Wages
Connecticut – A prominent member of the Senate Labor and Public Employees Committee announced her intention to reintroduce legislation eliminating the tip credit. Similar legislation failed this past legislative session; however, advocacy groups led by One Fair Wage are increasing pressure on legislative leaders. One Fair Wage accompanied the senator on stage at her announcement. More details.
Michigan – The Michigan Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the appeal of the unanimous 3-0 ruling by the Court of Appeals earlier this year that prevented pending minimum wage and paid leave laws from going into effect. The appellate panel had ruled then that the legislature, controlled by Republicans at the time, did have the constitutional authority in 2018 to adopt a pair of petition initiatives and amend their respective policies, instead of having the initiatives go to the ballot that Nov. In the decision, the court wrote there is no explicit language in the constitution banning the legislature from adopting laws initially brought forward by petition initiative and amending those laws in the same legislative session. Wage proponents filed an appeal to the state supreme court which was granted in Sept. When the court will issue a decision remains unclear. More details.
Ohio – Due to a constitutional amendment passed by the voters in 2006, the minimum wage is tied to inflation. As of Jan. 1, the new minimum wage will be $10.45/hr with a server wage of $5.25/hr. More details.
New York – As of Jan 1, the new minimum wage rate will be $16/hr in New York City, Long Island, and in Westchester County, with a server wage of $10.70/hr. In the rest of the state, the minimum wage will rise to $15/hr with the server wage increasing to $10/hr. More details.
Boulder County, CO – The county commission voted unanimously to raise the county minimum wage to $25/hr by 2030. The first increase, this coming Jan. 1, will raise the wage to $15.69/hr. Colorado has a tip credit of $3.02/hr meaning the server wage will increase to $12.67/hr next year. More details.
Half Moon Bay, CA – The city council heard a proposal to increase the local minimum wage to $20/hr. While no vote was taken, there appeared to be significant support within the council. Less than a year ago (in Feb. 2023), the council raised the minimum wage to its current $19/hr. There is no tip credit in California. More details.
New York, NY – A state appeals court denied a challenge by Uber and other companies to the city’s new minimum wage law for app-based delivery workers, allowing it to take effect. The court denied appeals by Uber, DoorDash, and Grubhub after a state judge rejected their claims that the law unfairly targets their food delivery services. The law will require companies to pay delivery workers $17.96/hr which will rise to nearly $20/hr in April 2025. Companies can decide whether to pay workers hourly or per delivery, which would be based on the hours workers log into the app. More details.
Renton, WA – The city council defeated a proposal to raise the city’s minimum wage to $19/hr by July 2024. The vote was taken in an effort to head off a ballot measure with the same language that had previously been approved for the Feb. 2024 ballot. The measure was overwhelmingly defeated in the council and it is unclear what effect that outcome will have on the ballot initiative. More details.
Paid Leave
Chicago, IL – The city council amended recently-passed paid leave legislation requiring all employers to provide 10 days of paid leave to their employees. The tweak, designed to further protect small businesses, adjusts the implementation timing of the law which now won’t take effect until next summer. More details,
Labor Policy
Labor Department – The agency once again delayed their final overtime rule, pushing its expected release to April 2024. In Aug., the Biden administration proposed their long-awaited new overtime rule that would make 3.6 million more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay, reviving an Obama-era policy effort that was ultimately scuttled in court. The new rule would require employers to pay overtime to so-called white collar workers who make less than $55,000 a year. That’s up from the current threshold of $35,568 which has been in place since 2019 when the Trump administration raised it from $23,660. In another significant change, the rule proposes automatic increases to the salary level each year. The new threshold is lower than many business groups anticipated and in fact, a group of Democratic lawmakers had urged the Labor Department to raise the salary threshold to $82,732 by 2026, in line with the 55th percentile of earnings of full-time salaried workers. The proposed rule was subject to a 60-day public comment period before it is final and was expected to be released this past Nov. More details.
U.S. House – The House Education and the Workforce Committee introduced bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the bill funding the Labor Department’s workforce development programs. The overhaul, backed by Republican Committee Chair Virginia Foxx and top Democrat Bobby Scott of Virginia, would expand use of “individual training accounts,” worth $5,000 per person, for retraining or other skills development programs. The bill also adds digital literacy to the list of core competencies included in adult education programs, tweaks how the system handles young workers, and increases requirements on states to fund education programs in correctional facilities. More details.
Joint Employer – Next week, the House Education & Workforce Committee will hold a markup on the efforts to employ the Congressional Review Act. No amendments to the bill will be heard. If the joint resolution were to advance out of the house, it faces an uphill battle in the senate and a certain Biden veto. Additionally, this week, numerous state-level trade associations in industries directly affected by the NLRB’s actions – namely restaurants and retail – signed a joint letter to their respective targeted Congressional delegations asking them to support the resolution. More details.
Sustainability
SEC – The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)proposed reporting rules that would require public companies to include a raft of climate data in their audited financial statements have been delayed once again until April 2024. They were expected to be released this fall. The original rule was released in March of 2022 but the agency received over 10,000 comments asking for changes causing the delay. The mandated disclosures cover everything from costs caused by wildfires to the loss of a sales contract because of climate regulations, such as a cap on carbon emissions. After the backlash to the climate proposals, officials are considering changes such as a higher trigger for disclosure and using different percentages depending on the financial item in question. Under this scenario, effective dates for any final rule could be pushed into 2025 (data collection) and 2026 (submittal to the SEC). More details.
Key Takeaways
- Over the past few weeks, One Fair Wage has been aggressively making the rounds of targeted state legislatures, county commissions, and city councils pressuring progressive lawmakers to pursue tip credit elimination. This week alone, OFW leadership was in Boston, Hartford, both Montgomery and Prince George’s County, Maryland, as well as the city of Santa Clara, CA. The next 60 days will see a tremendous push from wage advocates as most states prepare to convene their legislatures in early January. The industry has to be equally aggressive not only pushing back on their message, but recruiting credible messengers – i.e., servers – to make the case. That work is tedious but must be undertaken if the industry business model is to be sustained.
- The monthly jobs report released today shows a slight cooling of the job market hopefully relieving some of the relentless upward pressure on wages. Tangentially, we will be watching if the easing of the job market diminishes the leverage workers are currently enjoying in the workplace and that the labor community is expertly exploiting.
Podcast
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