Skip to main content

What I've Been Reading This Week


Excuse the brevity of this post, but I am wrapping up breakfast at Whole Foods this morning before heading into a mediation.  Thankfully I have had less time on the road for work the past few weeks so I have been able to read through more articles than normal.  Perhaps one of the more interesting articles had to do with a proposed 'answer' for why wages in the fast food industry have long since stagnated.  While there is likely no definitive answer as to why wages in this industry have, for the most part, failed to take off, this New York Times article gives some thought provoking insight.

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



Rachel Abrams at The New York Times wrote an article this past Wednesday that shed some light on why hourly wages in the fast food industry have failed to take off (as much as some would like.). There is apparently a clause in many fast food franchise agreements that prohibits franchisees of chains such as Burger King, Carl's Jr., and Pizza Hut from hiring employees away from one another.  (As a result, one Burger King franchisee would be prohibited from hiring away an employee from another Burger King franchisee.)  While these clauses are not actually agreed to or signed off by employees (as they are found only in the franchise agreements with the parent companies that franchisees sign), these clauses have tended to prevent 'bidding wars' among franchisees for employees and also limit the negotiating power employees have when they attempt to obtain a higher hourly wage rate.  Fascinating article for those unfamiliar with these clauses.



An interesting study was released last month which reported that approximately 90% of U.S. House offices do not pay their interns with nearly half of U.S. Senate offices failing to do so as well.  Interesting to note the political breakdown by party however in terms of the U.S. House offices:  about 10% of Republican offices pay their interns while only about 4% of Democratic offices do so.  For a party that often leads the charge on liveable wages, 'Fight for $15', etc., Democrats in the U.S. House are woefully lacking, per this report.

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

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

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more