Sure, times are tough. One of the most interesting discussions I’ve ever read about surviving tough times comes from a book called, “The Lessons of Experience: How successful executives develop on the job” by McCall, Lombardo and Morrison (Lexington Books, 1988). The book was a result of extensive interviews with executives on many topics. The …
It’s time for a class war over public union pensions. So says Ron Lieber, writing in the New York Times. Okay, let’s rumble. What’s the score, so far? Despite defined benefit (DB) pensions, like the ones public employees get, being more economically efficient [pdf] and offering better returns, private employers have mostly switched to 401(k) …
Repeat something often enough and it becomes, if not true, at least a solid bit of conventional wisdom. Consider Ron Lieber’s column in Saturday’s New York Times, which neatly recycles an editorial the Wall Street Journal ran back in March. The issue: the pensions that guarantee public employees a middle-class standard of living in retirement …
More Salvos in the False “Class War” on Public Pensions Read More »
Lately, there has been a fair amount of buzz in the economics blogosphere about the issue that I’ve been discussing here: Structural Unemployment. Paul Krugman touches on it here. Brad DeLong says this. Mark Thoma has a post in a forum focusing on structural unemployment at The Economist. If you read through these posts, however, …
Someone sent me an email earlier entitled, “U.S. Senate Declares National Direct Support Professionals Recognition Week.” The big week of recognition is slotted to begin September 12th. In the announcement for “Recognition Week,” Senator Ben Nelson says, “Direct support professionals provide an invaluable service to the millions of Americans living with disabilities. I’m proud to …
I recognize you do amazing work, but you’re still not getting minimum wage Read More »
At a friend’s urging, I recently bought a bike to commute to the new job. I can’t believe how having the wind in my face takes me back to being nine years old. Okay, I can hear what many of the women reading this are thinking. Jeez, that’s the last thing we need, something to …
For the last few months I’ve been thinking about and writing about home care workers. In my work, I find that if folks haven’t had to hire a homecare worker for themselves or their family, it appears that most of these workers fall off the radar. The problem here is somewhat circular. The demand for …
Does the Fair Labor Standards Act Hate Home Care Workers? Read More »
Yesterday, I wrote about how the decline of U.S. wages has made workers here cheaper to hire than workers in India, at least in the call center industry. Today, the news hails from Asia where workers are rising up against poverty-level wages. From the Financial Times (and, as a side observation, the FT gives far …
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Weighs In On Workforce Classification Under California Law Every time I review an independent contractor agreement I find myself humming George and Ira Gershwin’s song, It Ain’t Necessarily So from Porgy and Bess. In California, at least, such agreements do not prove that a worker is an independent contractor. …
“But I Signed An Independent Contractor Agreement…” Read More »
The global economic crisis has been especially bad for young workers. A new report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) shows that while youth unemployment has been steadily worsening for more than a decade, the economic crisis caused an explosive increase in the jobless rate for young workers. The report, issued late last week, kicked …
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
