Skip to main content

What I've Been Reading This Week


This week turned into one of my busier ones with several work trips out of town. While that enabled me a bit of time to read through some articles on my flights, it has been a non stop week with little time to write a proper What I’ve Been Reading This Week post.  With that being said, I did come across a couple good articles that I wanted to highlight, in particular the Bloomberg article about a rise in union influence at airports across the country. 

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


Does a Lack of Paid Sick Leave For Many Employees Actually Hurt Employers?

Christopher Ingraham at The Washington Post published an article this past Tuesday which addressed the negative impact that a lack of paid sick leave can actually have on employers (not just employees).  When these sick employees lack paid sick leave, they inevitably decide to go into work rather than forgo a day's pay.  That leads to these sick employees infecting other employees which in turn leads to decreased work production, lowered morale, and a decrease in actual productive work being done.  Food for thought, while paid sick leave might "cost" some employers upfront, there is a potential long term value to providing paid sick leave if it helps minimize harming your labor force.


A Bright Spot For Shrinking Union Influence: Airports

It is no secret that unions have been faced with a major threat over the past few years:  Decreased union membership which had translated into shrinking influence in the workplace.  However, there appears to be a bright spot among this downward union membership, as noted by Josh Eidelson at Bloomberg.  The one beacon of hope for unions and labor friendly groups?  Airports.  Or to be more specific, service employees at airports.  As Eidelson writes, service employees at airports ranging from Philadelphia to Los Angeles and everywhere in between have started to see victories in wage hikes and collective bargaining fights as they have sought to unionize.  In fact, since 2014, unions have managed to secure rules that require higher labor or safety standards that impact over 100,000 workers at airports across the country. Will this reverse the prolonged downturn in union membership?  Probably not, but at the very least, it gives pro union groups some positive news to embrace.

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