The New York Times reports that a California Court of Appeals reversed a District Court decision overturning teacher tenure rules. In a notable decision two years ago, a lower court had struck down five California statutes and other rules effectuating the use of seniority to determine teacher layoffs during budget crises. This decision, holding that the laws do not in fact deprive students of a quality education, will allow the statutes to stand. Then panel of appeals judges explained that “[t]he court’s job is merely to determine whether the statutes are constitutional, not if they’re a good idea,” and if ineffective teachers are in place, the statutes are not the root of the problem since school and district administrators place teachers within the district.
According to JDSupra, the EEOC announced yesterday that New Jersey’s Local 25 Sheet Metal Union and its apprenticeship school will shell out a combined $1.65 million to settle part of EEOC’s lawsuit based on race discrimination. The decades-old lawsuit addresses the Union’s discrimination against black and Hispanic journeypersons from 1991-2002, and the damages will go to those harmed by the discrimination.
On Thursday, retirees in the trucking, parcel delivery, and grocery supply industries flocked to Washington D.C. to rally against impending cuts to their pensions, according to the New York Times. The pension cuts, which will affect 400,000 retired workers, will take effect on July 1 as a result of a little-noticed measure attached to a December 2014 bill that allows trustees of retirement plans to cut benfits if a pension fund’s failure is “likely to overwhelm the underfunded Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.” Hundreds of people, joined by Senator Elizabeth Warren and several other members of Congress, rallied in front of the Capitol shouting “no cuts!”
The number of U.S. workers who filed claims for unemployment benefits decreased for the second straight week, reaching its lowest level since 1973, per the Wall Street Journal. The seasonally-adjusted 253,000 jobless claims signal an increasingly robust labor market.
Daily News & Commentary
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September 16
In today’s news and commentary, the NLRB sues New York, a flight attendant sues United, and the Third Circuit considers the employment status of Uber drivers The NLRB sued New York to block a new law that would grant the state authority over private-sector labor disputes. As reported on recently by Finlay, the law, which […]
September 15
Unemployment claims rise; a federal court hands victory to government employees union; and employers fire workers over social media posts.
September 14
Workers at Boeing reject the company’s third contract proposal; NLRB Acting General Counsel William Cohen plans to sue New York over the state’s trigger bill; Air Canada flight attendants reject a tentative contract.
September 12
Zohran Mamdani calls on FIFA to end dynamic pricing for the World Cup; the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement opens a probe into Scale AI’s labor practices; and union members organize immigration defense trainings.
September 11
California rideshare deal advances; Boeing reaches tentative agreement with union; FTC scrutinizes healthcare noncompetes.
September 10
A federal judge denies a motion by the Trump Administration to dismiss a lawsuit led by the American Federation of Government Employees against President Trump for his mass layoffs of federal workers; the Supreme Court grants a stay on a federal district court order that originally barred ICE agents from questioning and detaining individuals based on their presence at a particular location, the type of work they do, their race or ethnicity, and their accent while speaking English or Spanish; and a hospital seeks to limit OSHA's ability to cite employers for failing to halt workplace violence without a specific regulation in place.