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What I’ve Been Reading This Week


This week we have a little something for everyone:  minimum wage, ERISA, paid leave, and Human Resources topics.  With that being said, Amazon’s announcement on Tuesday that the company would implement an hourly wage hike up to $15/hour for all U.S. workers by November 1st takes the cake.  A lot has been written on the matter since Tuesday’s announcement by the company, although I have chosen to highlight the article from The New York Times as it provides one of the more concise summaries as to Amazon’s news. 

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


By November 1st, $15/Hour Wage Rate to Go Into Effect For Amazon Employees

In a somewhat surprising announcement, on Tuesday, Amazon announced that it would raise the hourly wage rate for its U.S. employees to $15/hour, effective November 1st of this year.  As Karen Weise at The New York Times reports, this hourly wage increase will impact more than 250,000 employees including workers at Whole Foods as well as seasonal workers that will be hired for the upcoming Christmas season.  Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos announced the company’s news with an encouragement to other companies to follow suit.  Some have noted that this hourly wage increase is unexpected, in so much that it takes effect in less than a month, rather than being fazed in over time.  Will other large scale employers follow suit?  Time will tell.


ERISA Statutory Penalties & An Employer’s Liability

I have had requests for additional discussion as to ERISA cases and related developments on that front.  Say no more.  Here, Jackson Lewis put out an article earlier this week that reminded employers that even when they hand off to an independent third party to administer ERISA welfare benefit plans, employers can still be liable for statutory penalties associated with participat document requests.  Pointing to a case from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to help illustrate the point, this article is well worth a review for those interested in a somewhat nuanced topic in relation to ERISA.


With Paid Sick Leave in Limbo in Austin, Local Business Proactive in Covering Paid Leave Costs

Earlier this year, I noted that the city of Austin passed a paid sick leave ordinance that would have required employers in the city with more than 15 employees to provide their employees up to 8 days of paid sick leave per year.  Businesses with fewer than 15 employees would have been required to provide up to 6 days of paid sick leave.  Much to the chagrin of paid sick leave advocates, a lawsuit was filed and challenged the ordinance as being in violation of the Texas Constitution and a subsequent injunction was issued to block the ordinance from taking effect.  Undeterred, one restaurant in Austin has not let that lawsuit and injunction stop them from offering paid leave to their employees.  As the KXAN article notes, Hoover’s Cooking has started to add $1 to every bill to provide a source of funding for paid leave for the restaurant’s employees.  For the time being, there does not appear to be much resistance to this effort to provide paid leave to the restaurant’s employees (via the $1 ‘charge’ passed onto customers) while the legal challenge to the city’s paid sick leave ordinance works its way through the court system.  Will other employers in the city follow suit?  Perhaps.  Although the future success of this plan likely rests, in large part, on consumers being willing to shoulder these additional charges.


Artificial Intelligence & Human Resources: An Uneasy Alliance?

Barbara Van Pay wrote a recent article that highlighted how more and more employers are starting to rely upon artificial intelligence (‘AI’) to assist with Human Resources matters.  For instance, one company that specializes in AI, claims that their AI candidate sorting algorithm reduces time to hire from 34 days down to 9.  Using AI to assist with the hiring process can allow AI to quickly sort through resumes, check educational and employment records, and sort candidates for recruiters/employers in a shorter amount of time than if an actual person was working on the same tasks.  Some predict that in the coming years, AI will allow employers to better collect data on the workplace, policies, procedures, and other related employee matters.  Doing so will enable employers to more efficiently analyze the workplace and take ‘engagement down to the individual level’.  While those in Human Resources likely do not need to start updating their resumes just yet, some day (hopefully not too soon) it might be AI that is assisting your next potential employer sort & consider your application.

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