labor Department report likely will show little or no change in the 7.6 percent unemployment rate. "There is still a general weakness in the labor market," says Daniel North, economist with Euler Hermes, a credit insurance company.

North estimates that employers added about 160,000 jobs in June, matching what most other economists are forecasting. Those forecasts may tick up a bit Wednesday because ADP, a company that tracks payroll data, said that in June, private companies hired 188,000 workers, somewhat more than expected.

But once private job gains are combined with government job cuts, the overall employment trajectory is in line with what economists have been seeing throughout the recovery: slow progress. Since late 2010, U.S. employers have been adding an average of 175,000 jobs per month.

"That's well below the 250,000-jobs-a-month pace that we need to really be growing," North said. "We're just running in place."

Unfortunately, North's dreary assessment could sum up the entire recovery, which began exactly four years ago. The economy, which had been in free fall in late 2008, hit bottom in June 2009. Then in July of that year, growth resumed.

The Two-Way

Good Signs: Jobless Claims Dip And Job Growth Picks Up

When Asiana Flight 214 from South Korea crashed onto the runway at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday, hundreds of flights into that airport were canceled, stranding thousands of travelers at airports across the country.

The Asiana crash came right in the middle of a holiday weekend, disrupting airline networks. And it occurred during a weekend when many flights were intentionally overbooked.

What happened next to all those stranded travelers offers a revealing window into how airlines view their passengers.

The fate of each traveler trying to get back to San Francisco depended almost entirely on their "status": how the airline computer systems calculated their potential future value to the airline. When there's a disaster or bad weather closes an airport, available seats are doled out based on a customer's status on the airline, not how far they have come or how long they have been struggling to get home.

The scene inside Newark's United Airlines terminal Sunday afternoon bordered on chaotic. At Gate 113, a huge crowd of people pressed up against the desk trying to get to San Francisco. Half a dozen previous flights had been delayed or canceled in the past 24 hours.

Imran Qureshi was stuck at Newark after flying in from the United Kingdom on Saturday.

"There is no way to go home," he said. "I have been going to every flight — which leaves every hour — to see if I can get on a standby but apparently the airline has policies to overbook every flight. So if they have overbooked their flight, people on standby have no chance at all."

The flight Qureshi was hoping to get on had close to 100 passengers waiting on the standby list and no free seats. United was bumping between six and 12 confirmed passengers off most flights from Newark to San Francisco on Sunday, adding to crowds in the airport.

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