Wages
New Jersey – The state labor department announced the new minimum wage rate for 2024 will be $15.13/hr. The cash wage for servers will remain at $5.26/hr. The increase is due to a law passed in 2019 tying the minimum wage to the CPI. For context, the minimum wage was $8.60/hr when Gov. Murphy took office in 2018. More details.
Boston, MA – A joint committee heard legislation to once again raise the minimum wage to $20/hr by 2027 and ultimately bring the server wage to $12/hr. No vote was taken. The state just reached the $15/hr mark this year as a result of legislation passed in 2018. The state legislature has a two-year session and while the bill will likely not move this year, chances for some type of wage increase remain high in 2024. More details.
Labor Policy
EEOC – The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced it will prioritize using its enforcement power to address employment barriers caused by technology, discrimination against vulnerable workers, and protecting workers affected by pregnancy and similar medical conditions, among other things. Those priorities are fleshed out in EEOC’s Strategic Enforcement Plan for 2024 to 2028 which featured a list of items mostly unchanged from the draft plan published earlier this year. EEOC finalized the plan two months after the U.S. Senate confirmation of Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal which restored a 3-2 Democratic majority at the agency. More details.
California – The governor signed compromise legislation that replaces much of the language in the original AB-1228 that, in effect, creates a watered-down version of the FAST Act’s Fast Food Council until Jan. 1, 2029. Importantly, the new language reduces the authority of the council, prevents local councils, and narrows the scope of the council. Finally, the legislation will provide for a minimum wage increase to $20/hr (as opposed to a $22/hr minimum wage proposed under the original FAST Act) with annual adjustments allowed based on CPI (capped at no more than 3.5 percent). The new law becomes effective if and when the existing industry-led ballot measure to repeal the original bill language is withdrawn. More details.
North Carolina – The legislature approved the state budget which includes language prohibiting local governments and municipalities from establishing minimum wage and other employment-related requirements for private employers. The governor has criticized the state budget but announced he will let it become law without his signature. A majority of states now have some level of local wage and benefit preemption. More details.
Labor Activism
Nevada – Tens of thousands of Las Vegas hospitality workers fighting for new union contracts voted to authorize a strike that could impact more than three dozen casinos and hotels. The Culinary Union didn’t immediately set a deadline for a walkout as it continues bargaining for better pay, benefits, and working conditions with the top casino employers on the Las Vegas Strip, including MGM Resorts International, Caesars Entertainment, and Wynn Resorts. Workers calling for higher wages, better conditions, and job security, especially since the end of the pandemic, have been increasingly willing to walk out on the job as employers face a greater need for workers. In Nevada, the Culinary Union is the largest labor union, representing about 60,000 hospitality workers statewide. Contracts for 40,000 of those members recently expired. More details.
Starbucks – The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that four locations in the St. Louis area violated federal law when they discouraged store employees from joining a union. The agency ordered a number of remedies for the violations, including rehiring a worker fired for wearing a pro-union t-shirt, gathering and reading out to employees a list of Starbucks’ violations and their rights under the NLRA, and, in the case of one store, tossing previous election results and holding a new election. More details.
Scheduling
St. Louis, MO – Legislation was introduced that would require worker schedules to be posted 14 days in advance. It would almost mandate that prior to or at the start of employment, an employer must provide every new employee with a good faith estimate in writing of the new employee’s projected days and hours of work for the first 90 days of employment. The legislation also has a penalty pay requirement and it requires employers to pay employees for time on-call. It also provides for the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE) to establish an employee complaint-system; determines penalties including fines; prohibits retaliation against any employee for reporting violations; provides for noninterference with collective bargaining agreements; establishes authority for rules and regulations; establishes records retention requirements; contains a severability clause, and; contains an effective date clause dependent upon restored authority of the city to regulate terms of employment. The bill was referred to the Transportation & Commerce Committee. More details.
Delivery
New York, NY – A New York state judge ruled in favor of a New York City rule that sets a minimum wage requirement for app-based delivery workers, serving a blow to major food delivery companies that tried to stop the new law. Food delivery platforms DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats had challenged in court the city’s new law, maintaining that the law would hurt delivery workers more than help them. DoorDash and Grubhub filed a suit jointly while Uber (the parent company of Uber Eats) filed its lawsuit separately. The law, which was stayed during the litigation, would have increased pay for app delivery workers to $17.96/hr before tips on July 12, and raise pay again to nearly $20/hr in April 2025. Pay would be adjusted annually for inflation going forward. The lawsuit alleged that the new regulation is legally flawed because it targets only meal-delivery services and not grocery-delivery services. Another sticking point is language that would compel the companies to pay workers for hours that they are available to take orders while logged into the delivery apps, even if they don’t actually make any deliveries. The new pay levels will now go into effect and the companies said that they are evaluating further legal options. More details.
Sustainability
California – Legislation is on its way to the governor that would require all companies earning at least $1 billion in annual revenue and doing business in the state to provide information on their global carbon footprints starting in 2026, including emissions from direct operations, energy use, and supply chains. The bill language is more stringent than the SEC’s proposed climate disclosure rule which would only apply to publicly-traded companies and wouldn’t require all of them to disclose supply-chain emissions also known as Scope 3. The disclosures would require third-party verification and would be handled by the California Air Resources Board which would contract with a nonprofit organization to create a public database. The bill would allow the attorney general to bring civil action against non-compliant companies, a scaling back of the previous version’s proposed authority to levy fines for violations. More details.
Key Takeaways
- Brands and industry leaders need to pay attention to the escalating conversation at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regarding the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the recruiting and hiring process. There is a growing chorus of detractors that think AI software may be analyzing potential worker pools and disproportionately or unfairly eliminating persons of color or other minority groups. Brands need to ensure their internal and external resources in this space are not vulnerable to these types of accusations.
- In two weeks, the next big battle over tip credit elimination will be enjoined in Montgomery County, MD. Prior to the Oct. 10 hearing, brands will need to challenge their comfort zones by recruiting server voices to speak out against the proposal. If not, the industry will likely lose yet another tip credit elimination battle just weeks after the debacle in Chicago.
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.