The Obama administration will soon unveil its new overtime pay rules, which will mean that millions of additional workers will get overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. Many low-wage employers are obviously upset about this—they’ve been using the weak overtime rules to make salaried employees work more than 40 hours …
Low-wage industry tries to fearmonger on overtime pay, fails Read More »
All-Star NBA point guard Kevin Johnson is now the mayor of Sacramento, California—and the destroyer of the 40-year-old National Conference of Black Mayors. At Deadspin, Dave McKenna details how Johnson first tried to take over the group, and then, when that failed, went to war against it while starting his own black mayors group, the …
Talk about journalism with an immediate impact. Last week’s New York Times investigation of labor law violations and unhealthy working conditions for manicurists in the city’s nail salons has spurred Gov. Andrew Cuomo to take sweeping emergency action: Nail salons that do not comply with orders to pay workers back wages, or are unlicensed, will …
The Labor Department is moving ahead with President Obama’s eagerly awaited overtime pay expansion. That’s good news, but we don’t know yet how good. Currently, workers who make as little as $24,000 a year can be denied time-and-a-half if they’re considered managers—even if most of the work they do isn’t managerial. Obama has promised to …
Obama is a step closer to expanding overtime, but for how many American workers? Read More »
If you needed evidence that it’s better when businesses treat their employees better, here are two pieces: One new study finds that people who have paid sick leave are less likely to be injured on the job and another study finds that convenience store workers steal less when they’re paid better. In the first study, …
Want healthy workers who don’t steal? Give them paid sick leave and pay them well. Read More »
If you’re unemployed and searching for a new job, you better hope your last employer went out of business. Otherwise, according to new research, you’re likely to be discriminated against even if you’ve been out of work for as little as a month. In one study, Ho and his team asked 47 experienced HR professionals …
Unemployed for even a month? You’re likely to face hiring discrimination Read More »
First-time unemployment claims jumped to 386,000 from last week’s revised total of 352,000, the Department of Labor reports. Last week, first-time claims were initially reported at 350,000, the lowest since March 2008. However, analysts cautioned that the drop was likely a result, at least in part, of auto manufacturers not shutting down as many plants …
Volatility is the Word for It: First-Time Enemployment Claims Jump to 386,000 Read More »
The business owner’s version of “the dog ate my homework” these days is “we’re not hiring because we can’t find workers with the skills we need.” Various business lobby groups like the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Manufacturers are pushing that line hard, trying to pin continuing high unemployment on …
This year’s students are the workers of five or 10 or 15 years from now. There’s an obvious statement for you, but it’s one that is too rarely considered in discussions of education policy as hedge funders and corporate billionaires try to claim the mantle of doing what’s right for kids, implying or saying straight …
Public education is a labor issue, even if you don’t care about teachers Read More »
Welfare applicants aren’t the only people the courts have forced the state of Florida to stop drug testing. A federal court ruled on Thursday that Gov. Rick Scott also doesn’t get to randomly drug test 80,000 state workers. Judge Ungaro said Mr. Scott had overreached in his executive order because there was no evidence of …
Federal Judge Rules Yet Another Florida Drug-Testing Program Unconstitutional Read More »
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.
