Monday, December 30

Tag: workers

The Best Way To Help Workers And Preserve FDR’s Legacy – Ensuring The Minimum Wage Keeps Up With Economic Growth
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BUSINESS

The Best Way To Help Workers And Preserve FDR’s Legacy – Ensuring The Minimum Wage Keeps Up With Economic Growth

The US$1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill that the House just passed includes a gradual increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025. While its chances in the Senate appear slim, the proposal has brought national attention to the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009. Supporters argue a higher minimum wage would translate into higher incomes for millions of low-wage employees, such as restaurant waiters, retail salespeople and child care workers, and thereby lift a lot of people out of poverty. Opponents claim it would hurt businesses and lead to a lot of job losses. As an economist who studies labor markets and income inequality, I believe both claims exaggerate the impact and miss a key point of what the minimum wage is meant to achieve. The current deba...
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Policies That Encourage Workers To Show Up Sick Are Legal – Meatpacking Plants Have Been Deadly COVID-19 Hot Spots
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ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

Policies That Encourage Workers To Show Up Sick Are Legal – Meatpacking Plants Have Been Deadly COVID-19 Hot Spots

Working in meatpacking plants has always been dangerous. A recent study shows that it became deadlier in the era of COVID-19, even as company profits soared. This analysis, published in December 2020, estimates that 6%-8% of all COVID-19 cases and 3%-4% of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. were tied to meat and poultry plants. Workers in these facilities stand close together on processing lines, which makes social distancing difficult. At the same time, companies like Tyson, which produces chicken, beef and pork, and JBS, which produces beef and pork, are reporting high earnings despite COVID-related challenges such as plant closures. I am a law professor and have written about links between lax state and federal enforcement of health and safety laws and increased rates of COVID-19 infect...
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How White Co-Workers And Managers Can Support Black People And Be An Antidote To Systemic Racism
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

How White Co-Workers And Managers Can Support Black People And Be An Antidote To Systemic Racism

President Joe Biden committed the U.S. government to racial equity by issuing four executive orders on Jan. 26 that seek to curb systemic racism. In the orders, he cited the killing of George Floyd in 2020, which sparked months of protests and prompted many U.S. companies to likewise commit themselves – and hundreds of billions of dollars – to helping Black Americans overcome institutional discrimination. Shortly after the protests began last year, we hosted a panel that addressed this very topic. Held on Juneteenth, the webinar featured four Black women – including one of us – who poignantly shared their own frequent encounters with racial bias in job interviews, shopping for clothes and even working with their peers. A common question we got from the predominantly white audience was so...
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Any Map Is Better Than No Map – Workers Are Looking For Direction From Management
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BUSINESS

Any Map Is Better Than No Map – Workers Are Looking For Direction From Management

Over eight months ago, with haste and necessity, workers and organizations across the globe were thrown into “the great remote work experiment.” What was arguably an adequate short-term solution is now showing signs of wear and tear: Remote workers are burning out, organizational cultures are under threat, and leaders are fretting about the loss of creativity and collaboration. While some companies are beginning to forge ahead with longer-term plans – like proclaiming that remote work will go on indefinitely or bringing at least some employees back to the office in a COVID-19-safe way – most organizations remain in a holding pattern: intent on returning to the physical office in some capacity, but repeatedly kicking the can down the road. This is understandable, given the amount of unce...
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Uber And Lyft Drivers Are ‘Contractors’ California Voters Decide As Gig Workers Continue Search For A Livable Wage
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BUSINESS

Uber And Lyft Drivers Are ‘Contractors’ California Voters Decide As Gig Workers Continue Search For A Livable Wage

Uber, TaskRabbit and other ride-hailing and delivery service companies in California can keep classifying their workers as independent contractors rather than employees after California voters approved a measure known as Proposition 22, according to the state’s still-unofficial tally. The fundamental question of whether Uber drivers and similar workers should be considered employees or contractors has been debated and litigated for years now. The issue is often framed, however inaccurately, as a tradeoff between the flexibility that comes with being independent against the higher incomes and benefits that employees tend to get. Uber and other supporters of Proposition 22 have argued the measure would provide both flexibility and some employeelike benefits, such as a guaranteed minimum wa...
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Let’s call athletes ‘workers,’ and let’s call these NBA protests what they were – strikes
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SPORTS

Let’s call athletes ‘workers,’ and let’s call these NBA protests what they were – strikes

The Milwaukee Bucks’ startling refusal to take to the court for their NBA playoff game on Aug. 26 was the most consequential political development in sports over the last 50 years. In recent years, the prevailing media narrative is that athletes have routinely used their platforms to “raise awareness” or “bring attention” to a social issue. Awareness, though, has its limits. Rarely does it lead to the kind of structural changes the shooting by police of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin seems to demand. In this case, the players met the moment, marking a fundamental shift in the direction of activism generated by Black athletes. The mass player walkouts that followed the Bucks’ initial protest were no exercise in awareness, though some commentators framed it as that way. Instead, these...
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Black and Latino essential workers experience greater safety concerns than their white counterparts
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Journalism

Black and Latino essential workers experience greater safety concerns than their white counterparts

The big idea Black and Latino essential workers are more likely to feel stressed over job safety and security as well as family pressures than white workers, according to a recent survey of essential workers we conducted in Massachusetts, among them doctors, sanitation workers and grocery employees. Specifically, 70% of Black workers and 78% who are Latino reported that they didn’t feel safe on the job, compared with 58% of white people. This is not simply because Latino and Black workers were more likely to be in low-wage jobs. When we analyzed low-wage workers separately, Latino and Black people in this group were still far more likely to feel unsafe in the pandemic than their white counterparts. We found that access to benefits on the job is critical to maintaining personal and famil...
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Low-wage service workers are facing new emotional hazards in the workplace during COVID-19
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WORK

Low-wage service workers are facing new emotional hazards in the workplace during COVID-19

The big idea Low-wage service workers increasingly are facing new physical and emotional hazards in the workplace as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to interviews with workers we conducted in April. We found that in addition to being afraid and anxious about their own health and possible exposure to COVID-19 while working, these employees said dealing with unpredictable customer emotions was taking an additional toll. The workers we spoke with reported that interactions with customers were becoming emotionally charged over issues such as mask requirements and other safety guidelines. Workers of color said they were experiencing increased racial harassment. Exposure to these emotional hazards was widespread among the workers we interviewed and was also spilling over into t...
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Black Americans, crucial workers in crises, emerge worse off – not better
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Journalism

Black Americans, crucial workers in crises, emerge worse off – not better

On June 19, 1865 – 155 years ago – black Americans celebrating the day of Jubilee, later known as Juneteenth, may have expected a shot at real opportunity. Freedom from slavery should have been freedom to climb up the economic ladder, helped – or at least not hindered – by a nation newly rededicated to human equality. Black Americans had served in the war, too, making up more than 10% of the Union Army, a quarter of the Union Navy and untold numbers aiding the Union effort. In many national crises since then, black Americans have also been essential workers. But serving in crucial roles has not resulted in economic equality. Government responses to economic crises have historically set black Americans back relative to whites, stripping black wealth and setting new and stronger barriers ...
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Low-wage essential workers get less protection against coronavirus – and less information about how it spreads
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COVID-19, WORK

Low-wage essential workers get less protection against coronavirus – and less information about how it spreads

Low-wage essential workers are more likely to face dangerous working conditions and food insecurity than high-wage workers, even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research provides some of the first data on the safety of essential workers during the pandemic. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 is not the “great equalizer,” as Andrew Cuomo once called it. In fact, inequality is getting worse. We found that across income levels, roughly two-thirds of essential workers were unable to practice social distancing. Low-wage essential workers include grocery clerks, home health aides and delivery drivers, while high-wage workers include nurses, doctors and managers. However, low-wage workers were two to three times more likely than high-wage workers – workers earning over US$40/hour – ...
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