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  1. #201
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    From Economic Policy Ins ute email, Repugs enabling Capital to screw Labor

    "Once again, the Trump administration is hard at work, trying to find new ways to undermine the rights and workplace protections of employees that have taken a century to build.

    Just months after seeking to weaken workers’ ability to organize and collectively bargain as a union,

    the Trump administration is continuing its assault on working people by proposing a Department of Labor rule that would

    let America’s largest companies dodge their responsibility for violations of workforce laws and protections—including minimum wage, overtime and child labor laws.

    Both this potential Labor Department rule change and last fall’s effort to weaken unions before the National Labor Relations Board seek to weaken the joint employer standard and

    make it harder for workers whose rights are violated to access justice.

    The goal: to let big businesses off the hook when contracting firms and franchisees violate the law."


    Last edited by boutons_deux; 05-30-2019 at 08:58 AM.

  2. #202
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    The Postal Service Wants To Make Deep Cuts To Worker Benefits, Internal Plan Shows

    The agency hopes to get Congress’ help in trimming pensions and paid leave, as well as slashing delivery service.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-postal-service-wants-to-make-deep-cuts-to-worker-benefits-internal-plan-shows_n_5d092020e4b0e560b70a12d4?ncid=newsltushpmg news__TheMorningEmail__061919

  3. #203
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    For mothers, parental leave is a penalty whether they take it or not


    On the flip side, if more parents took time off, a mother’s earnings would increase by about 7% for each additional month her spouse or partner takes off work.

    In the U.S., only 14% of the men who have access to parental leave take more than two weeks after the birth or adoption of a child, according to a study by Ball State University.
    Why aren’t fathers taking paternity leave? They don’t want to suffer the motherhood penalty.
    A Deloitte survey found that 57% of men say taking paternity leave would be perceived as a lack of commitment to their careers—a penalty all too familiar to mothers who also do paid work.

    https://www.fastcompany.com/90363981/for-mothers-parental-leave-is-a-penalty-whether-they-take-it-or-not?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds

    Capitalists / BigCorp wants Labor / workers to commit to their jobs, but won't commit to the workers.



  4. #204
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    Oligarchy s Repug Congress makes minimum wage history, going the longest without an increase since 1938

    The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009.

    That’s coming up on a decade, but it’s already hit an infuriating milestone:

    June 16 marked the longest the minimum wage had gone without an increase since

    1938, when the U.S. passed its first minimum wage.

    Because Republicans are happy to have the minimum wage be a poverty wage—

    and it is a wage so low that a full-time job is not enough to pull a family of two above the poverty threshold.


    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...detail=emailLL

    ==============

    Characteristics of minimum wage workers, 2018

    I
    n 2018, 81.9 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates,

    representing 58.5 percent of all wage and salary workers.

    Among those paid by the hour, 434,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

    About 1.3 million had wages below the federal minimum.

    Together, these 1.7 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 2.1 percent of all hourly paid workers.


    https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/min.../2018/home.htm

  5. #205
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    Another battle won by Capital in its decades long war on Labor

    Appeals Court Delivers 'Tremendous Blow to Federal Workers' With Decision to Uphold Trump's Anti-Union Executive Orders

    "There must be a check on the president's power to destroy federal employees' union rights."

    The U.S. Court of Appeals in the D.C. Circuit said that it lacked jurisdiction to block
    Trump's orders, which made it

    easier to fire federal employees,

    limited the amount of time workers can spend on union business, and

    compelled federal agencies to devise unfavorable contracts with unions.

    the appeals court ruled only that it did not have jurisdiction to rule on the orders, not on the merits of Trump's actions.

    while the court advised the unions to appeal to the Federal Labor Relations Authority, Reins noted on Twitter that

    "agency's ruling[s] have been uniformally anti-union thus far under Trump." duh of course

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/16/appeals-court-delivers-tremendous-blow-federal-workers-decision-uphold-trumps-anti?cd-origin=rss








  6. #206
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    bag Paxton and bag Repugs in hole TX side with Capital over Labor

    Texas AG intervenes in lawsuit against San Antonio's paid sick leave ordinance

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is siding in court with businesses that have sued the city of San Antonio to stop its paid sick leave ordinance from going into effect, saying such a law can only be enacted by the Texas Legislature.

    The lawsuit against the San Antonio ordinance was filed by 12 businesses and business organizations in the city this week.

    https://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2019/07/19/texas-ag-intervenes-in-lawsuit-against-san.html?ana=e_sant_bn_breakingnews&j=&mkt_tok=eyJ pIjoiWmpaaFpXVTNNMlJrTmpFNSIsInQiOiJTOGw3VVNYQUplQ mx6NkRyb0VzY2g3S1dMOFNEOFQyaFVGb2N5ZkI2SGJ6NG9qb3h DeVJoTUw0UTJTQktOVW9WY3VYa3hnRHYzd0lOblViSDFwN0NtN FFZMzdaT1ZFOHkrdjRRVGJtUmRqdmNTWlFzM3hLUEY5T05VTmV pdG9wZnE0TnpDZXBGcE9McjE3a3lWZlUycWc9PSJ9



  7. #207
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    bag Paxton, to Capital, doing ty stuff to Labor in pro-business/anti-worker hole TX

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton challenges Dallas sick leave ordinance as supporters rally

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has joined two Dallas-area employers in a lawsuit challenging the city’s new ordinance requiring paid sick leave.

    The new law went into effect on Aug. 1. It requires employers in the city of Dallas and those based outside the city limits who have Dallas employees working more than 80 hours in the city each year to give sick employees paid time off.

    Those employees can accrue an hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked. It’s capped at six days for employers with less than 15 workers or eight days for those with more than 15.


    Employers who don’t comply can face fines up to $5,000 for each violation.

    Paxton supports them and explained

    the Texas Legislature is solely responsible for setting the minimum amount of compensation for workers.

    He believes Dallas’ ordinance unlawfully attempts to usurp voters.

    “Not only would this ordinance harm the ability of Texans to find and keep jobs,

    it is a blatant attempt to silence the millions of other voters

    throughout our State who disagree with

    the agenda of urban elites,

    even after the courts have made it clear they cannot do so,”

    http://www.fox4news.com/news/texas-attorney-general-ken-paxton-challenges-dallas-sick-leave-ordinance-as-supporters-rally

    Paxton knows his ignorant, rural base and knows how to screw them on behalf of business. It's the Repug Way.




  8. #208
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    Trump’s awful Labor Day trifecta: Attacking workers, Social Security — and government itself

    his administration is in the midst of a stealth effort that

    not only attacks workers but also our earned Social Security benefits and our federal government.

    The long-term goals of Trump and his Congressional allies are to

    destroy the labor movement,

    wreck the federal government, and

    end Social Security.


    Trump’s latest stealth attack is not only anti-union,

    it will eventually make it so difficult to access Social Security benefits

    that some beneficiaries (particularly those attempting to qualify for their earned Social Security disability benefits) never receive them at all.

    Others will eventually claim their benefits, but only after an unnecessarily burdensome process

    For Republicans, that’s all according to plan. Trump and his Congressional allies are

    intentionally breaking our government so they can turn around and say that it doesn’t work.

    Trump’s war on workers is extremely well do ented.

    It is perhaps best illustrated by his anti-worker nominees to be Secretary of Labor

    The first nominee was guilty of scores of labor law violations and forced to pay millions of dollars in settlements to workers he cheated.

    Trump’s second anti-worker nominee was Alex Acosta, best known for his sweetheart deal with the billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

    His current acting Secretary of Labor ... has spent his career defending businesses seeking to roll back labor protections.

    Trump’s war on the federal government is also well-do ented.

    His administration is upending the lives of career civil servants by telling those based in Washington to move to the Midwest and those based around the country to relocate to Washington.

    This is having the desired effect: Most are quitting.

    . He recently floated a proposal to reduce Social Security’s funding.

    he gloated over his intentions to cut Medicare as a “fun second-term project.”

    Trump ran on a promise to protect Social Security and Medicare. LIE!

    doesn’t have anything to do with the debt or deficit.

    It has everything to do with the donor class trying to avoid paying their fair share toward the common good.

    One of their most nefarious tactics is undercutting the Social Security Administration (SSA),

    SSA has suffered nearly a decade of budget cuts from Congressional Republicans. These cuts have resulted in office closures, staff reductions, and a years-long wait for disability hearings.

    the Trump Administration is playing hardball. It has issued anti-worker executive orders. It has failed to negotiate in good faith with those representing federal workers.

    the Trump Administration is playing hardball. It has issued anti-worker executive orders.

    It has failed to negotiate in good faith with those representing federal workers.

    The Trump Administration’s goal is to make conditions at SSA so intolerable that demoralized workers will quit in droves,

    taking essential ins utional knowledge with them.

    https://www.rawstory.com/2019/08/tru..._campaign=1316

  9. #209
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    Amazon-Owned Whole Foods Slashes Health Care Benefits for Part-Time Workers

    Amazon-owned Whole Foods is slashing benefits for 1,900 part-time workers at the start of 2020, with staff working 20 hours a week told the bar to buy into the company health care plan will now be set at 30 hours a week

    In a truly headache inducing statement to the site, a Whole Foods spokesperson referred to the change as an attempt to make its “scheduling model” more “equitable and efficient”:

    “I am in shock,” one Whole Foods worker told BI. “I’ve worked here 15 years. This is why I keep the job — because of my benefits.”

    Bezos
    signed a Business Roundtable pledge which (loosely) committed signatories to “deliver value to all” stakeholders,

    not just shareholders,

    including by “investing in our employees” and

    “compensating them fairly and providing important benefits.”

    “They already took our profit sharing.

    Now they’re coming for our healthcare.”

    the workers noted that profit sharing for non-management or home office positions for employees over 6,000 hours was eliminated under Amazon ownership.

    https://gizmodo.com/amazon-owned-whole-foods-slashes-health-care-benefits-f-1838121898

    Probably a warning to employees trying to organize a union either to STFU or GTFO.



  10. #210
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    Aiming To Curtail Temp Rights, Labor Board Stands Accused Of Conflicts

    Under the Trump administration, the National Labor Relations Board has been trying to roll back an Obama-era decision that made companies more responsible for temporary staffers, fast-food-franchise workers and others who work for them indirectly.

    The first attempt was
    foiled in early 2018 when a Trump appointee to the board was found to have a conflict of interest. duh

    as the NLRB tries to undo the rule for a second time,

    it’s facing questions from two Democratic representatives about another potential conflict of interest —

    and this one involves the NLRB’s own use of temporary staffers.

    In May, the labor board engaged a company called Ardelle Associates to supply lawyers and paralegals to help review public comments on the proposed overhaul of

    the provision in question, which is known as the “joint-employer rule.”

    Among those who submitted comments advocating a reversal of the Obama-era rule are two trade associations that Ardelle belongs to and uses to recruit temps, according to contracting records.

    In their comments to the NLRB supporting the rule change,

    the trade associations asserted that companies have grown more reluctant to hire temporary employees

    because the rule has left them uncertain of their labor law obligations.


    In essence,

    the NLRB hired temps whose bosses have a stake in the outcome

    to review and potentially summarize the public comments.


    https://www.nationalmemo.com/aiming-to-curtail-temp-rights-labor-board-stands-accused-of-conflicts/?cn-reloaded=1

    Capital will NEVER stop ing Labor hard and deep

  11. #211
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    The Trump Labor Board Is Outlawing Grad Student Worker Unions

    On Monday, the National Labor Relations Board will issue a ruling that will make it impossible for graduate student workers to unionize.

    This, as with almost everything the Trump NLRB has done, is bad.

    The labor board is issuing

    a regulation “establishing that students

    who perform any services for compensation, including, but not limited to, teaching or research, at a private college or university in connection with their studies

    are not ‘employees’” under the National Labor Relations Act.

    This will overturn an Obama-era ruling

    that affirmed that grad student workers could, in fact, unionize.

    https://splinternews.com/the-trump-l...ker-1838285248


  12. #212
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    Trash taking care of the working/hourly employees who voted for him

    Trump Labor Department’s New Overtime Pay Rule Leaves Behind Millions of Workers

    Department of Labor
    announced Tuesday a final rule on overtime pay to replace a bolder Obama-era proposal blocked by a federal court in Texas.

    “While the administration may be trumpeting this rule as a good thing for workers, that is a ruse,” aka LIE

    “In reality, the rule leaves behind millions of workers who would have received overtime protections under the much stronger rule, published in 2016, that Trump administration abandoned.”

    roughly 8.2 million workers who would have benefited from the 2016 rule will be left behind by the Trump administration’s rule.

    This 8.2 million is made up of 3.2 million workers who would have gotten new overtime protections under the 2016 rule and won’t get them under the Trump rule, and

    5.0 million who would have gotten strengthened overtime protections under the 2016 rule and won’t get them under the Trump rule.

    Additionally, unlike the 2016 rule,

    the Trump administration’s version does not automatically update, meaning workers’ annual losses will grow over time.


    “This is a disaster for those 8 million workers, and further undermines worker power and protections, which ultimately hurts everyone,”

    “With this rule, the Trump administration continues to undermine the economic security of working families,

    forgoing overtime protections for millions of workers who were covered by the Obama administration’s rule,”

    “The white-collar overtime salary level has become so out-of-date, that people are working long hours away from their families, without needed overtime pay, losing out on time and money.”

    “by weakening the overtime rule, President Trump is literally taking money from the pockets of workers to please corporate interests.”

    “No one should be fooled

    “It is not a pro-worker regulation, but rather, another gift to corporate America —

    one that will allow it to continue to require far too many workers in this country

    to work in excess of 40 hours per week without any additional compensation for doing so.”

    once again, President Trump has sided with the interests of corporate executives over those of working people,”

    https://truthout.org/articles/trump-labor-departments-new-overtime-pay-rule-leaves-behind-millions-of-workers/



  13. #213
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    “We all face the same thing:” GM strikers in Flint defend Mexican workers fired for making international appeal

    The WSWS Autoworker Newsletter spoke to pickets in Flint, Michigan, over the weekend, as the nationwide strike at GM approached its second week.

    Flint, the site of the historic sit-down strike in 1936–1937, is one of the main centers of the GM strike today. Hundred of workers manned Saturday’s picket lines at Flint Truck Assembly Complex and a distribution facility in nearby Burton. Among their numbers were not only GM workers, but Ford and Chrysler workers, as well as teachers, postal workers and people active in the fight for clean water in the city, an indication of the broad support for the strike in the working class.

    Autoworkers on the picket line explained to the Autoworker Newsletterthe international dimensions of their struggle. There is “no such thing” as a vehicle produced in one country anymore, Dan, a Flint Truck worker, said. “We get parts from Mexico, China and all over the world. With those parts we build the trucks.”

    Dan denounced the firing of GM workers in Silao, Mexico, after they made an appeal for support from American workers. “We make the same truck as they do in Silao, and I think their wages must be very low. I heard about them refusing to increase their production when we went on strike. And now they’re fired? That’s not right.

    “I want to thank those workers for their stand and we defend them. It’s a global economy. So I think we need a global strike. We all face the same thing. We’re fighting to get everything back GM took from us.”

    James, a worker from GM’s CCA (Customer Care and Aftersales) distribution center in Burton, said: “We are a distribution facility. We repackage parts for the after-sale market. We handle parts that are made in China, Mexico, Serbia, Italy and all over. And then I guess they’re shipped out all over the world again—to dealerships, car owners and wherever.

    “I have no problem supporting Canadian or Mexican workers, we should stand behind them. The Democrats and Republicans claim that these people will have fair rights and wages when that’s not the truth. We’re in a global economy now, we can’t fight in one country. But with the UAW, [they try to create] separation between the Canadian, Mexican & American workers.”

    Once the center of GM’s manufacturing empire, Flint has been devastated by decades of plant closures and layoffs. Auto employment has fallen in the city from 80,000 workers forty years ago to little more than 6,000 today. The total population of the city has also declined from 196,000 to 96,000. More than ten percent of the urban landscape consists of empty, contaminated lots marking where auto plants once employed thousands of people.

    The conditions in Flint are an indictment of the United Auto Workers. Beginning in the 1980s, the union collaborated with the companies in plant closures and layoffs. It was rewarded through the transfer of billions of dollars into the pockets of the union bureaucracy through the establishment of the UAW-GM Training Center in Detroit and other schemes.

    Former UAW Vice President Norwood Jewell, who pled guilty over the summer for using training center funds to pay for lavish meals and luxury vacations, began as a local UAW official in Flint, where he was reportedly a political “kingmaker.” In 2014 Jewell and the UAW supported the scheme which lead to poisoning of Flint’s water supply as a “cost-saving measure.”

    General Motors opened the Burton facility, a $65 million, state-of-the-art warehouse encompassing 25 acres, less than two months ago. The company’s expenses were partially offset by a 50 percent, 12-year tax abatement agreed to by local Democrats, a deal potentially worth millions.

    The facility is a model for the “Amazonization” of the entire industry which GM is attempting to impose—a low-wage, highly exploited workforce. Two hundred of the 800 total workers are temps, who earn lower wages and fewer benefits than full-time workers. GM’s ultimate aim is to convert 50 percent of its hourly workforce into temps, according to a former GM executive speaking in 2017.

    Temp workers at the site have been working a mandatory seven days a week, ten hours a day. They get only one twenty-minute break and a thirty-minute lunch. This is little better than in Mexico, where assembly workers labor for 12 hours a day—demonstrating the convergence of working conditions across national borders.

    For full-timers, the situation is little better—they work for ten hours each day, six days a week. Prior to the strike, union officials pleaded with workers on Facebook to attend the local union meeting. One worker’s reply summed up the feeling of many, who said: “I’m not coming to the union meeting, because I need to re-introduce myself to my family.”

    Full-time workers who spoke to the Autoworker Newsletter expressed enormous sympathy for the temporary workers. “I came from the old CCA plant and have been working with GM for 9 years,” said one second-tier worker. “It’s time we stand up against these powers. I started at $14 an hour during the recession, and I’ve been through three contracts [since then]. We were told $29 an hour from the media instead of what’s on the back end of the contract. They hold a signing bonus in front of workers as a victory [for second-tier workers], then possibly tier 1 health care. That’s good, but what did we lose in the back end of that? Now, we don’t have the right for temps to be hired in.”

    Jessica, another full-time worker from the plant, told the Autoworker Newsletter, “My group was one that took 8 years to get to $18 an hour. I have co-workers filing for bankruptcy, who qualify for state assistance. The janitorial department’s wages top out at $17-18 per hour, with very little benefits. There are some serious problems. I hired in at Delphi in 2006 when starting pay was around $15. We got raises up to a little over $16 an hour and then took a pay cut to $14 [when transferring] into GM.”

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/201.../flin-s24.html

  14. #214
    Pronouns: Your/Dad TheGreatYacht's Avatar
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    GM Yanks Health Care from Striking Workers

  15. #215
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    The Trump Administration Wants Restaurant Servers To Do More Work For Less Pay

    The Labor Department acknowledges in an analysis that its new proposal on tipped workers might accomplish just that.



    The Trump administration is trying once again to tweak the rules that govern how tipped workers are paid. This time, their proposal would probably result in servers doing more nontipped work and at a lower pay rate than previously required.

    includes a separate recommendation that has angered worker advocates: the elimination of the “80-20 rule.”

    recent Trump appointee Secretary Eugene Scalia, wants to get rid of that explicit 20% time limit. Instead, the rule would simply require that the nontipped work be done “contemporaneously” or “within a reasonable time immediately before or after” the tipped work. So long as an employer met that vague criteria, there would be no precise cap on the nontipped work if the administration’s proposal becomes final.

    For those who support strong workplace regulations, the language of the proposed rule is far too squishy and could lead to abuse.

    “Unfortunately, today, DOL is proposing regulations that make it perfectly legal for employers to take advantage of tipped workers,”

    The 80-20 rule is just the sort of regulation that employer groups and the Trump administration would hate,

    since it requires restaurants and other tipped businesses to keep track of the work employees are doing to avoid lawsuits.

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/labor...b02c9da03fc583


    iow, the NRAs (National Rifle/Restaurant Associations) pay political quid-pro-quo s to enrich themselves.

    Expect Trash and kakistocracy to screw Labor, environments, etc repeatedly for the next 12 months as it panhandles for campaign donations from Capital.



  16. #216
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    Disabled Workers Are Done Putting Up with Three Cents an Hour

    A legal loophole dating to the Great Depression is reaching a breaking point, thanks in part to increasingly left-wing politics.

    he is paid a paltry $2.45 an hour for his work.

    is one of the roughly
    321,000 disabled workers paid a sub-minimum wage in America.

    a clause in the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act

    that allows any firm with what's called a 14(c) certificate to pay out wages based on productivity or ability.

    This created a situation in which

    disabled workers might be paid anywhere from the standard federal minimum wage of $7.25 to as little as three
    cents per hour in the name of creating jobs for those who might otherwise never find one.

    rather than providing a living wage or the training needed to enter the workforce, critics say, sheltered workshops tend to create ... “a bridge to nowhere."

    Disabled people often end up stuck in career paths that don't seem like real paths at all,

    "The reality is that people never leave sheltered workshops, people will stay there until they die, or until they retire."

    directors of sheltered workshops can pull in huge salaries.

    the ten largest sheltered workshops had a combined annual revenue of $523 million, and the CEO of the biggest sheltered workshop received a salary of $1.1 million while employing 1,790 sub-minimum wage workers.

    People in the disabilities community feel totally segregated from the contemporary workforce.

    her workplace was incredibly isolating.
    "People think that we need to be in a contained place, somewhere that we could be together with our friends and not bother anyone else,” said Weintraub, who has cerebral palsy.

    “(They think) we need to be with our kind of people or we’ll be a bother.”

    Sheltered workshops have been
    closed or are being phased out in several states,

    thanks in part to oversight by the Obama-era Justice Department.

    “You shouldn't need to be a lawyer in order to get reasonable accommodations on the basis of disability from an employer, but all too often, that's what it takes,”

    In 2018, the poverty rate for disabled adults 18 to 64-years-old was 25.7 percent.

    "For people whose body/minds cannot conform to capitalist structures

    (e.g., a 9-5 job, being a taxpayer, certain career paths and trajectories such as college),

    they’re seen as unproductive and no longer of value to society.”

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywaeeg/disabled-workers-are-done-putting-up-with-3-cents-an-hour?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_camp aign=campaign_842139



  17. #217
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    U.S. Employers Spend $340 Million a Year Busting Unions

    Experts say the tech industry is no exception.

    A new report on employer opposition to union campaigns released today by the Economic Policy Ins ute (EPI) found that

    employers spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year against union organizing efforts, and

    were charged with breaking federal labor laws in 41.5 percent of union campaigns in 2016 and 2017.

    “Tech companies


    have traditionally set themselves aside as a cutting-edge employers. But what you’re seeing increasingly is that

    they behave the same way as Walmarts and Targets,”

    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akwwvb/us-employers-spend-dollar340-million-a-year-busting-unions?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_ca mpaign=campaign_925599




  18. #218
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    Trash govt makes it harder to sue corporations over franchise wage law violations

    The U.S. Department of Labor on Sunday issued a rule that will make it more difficult to prove companies are liable for wage law violations of their contractors or franchisees.

    The rule takes effect in March, and

    should help franchisors who have been sued by workers in recent years for wage-law violations by franchisees.

    In 2017, the department repudiated legal guidance from the Obama administration that had expanded cir stances in which a company could be considered a so-called joint employer under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

    Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia yep THAT Scalia family

    in a statement said the rule furthers President Donald Trump’s effort to address

    regulations that hinder economic growth. hinder the growth of profits that should go to Labor

    “By giving greater clarity to businesses who want to work together, we promote an entrepreneurial culture that has driven American prosperity for decades,”

    The rule returns to an earlier four-part test under which companies are considered joint employers only if they hire, fire, and supervise employees, set pay, and maintain employment records.

    That would likely exclude many franchisors and companies that hire contract labor.

    The Obama-era regulation was not legally binding, unlike the rule released on Sunday. That could make it more difficult for future administrations to undo, but also could open it up to legal challenges.

    The National Labor Relations Board is moving to roll back a separate Obama-era standard

    for determining joint employment under federal labor law, which governs union organizing and workers’ rights to advocate for better working conditions.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-labor/u-s-makes-it-harder-to-sue-corporations-over-franchise-wage-law-violations-idUSKBN1ZC1LU?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_so urce=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed% 3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Top+News%2 9

    kakistrocratic NLRB ruling AGAINST Labor to please Capital



  19. #219
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    Repugs encouraging wage theft and abuse of low-wage employees to continue and worsen

    Trump makes wage-theft lawsuits harder — but not in California

    The Trump administration Monday loosened the federal government’s “joint employer” rule for businesses that contract out work,

    making it harder for victims of wage theft at staffing agencies and subcontractors to sue companies where the violations take place.

    The rule also frees franchising companies from responsibility for working conditions at their franchises.

    hailed by business groups and assailed by workers’ rights organizations.

    will have no effect on California businesses

    because “our laws are more protective” of workers

    California labor laws are not preempted by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, under which the Trump rule was issued.


    “The definition of employer in California is broad enough to reach any person, company or agency who directly or indirectly employs or exercises control over an employee’s wages, hours or working conditions,”

    https://www.latimes.com/business/sto...franchise-rule

    One of the many reasons why blue CA is superior red hole TX and other hole Repug states



  20. #220
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    DoorDash’s multimillion-dollar arbitration mistake

    A federal trial court judge had to do something unusual on Monday:

    order the food delivery company DoorDash to honor its own arbitration clause.

    Typically, the situation is reversed, and employees or consumers fight to have their day in court while companies argue for arbitration.

    But this case is more than a “man bites dog” story:

    It reveals how companies use arbitration to make it impossible for low-wage workers to enforce their rights

    — and how some employees are turning the tables.

    DoorDash — like many other “gig-economy” companies — includes an individual arbitration clause in the contracts that delivery drivers must sign to start work.

    These clauses state that drivers, known as Dashers, must go to arbitration, not court, if they have a legal dispute with the company.

    They also preclude Dashers from combining their claims before an arbitrator.

    This increasingly common condition of employment becomes a problem when low-wage workers’ individual claims are not worth as much money as they would cost to arbitrate.

    An employer that, say, fails to pay reimbursements required under state law might owe multiple employees a few thousand dollars each.

    That’s a significant sum for most individuals, but few lawyers would be willing to take on such a case on behalf of just one worker.

    So by eliminating class actions, companies can effectively use individual arbitration clauses to make workers’ claims against them
    disappear.

    That is, unless workers decide to call their employer’s bluff, as more than 5,000 Dashers did last year.

    The coordinated demand for individual arbitration prompted the firm that DoorDash chose to handle its arbitrations

    to bill the company for nearly
    $12 million in fees.

    The problem, as U.S. District Judge William Alsup discerned, is that if individual arbitrations are economically unfeasible and mass arbitrations are illegitimate, then only companies, not workers, can use the economics of individual arbitration to their advantage.

    Alsup wrote that

    “the workers wish to enforce the very provisions forced on them” and

    use “the remnant of procedural rights left to them.”

    In other words,

    a business that imposes individual arbitration on its workforce must accept the risk that it might have to honor its end of the bargain.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/16/doordashs-multimillion-dollar-arbitration-mistake/



  21. #221
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    'A Travesty and a Disgrace': Trump Quietly Issues Memo That Could Abolish Union Rights for 750,000 Federal Workers

    "This administration will not stop until it takes away all workers' rights to form and join a union."

    Trump on Thursday
    quietly issued a memo granting Defense Secretary Mark Esper the power to abolish collective bargaining rights for the Defense Department's 750,000 civilian workers, a move unions decried as part of the administration's far-reaching assault on organized labor.

    The memo argues that a unionized Defense Department workforce could pose a threat to "national security"

    and that, if necessary,

    collective bargaining rights at the department should be scrapped in the interest of "protecting the American people."


    "When new missions emerge or existing ones evolve, the Department of Defense requires maximum flexibility to respond to threats," the memo states. "This flexibility requires that military and civilian leadership manage their organizations to cultivate a lethal, agile force adaptive to new technologies and posture changes."

    "Where collective bargaining is incompatible with these organizations' missions,"

    the memo continues,

    "the Department of Defense should not be forced to sacrifice its national security mission

    and, instead, seek relief through third parties and administrative fora."

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/22/travesty-and-disgrace-trump-quietly-issues-memo-could-abolish-union-rights-750000?cd-origin=rss&utm_term=AO&utm_campaign=Weekly%20Newsl etter&utm_content=email&utm_source=Weekly%20Newsle tter&utm_medium=email


    Nat Sec!

    The unionized DoD workforce has been ing up "nationa security mission" forever!

    btw, Trash also cut federal employee annual pay raise below rate of inflation, trying to discourage enough them to quit.








  22. #222
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    Worker Surveillance Is on the Rise, and

    Has Its Roots in Centuries of Racism


    a whole realm of technology is being developed so that companies can surveil their workers in order

    to manage their productivity,

    make hiring and promotion decisions, and

    even predict their health outcomes.

    Amazon-owned Whole Foods is now using an interactive “heat map”

    to track unionization risk.

    The surveillance tool uses a simple yet invasive methodology to see how likely employees are to organize for better working conditions.

    The heat map is used to monitor more than 95,000 employees in over 510 stores. As Hayley Peterson reports:

    The stores’ individual risk scores are calculated from more than two dozen metrics, including

    employee “loyalty,”
    turnover, and
    racial diversity;
    “tipline” calls to human resources;
    proximity to a union office; and
    violations recorded by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

    The map also tracks local economic and demographic factors such as the unemployment rate in a store’s location and

    the percentage of families in the area living below the poverty line.

    https://truthout.org/articles/worker-surveillance-is-on-the-rise-and-has-its-roots-in-centuries-of-racism/



  23. #223
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    Facebook and Its Big Tech Cronies Are Upgrading Their Anti-Union Tools

    Facebook unveiled its new
    Facebook Workplace, a Slack Connect-like intranet-style chat and office collaboration tool that

    allows administrators to censor certain words,

    company spokespeople explained, such as “
    unionize.”

    The Workplace program with built-in labor suppression is simply the most recent example that suggests, contrary to stereotypes of open and egalitarian corporate cultures,

    big tech is not that different from Walmart when it comes to its at udes towards unions.
    Google’s Anti-Union Spyware and Amazon’s Anti-Union “Heat Maps”

    Google came under fire in October 2019 for creating a spy tool in the form of a Chrome extension that would monitor its employees’ discussion of labor rights and protests.

    Google has punished employees who have used it to inform coworkers of their labor rights.

    Google attracted
    widespread media attention for engaging the services of a notorious “union avoidance” firm, IRI Consultants.

    Notoriously anti-union Amazon has also used its tech to undermine employee efforts to organize.

    Amazon was one of the nation’s first corporations to use an anti-union website to defeat a union campaign at its Seattle call center in 2000.

    the company adopted interactive
    heat maps” to assess the vulnerability of every Whole Foods store to unionization.

    These heat maps rank the stores’ union vulnerability based on several external factors –

    such as the percentage of families in the store’s ZIP code living below the poverty line and

    the unemployment rate –

    and internal store factors, including

    the number of labor complaints filed by workers and

    a “
    diversity index” measuring the ethnic and racial profile of each store’s workforce.

    https://truthout.org/articles/facebook-and-its-big-tech-cronies-are-upgrading-their-anti-union-tools/



  24. #224
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    Microsoft's Creepy New 'Productivity Score' Gamifies Workplace Surveillance

    the tool gathers data on each employee’s behavior across 73 metrics and presents a handy-dandy breakdown to their bosses at the end of each month,

    VP Jared Spataro specified in
    a blog post that the feature, which debuted to little fanfare on Nov. 17, is “not a work monitoring tool” Orwellian lie

    only
    an administrator, aka your boss, can access those controls in the first place, which is zero comfort for any employee justifiably concerned about potential invasions of privacy.

    In a statement to
    Guardian, a Microsoft spokesperson echoed this pretense of choice, calling the feature “an opt-in experience”

    even though workers aren’t the ones who can decide whether to opt-in.

    Privacy experts are understandably pissed to see blatant workplace surveillance repackaged as a productivity optimization tool,

    and one with a cutesy game-themed “score” design no less.

    “Being under constant surveillance in the work place is psychological abuse.

    Having to worry about looking busy for the stats is the last thing we need to inflict on anyone right now.”

    https://gizmodo.com/microsofts-creep...odo_newsletter

  25. #225
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    Amazon to roll out tools to monitor factory workers and machines

    Sensor, computer vision hardware come as tech giant pushes into industrial sector.

    Amazon is rolling out cheap new tools that will

    allow factories everywhere to monitor their workers and machines,

    as the tech giant looks to boost its presence in the industrial sector.


    Launched by Amazon’s cloud arm AWS, the new machine-learning-based services include

    hardware to monitor the health of heavy machinery and

    computer vision capable of detecting

    whether workers are complying with social distancing. BULL


    https://arstechnica.com/information-...-and-machines/



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