Skip to main content

What I’ve Been Reading This Week


As I wrap up things ahead of an expected very busy week upcoming week, there are a few articles worth highlighting for readers.  With November’s elections inching closer and closer, I think we are likely to see more developments emerge in regard to the positions, proposals, and policies of candidates across the country.  This week, in particular, I wanted to highlight an article that focuses on the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and the steps he is taking in regard to rallying organized labor around his candidacy.

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



Bloomberg Law published an article recently in which it surmised that in cities or states that have adopted mandatory mask requirements (for shoppers), employers might not be at risk of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”) violations.  (Generally speaking, OSHA is charged with enforcing laws that require employers to rid the workplace of “recognized hazards” that can “cause death or serious physical harm.”)  Let us say that a customer that refuses to wear a mask berates an employee.  This conduct likely would not qualify under the standard set out in OSHA’s general duty clause, therefore no OSHA violation would occur.  Granted, this is an evolving situation and OSHA may issue some guidance to change this analysis.  Stay tuned.



Effective August 2nd, Best Buy will raise its hourly pay rate to $15 for employees.  The company’s decision comes on the heels of other big box retailers, such as Target, having taken similar steps.  There had been some criticism of Best Buy after it furloughed nearly half of its workforce earlier this year, yet reported strong sales earlier this week.  Critics had started to call on the company to bring back its furloughed workers.  While Best Buy has started to bring back some, but not all furloughed workers, I suspect this hourly wage hike will be greeted with positive comments in the interim.



Stop me if you have heard this before:  a Democratic candidate needs the support of organized labor in order to shore up a key voting bloc in an election.  This election year, that standard is no different than normal.  With the Presidential election just a few short months away, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is actively working to woo unions to his candidacy against President Donald Trump.  As Rick Newman writes, Biden has been becoming more vocal as of late in regard to announcing labor friendly policy proposals and pushing for a more labor friendly iteration of the National Labor Relations Board.  In order to win in November, Biden will need to make sure he has the support or organized labor (and motivates them to get to the polls.)

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