COVID-19
Florida – The legislature passed multiple bills prohibiting employers from mandating their employees be vaccinated as long as companies included exemptions for medical and religious reasons. Employees could also opt out if they were willing to be periodically tested or wear protective equipment such as masks. Employers would have to pay for the tests or provide the masks. The legislature also imposed fines of $50,000 per violation for employers with 100 workers or more (and fines of $10,000 for smaller employers) that mandate vaccines outside the allowable guidelines. Lawmakers also allocated $1 million to the governor’s office to study leaving the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). More details.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce – The nation’s largest business lobbying organization this week recommended that businesses continue to implement OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) on vaccine and testing requirements, despite a federal court order that has temporarily halted the rules. The Chamber advised that employers should plan to comply until it is “shut down.” Last week, industry groups such as the National Retail Federation, the American Trucking Associations and the National Federation of Independent Business sued in the Fifth Circuit to overturn the requirements. The industry groups have argued that the mandates would cause staffing and supply chain disruptions during the busy holiday season. The Chamber has, to date, not joined that legal effort. More details.
Wages
Howard County, MD – The county considered legislation to raise the county minimum wage. If approved, the bill would incrementally raise the minimum wage for workers in Howard County to $16/hr by 2026. Businesses with 15 or more employees would start at $14/hr effective April 1, then increase to $15/hr in 2023 and $16/hr in 2025. Small businesses with fewer than 15 employees would start at $13/hr April 1, then increase to $14/hr in 2023, $15/hr in 2024 and $16/hr in 2026. More details.
Study – Researchers released a report finding that higher pay and greater financial incentives result in higher customer service. The study examined the impacts of recent minimum wage increases in Santa Clara County, CA and appears to be consistent with theory-based predictions of greater incentives to improve service in independent restaurants. But for chain restaurants, the higher minimum wage didn’t have a statistically significant effect for staff friendliness, wait times, cleanliness or price. A possible explanation, according to the authors, is that chain restaurants often have myriad protocols and procedures regulating how the business operates, so higher wages wouldn’t change those dynamics. More details.
Activism
Amazon – Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, N.Y., have withdrawn their petition for a unionization vote. Organizers at the facility said late last month that they gathered more than 2,000 signed cards authorizing the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), an independent organization, to represent them. However, Amazon filed documents with the NLRB indicating that they have 9,660 workers on payroll at the facility far below the 30 percent threshold normally required by the NLRB to proceed with an election. The leader of the ALU said the group “temporarily withdrew” its petition and will begin the process of resubmitting immediately. More details.
Burgerville – The Burgerville Workers Union reached a tentative agreement on a contract with management of the Pacific Northwest fast food chain after more than three years of negotiations. The contract is expected to be ratified by a vote of workers at five unionized Burgerville locations and will impact around 100 employees. Voting on the contract is expected to end by mid-Dec. and, if passed, will make Burgerville the only fast food workforce in the country covered by a collective bargaining agreement. The contract goes up for renewal May 1, 2023. The new contract would give employees a three month set schedule (i.e., advanced scheduling), paid vacation time, paid parental leave and five paid holidays. The contract also allows workers at unionized Burgerville locations to elect a “shop steward,” a union member who sits in on disciplinary and investigatory hearings. More details.
Misc.
New Jersey – An assembly committee advanced “fair franchising” legislation aimed at the hotel industry. Previous efforts at passage have stalled for lack of support. While initially targeted at the hotel industry, it would be very easy for restaurant industry opponents to amend the bill and cover restaurants as well. More details.
Delivery
North Carolina – The governor signed legislation allowing fully autonomous vehicles designed to deliver food and other packages to operate on public streets and highways in the state. The new law refers to them as “neighborhood occupantless vehicles” and permits their use on roads with a speed limit of 45 mph or less. Several other states, including Florida and Nevada, enacted similar laws this year. More details.
Monroe County, NY – The county executive signed a bill into law prohibiting food delivery services like Uber Eats, Grubhub and Doordash from listing, advertising, promoting or selling a restaurant’s product without a valid written agreement from the business. The law allows restaurants to submit a request for the delivery services to remove them from their website or app, which must be completed within five days. More details.
Key Takeaways
- The Burgerville Workers Union notched a major victory this week, demonstrating that unions can deliver value to workers. It’s worth noting that Burgerville has chosen to expand many of the provisions of the proposed CBA to its entire workforce, whether unionized or not. The union will claim credit for having, in effect, bolstered the compensation and working conditions for workers across the entire chain. Shortly after Burgerville began to unionize three years ago, workers at another area burger chain, Little Big Burger, began their own organizing effort to affiliate with the same union. That effort was unsuccessful and there have not been any other campaigns since at area burger chains. Following this victory, it will be interesting to see if there’s another spike in organizing activity.
- Over the past few weeks, multiple conservative political and policy organizations have held meetings and conventions where the rhetoric is continually turning more hostile to Corporate America and business organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Last week, at a Federalist Society meeting, the audience was told “massive corporations are pursuing a common and mutually agreed upon agenda to destroy American freedom” and that “the Chamber of Commerce is not our friend and the C-suite grandees who finance it are not our friends either”. Business leaders need to be cognizant of the growing influence of anti-corporate grassroots activists in conservative circles and work to reassert their influence among like-minded policy leaders and elected officials.
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 Nation’s Restaurant News website, SoundCloud, iTunes and Spotify.