Wages

New York City – Instacart sued the city to invalidate new minimum wage and transparency laws before they take effect next month, arguing the laws were designed for restaurant delivery workers, not grocery delivery workers. For context, New York City passed several local laws in 2021 that established minimum wage and working conditions standards for third-party food delivery platforms in the wake of the COVID-19 delivery boom. Instacart and other grocery delivery services were left out of those considerations at the time. This summer, the council passed (and overrode a mayoral veto) two ordinances pulling grocery apps into the law. One requires third-party app companies, like Instacart and Shipt, to pay grocery delivery workers a minimum of $21.44/hr to match the increase that food delivery workers received in April. The other bill mandates that the companies provide an option in their apps to give at least a 10 percent tip, before/or at the same time an order is placed, and that the companies must pay workers within seven days of the end of a pay period. The grocery delivery platform is seeking an injunction barring the city from enforcing the laws and from applying any kind of minimum wage standard for its shoppers. More details.

Paid Leave

Delaware – The state’s paid leave program goes into effect on Jan. 1. The Delaware Healthy Families Act was enacted in 2022 and provides employees 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave through a designated state trust fund. Leave can be used to care for a parent, child, or spouse “with a serious health condition,” address an employee’s own serious injury or illness, care for and bond with a new child, whether through birth, adoption, or foster care placement and minimize the impact of a military deployment of a family member. To qualify, employees must have worked for their employer for at least a year, and for at least 1,250 hours during that period. The program is funded by slightly less than 1 percent of a worker’s weekly salary and the cost can be divided between the employee and the employer. More details.

Minnesota – The portal opened this week for workers to begin applying for benefits under the state’s new paid family leave program. Effective Jan. 1, the program provides 12 weeks of leave with partial pay for employees to care for a newborn and 12 weeks to tend to a sick family member or to recover from their own serious illness. Benefits will be capped at 20 weeks/yr for those who take advantage of both. Covered workers would also include those supporting a family member called to active duty or victims of domestic violence. More details.

New Jersey – The Senate Labor Committee delayed a vote on legislation to expand the state’s existing paid leave law. In 2008, the New Jersey Family Leave Act became law. It was based on months of negotiation between lawmakers and struck a balance between worker protections and credible business concerns. The law allows for 12 weeks of leave for employees of businesses with 30 or more employers. The new legislation would lower that threshold to cover employers with five or more workers after a two-year phase-in. The bill was pulled so sponsors could negotiate additional changes to the bill to forge consensus in advance of the adjournment of the session in two weeks.  More details.

Labor Policy

U.S. Senate – The Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee advanced the nomination of Scott Mayer to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Mayer’s path has been anything but easy. During a hearing earlier this fall, Mayer, who is the general counsel for Boeing, got into a heated exchange with Senator Josh Hawley regarding the company’s recently resolved dispute with unionized workers at its St. Louis area facilities. Because that strike has since been settled and a new labor deal is in place, observers felt that Mayer’s nomination would move forward. In the hearing two weeks ago, the nomination was brought up and subsequently delayed several times due to procedural motions by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the committee’s lead Democrat. Sanders was protesting the president’s firing of former Board member Gwynne Wilcox. The full senate will likely vote later this month or in early Jan. to confirm both Mayer’s nomination and that of James Murphy, which was advanced out of the committee in early October. When they are confirmed, the Board will have a quorum. More details.

NLRB – A federal appeals court ruled that Congress cannot restrict the president’s ability to remove former National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox, reversing a lower court’s decision in a closely watched case about the scope of presidential authority. Pres. Trump fired Wilcox just a week into his second term, leaving the board without a three-member quorum necessary to resolve cases. Wilcox, whose term was set to expire in 2028, sued the Trump administration to keep her seat. She was reinstated twice before the Supreme Court issued an emergency order in May allowing Trump’s firings while the appeals court considered the case. More details.

Florida – A house committee advanced legislation that would require all private employers in the state to use E-Verify to confirm the employment eligibility of new hires. It mandates that employers maintain documentation of verification results for a defined retention period of at least three years and follow specified procedures when E-Verify returns a tentative nonconfirmation, including providing notice to the employee and allowing the employee an opportunity to contest within the federally prescribed timelines. It also mandates that employers refrain from continuing employment if E-Verify yields a final nonconfirmation, subject to applicable due-process steps. The bill now heads to an additional house committee. More details.

New Jersey – The state’s new captive audience law took effect this week. Enacted in Sept., the legislation amends state law by expanding prohibitions on employers’ requiring employees to attend or listen to communications concerning political or religious matters, including at mandatory meetings to cover the decision to join or support a labor organization or association. Prior to this amendment, state law prohibited employers from requiring employees to attend captive audience meetings held for the purpose of communicating the employer’s opinion on religious or political matters. The law also prohibited employers from disciplining, penalizing, or retaliating against employees who refuse to attend captive audience meetings that relate primarily to religious or political matters. Now, as amended, the law defines “political matters” more broadly to include topics that “relate to an electioneering communication and the employee’s decision to join or support any political party or political, civic, community, fraternal, or labor organization or association.” The prohibition on unlawful disciplining, penalizing, or retaliating is unchanged. More details.

New York – A federal judge ruled that a new state law infringes on the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In Sept., the governor signed legislation authorizing the New York State Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to assert jurisdiction over disputes between employers and unions if the NLRB is unable or unwilling to do so. The new law created the potential for both the NLRB and PERB to assert jurisdiction over the same labor dispute, escalating costs for employers and unions alike. The NLRB filed suit against the state saying the law potentially conflicts with federal law and violates the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. Amazon also filed a similar lawsuit, and this ruling pertains specifically to that case. It is unclear whether the state will appeal.  The ruling is the first blow to both New York’s law and a similar one in California, which has separately been challenged by the NLRB itself. Those lawsuits remain pending. More details.

Starbucks – The company will pay $38.9 million in restitution to employees and civil penalties following a settlement with New York City. Starbucks will pay $35.5 million to more than 15,000 workers, along with $3.4 million in civil penalties and costs. The agreement comes after the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection found Starbucks had committed half a million violations of the city’s Fair Workweek Law since 2021. Most city-based Starbucks employees who worked in an hourly position will receive $50 for each week worked between July 4, 2021, and July 7, 2024. Starbucks said that though it supports the intent of the city’s law, its complexity creates real-world challenges. DCWP’s investigation, which began in 2022, found that Starbucks had unlawfully reduced employees’ hours, denied them the opportunity to pick up additional shifts, and failed to give its employees regular schedules. The city said it would be monitoring Starbucks’ compliance with the law, including their obligation to provide reinstatement for employees at now-closed Starbucks locations. More details.

Tariffs

Costco – The company submitted a complaint to the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) claiming that President Trump overstepped his emergency powers by imposing sweeping tariffs and claimed the company is due a refund. Costco isn’t alone. A handful of other companies have separately sued the government on similar grounds, including Bumble Bee Foods, Ray-Bans parent Essilor Luxottica, Revlon, and Kawasaki Motors. But Costco is the highest profile public company to directly do battle with the Trump White House on tariffs. The company decried “the pell-mell manner by which these on-again/off-again” tariffs were “threatened, modified, suspended, and re-imposed, with the markets gyrating in response.” The lawsuit follows on the heels of the high-profile case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court – V.O.S. Solutions – where the CIT originally found that the executive orders imposing tariffs were invalid and exceeding the President’s authority. That decision was later affirmed by a federal court and the Administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A key question for many businesses is if the tariffs are ultimately ruled illegal, do refunds apply only to the named plaintiffs or to every importer who paid the duties. More details.

Food Policy

San Francisco, CA – City Attorney David Chiu filed a lawsuit against some of the largest U.S. manufacturers of ultra-processed foods that he says have made Americans sick. The companies named in the lawsuit include Kraft Heinz, Mondelez, Post, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills, Nestle, Kellanova, Kellogg, Mars, and ConAgra. Chiu said the suit, filed in California Superior Court, is intended to hold the companies “accountable for their unfair and deceptive practices, for violating California’s unfair competition law and public nuisance laws.” Chiu argued the foods have created a health care crisis that has led to serious chronic diseases, which ultimately places a burden on U.S. cities. He claimed the companies have copied the “addiction science and marketing techniques that filled the big tobacco playbook,” pointing to the colorful packaging that lines store shelves. Tactics, he said, include cartoon mascots and “integrated marketing strategies with toy manufacturers and child-focused media companies” that specifically target low-income communities of color and their children. The city attorney’s office has had previous success with public health cases, including a landmark decision in 1998 where it was awarded a $539 million settlement from tobacco companies, as well as $21 million from lead paint manufacturers. More details.

Key Takeaway

• On Jan. 1, 2026, the minimum wage will increase in 19 states and 49 localities. In 60 of those jurisdictions, the wage floor will reach or exceed $15.00/hr for some or all employers, including 3 states and 40 localities where the wage floor will reach or exceed $17.00/hr. By the end of the year, 88 jurisdictions (22 states and 66 localities) total will have raised their minimum wage floors. Despite these unprecedented wage levels, the “Affordability Crisis” – caused by inflation, tariffs and other factors – is giving wage proponents a tremendous opportunity to further advance their cause in more states and localities across the country either through legislation, the state budget, or the ballot. As evidence of that renewed effort, One Fair Wage unveiled new polling on Capitol Hill this week showing broad voter support for raising the federal minimum wage to at least $25/hr, underscoring how affordability and wage concerns are poised to shape the 2026 election cycle. One survey, covering 18 competitive swing congressional districts across states such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Mexico, found that 55% of likely voters support raising the minimum wage to $25 for all workers — including tipped and subminimum-wage workers — while 30% oppose it. The second survey – a multicity poll from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco – showed even higher support in high-cost areas, with roughly two-thirds of voters backing a $30/hr minimum wage in major cities. Any polling produced by One Fair Wage should be taken with a great deal of salt, but the exercise is instructive in demonstrating an escalating intensity in the minimum wage battles ahead. Brands should prepare accordingly.