Skip to main content

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

 

One of the key stories this week relates to Dollar General announcing it would offer its employees four hours of pay to get the coronavirus vaccine.  As many employers (and employees) weigh whether to get the coronavirus vaccine, this development is one to keep an eye on...especially if/when other employers implement a similar policy.

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


While Industry Peers Struggle, Chipotle Thrives

This was an interesting article from HRDive that is worth starting things off this week, due in part to it being a bit of good news.  According to the article, Chipotle has continued its expansion and growth during the coronavirus pandemic while many others in the restaurant industry have downsized.  The reason?  In part, the company has placed apparently placed an emphasis on employees including offering a paid parental leave plan and mental health programs for its workers.  As well, Chipotle has been reported to be offering its workers assistance with school expenses, including helping employees obtain their GED.  While no two employers are the same and every benefit offered by one employer does not necessarily translate to others, the growth Chipotle is seeing is likely due in part to how it treats its employees.  This is worth a read for any employer (or HR professional) looking to bolster employee engagement and retention.


Dollar General Offers to Pay Its Employees to Get Vaccine

The Washington Post published an article on Wednesday in which it noted that Dollar General is going to offer its employees four hours of pay to get the coronavirus vaccine.  The company, which operates nearly 17,000 stores in 46 states, noted that it was offering this incentive as a way to help employees cover the cost of childcare and transportation costs in order to get the vaccine.  Will other (large scale) employers follow suit?  I would suspect that Dollar General likely will not be the only one offering this incentive to its employees...especially as the vaccine becomes more widely available.


Canadian Front Line Workers Grapple With Limited Paid Sick Leave

Turning to our friends north of the border, Reuters noted that many workers in Canada are struggling to avoid contracting the coronavirus due in part to limited sick leave being offered.  According to the article, despite Canadian authorities urging people to stay home and work remotely, many workers in the country are unable to do so, in part because approximately 58% of workers in Canada lack adequate paid sick leave.  As a result, many experts point to this being a reason for a growing spread of the coronavirus in the country as workers are forced to return to work due to a lack of paid sick leave.  Will Canadian employers (and/or the government) step in and address the lack of paid sick leave for over half the workforce?  Time will tell...but the clock is ticking.

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