Skip to main content

What I’ve Been Reading This Week


Here we are, late in the day on the 31st as I put the finishing touches on this post.  As with any final post for the year, I wanted to note a few key developments over the past twelve months before we get to a few of the articles I wanted to highlight this week.




Not to mention the “few” coronavirus related posts sprinkled in over the past twelve months…

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



Readers will recall that the prolonged strike at Kellogg’s had led many to wonder (if not expect) that there would be no end in sight after the company indicated it would bring in replacement workers to cover for the nearly 10,000 workers on strike.  At long last, after the strike went on for nearly three months, a week or so ago it was announced that a new five year agreement had been accepted by the company and the union.



Effective tomorrow, the hourly minimum wage rate for any worker in San Diego that works at least two hours per week will increase from $14/hour to $15/hour.  Readers might recall that the statewide minimum wage rate is also increasing on January 1st.  For any employer with 26 or more employees, the hourly pay rate will rise to $15/hour.  For any employer with 25 or fewer employees, the hourly pay rate will rise to $14/hour.  Nevertheless, for employers in San Diego, the local pay rate will supersede the statewide rate.  For those impacted by this pay increase…you have a few hours to make sure you are ready to implement this hourly pay hike.

Comments

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

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

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