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What I’ve Been Reading This Week

 

If readers are looking for a key takeaway/development from this week, I call your attention to the confirmation of President Joe Biden’s nominee to serve as General Counsel to the National Labor Relations Board.  While I would not necessarily call the confirmation a surprise, the close confirmation vote further solidifies a divided Congress (and the intent of Democrats to revamp the NLRB in a much more labor friendly version.)

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


Park City Ski Resorts Hiking Minimum Wage Rates

Stop me if you have heard this before:  There is a growing labor shortage nationwide, especially among blue collar and hourly positions.  This article from The Park Record notes that several ski resorts in the Park City area are hiking hourly minimum wage rates to $15/hour in an effort to ensure proper staffing heading into the upcoming ski season.  It should come as no surprise that tourist/resort areas like Park City routinely rely on minimum wage workers to staff many positions.  The question is whether hiking these hourly wage rates to $15/hour is enough to bring in workers while other employers offer higher pay and/or benefits such as paid time off, health insurance, education expense reimbursement, etc.


U.S. Senate (Narrowly) Confirms President Biden’s NLRB General Counsel Nominee

Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate confirmed Jennifer Abruzzo to serve as General Counsel to the NLRB.  With a 50 - 50 vote on the nomination, Vice President Kamala Harris was needed to break the tie to ensure passage of Abruzzo’s nomination.  Following the confirmation, it is expected that Abruzzo will begin efforts to aggressively ramp up enforcement of union and labor friendly NLRB policies in the weeks and months ahead.  For employers, gird yourselves...this iteration of the NLRB will be unabashedly labor friendly.

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