Wages
Connecticut – A hearing will be held next week in a senate committee on legislation to eliminate the tip credit by October of this year. One Fair Wage held a press conference last month signaling their intention to pursue legislation but chances for final passage remain unclear. More details.
Maryland – The governor launched his effort to permanently tie the state’s minimum wage to inflation. Maryland’s minimum wage is $13.25/hr, following a $.75/hr increase this past Jan. It’s scheduled to rise to $14/hr next year. Without intervention, it will hit $15/hr in 2025. Legislators have shown a potential willingness to accelerate the $15/hr level but have given the indexing proposal a cool reception. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have automatic minimum wage increases tied to some type of index. Additionally, a related wage bill (legislation to eliminate the tip credit) had a hearing in committee this week. More details.
Massachusetts – Labor unions and worker advocates are pushing state lawmakers to implement the highest minimum wage in the nation at $20/hr, just two months after Massachusetts raised the rate to $15/hr. As part of the 2018 “grand bargain” between worker advocates and business leaders, Massachusetts raised the minimum wage incrementally from $11/hr to $15/hr between 2019 and the beginning of this year but did not tie the wage to the CPI. Advocates argue that inflation has eroded the benefits of the previous increase and the wage should be hiked accordingly. Prospects for the proposal becoming law are unclear. More details.
Labor Policy
Labor Department – President Biden announced that he would nominate Julie Su to serve as Labor Secretary. Su is currently the Deputy Labor Secretary and will be nominated to replace Marty Walsh, who is departing the administration to run the professional hockey players’ union. Su’s confirmation fight could be a tough one in the Senate; she was confirmed 50-47 to her slot in 2021 with no Republican support. Before joining the agency, Su served in several top posts in California state government, including as state’s labor secretary. Prior to that, she worked as a lawyer for low wage and immigrant workers. More details.
California – An appellate court ruled that workers can band together to bring a lawsuit against their employer for alleged labor violations, months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the very same law. “A federal court’s interpretation of California law is not binding, even if it comes from the nation’s highest court,” Justice Donald Franson wrote in the 3-0 ruling. The central dispute in the court case is whether the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) prevents employers from enforcing mandatory agreements in workers’ contracts to take all disputes to individual arbitration rather than suing in court. Expect further litigation. More details.
Oregon – A senate committee heard legislation to establish a universal basic income pilot program. If passed, the bill would establish the People’s Housing Assistance Fund Demonstration Program, administered by the Department of Human Services, to provide 12 monthly payments of $1,000 to individuals who are experiencing homelessness, are at risk of homelessness, are severely rent burdened, or earn at or below 60 percent of area median income. Additionally, the bill would require a study on who is receiving the money broken down among a few demographics, including race, veteran status, and risk of domestic violence. The program would sunset in 2026. More details.
Labor Activism
Starbucks – An administrative law judge ruled that the company committed “egregious and widespread” violations of federal labor law while trying to halt union campaigns and must reopen the stores it closed in the Buffalo area when the union effort was first underway. In resolving an extensive case that combined 33 unfair labor practices charges from 21 stores in the Buffalo area, the judge held that the company retaliated against employees affiliated with Starbucks Workers United as they began a union drive in 2021. Additionally, the company must rescind dozens of disciplinary actions taken against Buffalo-area employees, pay “reasonable consequential damages” and offer to reinstate terminated workers to their jobs. The order also calls for CEO Howard Schultz and SVP of U.S. Operations Denise Nelson to read a 14-page notice that explains workers’ rights and how the company violated the law. The company said they are considering “all options to obtain further legal review.” More details.
Starbucks – Sen. Bernie Sanders announced that he will seek a subpoena compelling Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz to answer questions before a Senate committee about the chain’s handling of a unionization effort within its ranks. Schultz was invited by Sanders several weeks ago to appear voluntarily before the Senate HELP committee but he declined. Sanders noted at the time that he had previously reached out to the executive at least twice for an accounting of Starbucks’ response to the unionization drive. Starbucks has not publicly responded to Sander’s subpoena announcement. More details.
Scheduling
Colorado – A house committee defeated onerous predictive scheduling legislation. If passed, the legislation would have mandated a number of burdensome provisions, including 14 day advance notice, 12 hours of rest time between shifts, and a requirement to offer more hours to part-time workers before hiring new ones. Additionally, employers must provide a worker an hour of “predictability pay” when they add time to a shift or change the location, and two hours salary if they reduce the work time. The bill appears dead for the year. More details.
Sustainability
U.S. Congress – Both the house and senate approved a resolution to block the Biden Administration from allowing retirement plans to consider ESG in their investment decisions. The vote was 216-204 to adopt a joint resolution that would prevent the Labor Department from enforcing a rule that makes it easier for plan managers to consider ESG factors when they make investments and exercise shareholder rights, such as through proxy voting. The bill heads to the president’s desk for an almost certain veto. More details.
Key Takeaways
- Democratic Sens. Tester and Manchin’s opposition to the Biden ESG rule is smart election year positioning for two Democrats representing Republican states. It also demonstrates how animated the Republican base has become on the ESG issue. To that point, Governor DeSantis penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this week, and the Heritage Foundation launched a new website ESGHurts.com. “ESG” is becoming a catchphrase to attack “woke corporations,” just as CRT became a catch-all for a number of issues of concern around education, gender, sexuality, race. Companies will have to continue to navigate this space and should appreciate that this issue is much broader than the narrow issue of ESG (as many companies understand it).
- This week, the Pew Research Center released new data showing that the gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the United States over the past 20 years or so. In 2022, women earned an average of 82 percent of what men earned, according to their analysis of median hourly earnings of both full and part-time workers. These results are similar to where the pay gap stood in 2002, when women earned 80 percent as much as men. The study found no single explanation for why progress toward narrowing the pay gap has stagnated but stems from a combination of many economic and societal factors. Ironically, the analysis cites additional research that says family-friendly policies like paid family leave have actually exacerbated the problem making it easier for parents – disproportionately mothers – to spend more time outside the workplace. Expect much more research to come as well as the continued national dialogue.
Podcast
Check out our Working Lunch podcast each week that includes further analysis into these legislative issues, policy, politics and much more. You can find Working Lunch on the Restaurant Business online website, SoundCloud, iTunes and Spotify.