Wages
U.S. Congress – Legislation was introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate that would raise the minimum wage to $17/hr by 2030, eliminate the tip credit, and eliminate subminimum wages for youth workers and workers with disabilities. The Senate sponsor is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) authored the House version. Final passage is highly unlikely. More details.
Florida – Legislation is headed to the house floor that would allow employers to pay below the minimum wage for employees involved in a “work-study, internship, pre-apprenticeship, or other similar work-based learning opportunity.” Employers in Florida are already allowed to pay sub-minimum wages to certain workers, such as people ages 19 and younger during the first 90 days of employment and to students working part-time in vocational training programs. House passage is likely, and similar legislation is pending in the senate. More details.
New Jersey – An assembly committee held a contentious hearing on legislation to eliminate the tip credit by 2030. If passed, the bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D-Mercer) would phase that credit down – to $7.90 in 2026, $5.92 in 2027, $3.95 in 2028, and $1.97 in 2029 – before entirely eliminating it beginning in 2030. The restaurant industry, including servers and bartenders, showed up in force and demonstrated first-hand the negative impacts of the proposal. No vote was taken. More details.
Baltimore, Maryland – Legislation was reintroduced in the city council to eliminate the tip credit in the city by 2030. Similar legislation was introduced in 2024 but ultimately was defeated, as was similar legislation the last two years at the state legislature. One Fair Wage held a rally at Baltimore City Hall to celebrate the reintroduction. More details.
Paid Leave
Maryland – Legislation is headed to the governor that would push back the effective date of Maryland’s paid family leave law by 18 months. Enacted in 2022, the program was scheduled to go into effect July 2026 but is now pushed back to Jan. 1, 2028. The law calls for 12 weeks of paid leave in the event of illness, caretaking of another, birth of a child and other benefits. The governor is expected to sign it into law. More details.
Labor Policy
Labor Department – President Trump has tapped Andrew Rogers to lead the Wage & Hour Division (WHD), which oversees enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), laws regulating prevailing wages and other provisions related to federal contracts, and numerous other workplace statutes. If confirmed, Rogers would come to the post with significant administrative agency experience. During the first Trump Administration, he was a senior advisor in the WHD, where he focused primarily on regulations and opinion letters. He currently serves as the acting general counsel at the EEOC. Before that, he was the chief counsel to EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas, who is now the acting chair of the EEOC. More details.
NLRB – The U.S. Supreme Court ordered that, for now, President Trump is not required to reinstate two members of independent federal agencies he wants to fire. The provisional decision affects Gwynne Wilcox, a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board. Chief Justice John Roberts issued an order that temporarily blocked lower court rulings that said the two officials should be reinstated. The court will decide what next steps to take in the case after hearing from lawyers for the two ousted officials. Although the Supreme Court previously upheld protections against members of independent agencies being removed without cause, the current conservative majority has reversed course in recent cases affecting other agencies. More details.
Colorado – An additional house committee advanced senate-passed legislation that would make it easier to form a union and the bill now heads to the house floor for likely passage. The legislation seeks to eliminate a second election mandated by Colorado’s Labor Peace Act, a requirement that is unique to Colorado. Federal law allows employees to unionize with a simple majority vote, but they must participate in a second vote with 75 percent approval to determine if workers who don’t support the union have to pay representation fees. The Colorado Labor Peace Act passed in the 1940s, and bill sponsors referred to the provision requiring a second vote as “a relic of the past.” It is unclear if the governor will sign the bill in its current form. More details.
Georgia – DoorDash announced the expansion of their portable benefits savings program for Dashers with a new pilot in Georgia. Expenses covered under this program can include retirement savings, health, dental, and vision insurance, and paid time off. Workers who earn at least $1,000 in the first quarter of 2025 (excluding tips) through the DoorDash platform will be eligible to open a Stride Save account in April and receive deposits into their portable benefits savings. For the duration of the pilot, which will run through July 2025, participating Dashers will receive deposits from DoorDash equal to 4 percent of their pre-tip earnings. This announcement comes after the company introduced the first-ever portable benefits savings pilot program in Pennsylvania last year. DoorDash said that the program has helped enhance the financial security for the 4,400 Pennsylvania Dashers who signed up to participate, as nearly 90 percent of surveyed participants said it has been beneficial for them. More details.
Washington – A house committee advanced senate-passed legislation that would extend unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to workers during a labor strike. If enacted, Washington would become the third state – after New York and New Jersey – to grant this benefit. Striking workers that have logged at least 680 hours in the past year would become eligible for UI benefits starting the second Sunday after their legal strike begins, following a required one-week waiting period. As written, claimants would receive an average weekly benefit of $757 in fiscal year 2026, for up to four weeks, with payments determined by their employer’s experience rate. The bill also removes disqualifications for workers affected by employer-initiated lockouts in multi-employer bargaining disputes. More details.
Labor Activism
Starbucks – The company announced they have reached a new collective bargaining milestone with Starbucks Workers United after almost a year of failed contract negotiations. The two groups have entered mediation to continue working out remaining challenges to ratifying a formalized union contact. Both parties have also agreed to drop their respective lawsuits against one another. In Oct. 2023, both parties sued each other over the union’s use of the Starbucks company name and logo that came to a head at the height of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This step forward for both parties comes on the heels of unionized baristas across the country participating in strikes and protests in order to put pressure on Starbucks to negotiate a fair contract. Starbucks Workers United voted to authorize a strike in mid-Dec., which escalated across multiple cities in the leadup to Christmas. Then, in late Jan., New York City baristas staged a sit-in in Park Slope, Brooklyn, to demand a fair contract. More details.
California – The SEIU has successfully pushed for introduction of legislation that would let drivers form bargaining units organize – an attempt to circumvent roadblocks to driver organizing that include current antitrust law and Proposition 22, an industry-funded 2020 ballot initiative that maintained drivers’ status as independent contractors rather than employees. SEIU challenged Prop 22 in court by arguing the initiative unconstitutionally tied lawmakers’ hands. The state supreme court last year largely upheld the initiative but left the door open to the Legislature passing bills that would let workers organize, paving the way for the new legislation. The bill was filed this week and chances for passage are unclear. More details.
Sustainability
Maryland – Legislation is on its way to the governor that would make the state the sixth to have an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) law. If signed, the law would cover certain packaging and paper products, including beverage containers and calls for a producer responsibility organization (PRO) to set fees and reimbursements. Reimbursements to local governments would cover up to half the cost of collection and cover all transportation and processing costs associated with recycling in the state. The bill calls for a reimbursement rate to cover at least 50 percent of the cost by July 1, 2028, then 75 percent in 2029 and 90 percent in 2030. The PRO also would set producer fees, with funds going toward initiatives such as reuse and recycling infrastructure improvements, including organics recycling infrastructure. More details.
Key Takeaway
- This week, Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr potentially signaled that a new front in his agenda may be opening which could drag the industry into yet another reputational morass. During an interview with CBS News this week, he rhetorically asked whether society should pay for the health care of Americans who eat “doughnuts or smoke” when they know those habits can contribute to poor health outcomes. However, he went on to say that it is an American’s choice to “eat doughnuts all day” or drink sodas, and he promised not to take those choices away. But they are clearly on his radar and as we have already seen, the MAHA movement is formidable. If he truly begins to restart a national conversation about obesity, fast-food, marketing to kids, and a variety of other issues, he has a political infrastructure in place – especially with red state governors – to enact his policies. No such political alliance existed in previous eras when these issues were discussed, and the industry relied on “pro-business/free market” conservatives to protect the business model. Those same “conservatives” are now leading this fight. We should prepare accordingly.