Skip to main content

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

 

Workplace safety is often a much discussed topic, in light of workplace safety issues that have arisen in the age of the coronavirus pandemic.  A recent development on a new nomination from President Joe Biden has the potential to greatly impact how workplace safety is treated at the federal level.  In doing so, that topic is worth leading things off this week.

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


California’s Workplace Safety Chief to Be Tapped to Lead OSHA

As reported by Politico last week, President Biden is set to nominate the head of California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, Doug Parker, to lead the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”).  It has been reported that based upon Parker’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in California, he is being nominated to oversee workplace safety at the federal level.  Without any hearings having been held on Parker’s nomination yet, it is too early to say that he will be confirmed.  However, short of there being some smoking gun or a few Democrats voicing their opposition to Parker, I would expect to see him become the next head of OSHA.


Amazon’s Union Election Victory Stymies Hopes of Unionization of Tech Giants...For Now

Readers will recall that a week ago, the results of the union election at an Amazon location in Bessemer, Alabama were announced to much surprise, for some, as the union was soundly defeated.  As this article from The Washington Post points out, while many labor leaders had pinned their hopes of a victory at the Amazon location as a springboard to unionizing other Amazon locations, that appears to be on hold for the time being.  However, with an administration that is labor friendly and appears willing to attempt to pass legislation that would end right to work (among other labor objectives), many are wondering if Amazon’s victory last week will be short lived.  While it is too soon to say, either way, this is something to keep an eye on going forward.

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