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What I've Been Reading This Week


It has been another busy week in the office and on the road (and unfortunately will not slow down much next week).  However, I did have some time on a few flights to browse through some articles and found a few of note that I wanted to highlight for readers this week.

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


Work-Life Balance Programs a Win-Win For Federal Employees & Government

A recent report from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management notes that recently implemented work-life balance programs are allowing federal employees to better balance their work and personal lives while also yielding higher job performance, job satisfaction, and an interest in staying in their government position.  These work-life balance programs allow many federal employees to telework and have flexible working schedules.  75% of federal employees that have the opportunity to participate in one of these work-life balance programs reported that it "improved their performance, morale, and increased their intent to stay at their current agency."  While there has been some resistance to these work-life balance programs from agency management, it appears that these types of programs are beneficial to both employees and employers in the longrun.  Although these work-life programs are not applicable to all jobs and workplaces, it can certainly be beneficial to all parties involved, depending the situation.


Spending Bill Would Exempt Minor League Baseball Players From Federal Labor Laws

Over the past few years, there has been on ongoing fight by some minor league baseball players as they attempt to get paid minimum wage and overtime for playing baseball.  However, Major League Baseball has maintained a strong lobbying presence in Washington, attempting to reinforce its argument that these minor league baseball players are actually seasonal/temporary workers and therefore fall under an exemption of the Fair Labor Standards Act (‘FLSA’).  This exemption allows minor league teams to pay their players as little as $1,100/month without running afoul of the FLSA. With the proposed budget that was released earlier this week, a provision was included that provides minor league players are in fact exempt from the protections of the FLSA and therefore would not be entitled to minimum wage or overtime pay.  Now keep in mind this budget is not final and provisions could still be struck before it is passed.  But in the interim, this could turn into ‘strike three’ for minor league baseball players who have sought to gain the protections of the FLSA via legal filings and lawsuits.

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