Skip to main content

What I've Been Reading This Week


This turned into my first full week back in the office in the past several weeks.  With that being said, in between playing catch up and prepping cases for upcoming hearings over the next few weeks, I came across some good articles.  Perhaps most interesting was the article on attempts by Republicans in the Alabama House of Representatives to block minimum wage increases.  This bill still has to pass the Senate...but it is interesting to watch develop.

As always, below are a few articles that caught my eye this week.


Alabama Takes Steps to Block Minimum Wage Hikes

It is not every day that I see states (or cities for that matter), take proactive steps to block minimum wage hikes.  With that being said, here comes Alabama, whose House of Representatives passed a bill 71 - 31 on Tuesday which would block cities from imposing minimum wage hikes.  As Cliff Sims writes, this legislation follows on the heels of a vote by the Birmingham City Council to increase minimum wage rates to $8.50 this year and $10.10 by July of 2017.  It will be interesting to see how this one plays out in the Alabama Senate...but for the time being, opponents of minimum wage increases have something to cheer about.



For those looking for a little light reading (all 290 pages of the manual, that is), OSHA recently published its Whistleblower Investigations Manual which outlines procedures and other information as it relates to the handling of retaliation complaints under various whistleblower statutes.  Well worth a read (or review for the more casual observer) for those who deal with OSHA and related whistleblower issues.  



Pavithra Mohan over at Fast Company has a well written note on the potential wave of class action suits that Uber could be facing.  O'Connor v. Uber has so far been the big class action suit against the company that is pending in California.  In O'Connor, the court granted class certification in regard to the Uber drivers' employee v. independent contractor dispute with the company.  As Mohan writes, there are thirteen proposed cases spread out around the country that are seeking to follow O'Connor's lead.  This is a very interesting issue to watch develop!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

Happening Tomorrow: Connecticut’s Minimum Wage Increases

For those employers and employees alike in Connecticut, mark your calendars as tomorrow, the minimum wage rate increases in the state from $13/hour to $14/hour. This wage hike comes after Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont had signed Public Act 19-4 into law in 2019 which progressively raised the state’s hourly minimum wage rate every year for five years.  In fact, next year, the hourly wage rate will top out at $15/hour.  Beginning in January of 2024, the hourly wage rate will be indexed to the employment cost index. For additional information:   https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2022/06-2022/Governor-Lamont-Reminds-Residents-That-Minimum-Wage-Is-Scheduled-To-Increase-on-Friday
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more