Melissa Greenberg is a student at Harvard Law School.
The Boston Globe reports that a group of 500 airport workers at Logan Airport are preparing to strike this afternoon. Employed by ReadyJet and Flight Services & Systems, these baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants, cabin cleaners, and skycaps, have authorized a strike in response to alleged threats and intimidation by management during these workers’ unionization drive.
At the end of the day yesterday, U.S. stock indexes reported increases after two days of losses. The dip in stock markets appears to have been in response to figures from Friday’s unemployment report showing that wages had grown 2.9 percent last month in contrast to wage growth one year ago. This finding touched off a fear among investors that inflation may begin to rise, and in response, the Federal Reserve may see fit to raise interest rates. Read more here.
The Wall Street Journal asks, “[i]s it still OK to date someone you work with?” The article observes that increased awareness of sexual harassment at work has spurred questions about romance in the office. Survey responses from CareerBuilder suggest that around 40 percent of employees have dated a fellow coworker although last year this number dipped to 36 percent. The article spotlights Facebook and Google’s policy specifying, “[e]mployees are only allowed to ask a co-worker out once. If they are turned down, they don’t get to ask again. Ambiguous answers such as ‘I’m busy’ or ‘I can’t that night,’ count as a ‘no.’” Read more here.
The New York Times reported on the suicide of Doug Schifter, a New York livery driver, and the ways in which Uber and Lyft’s disruption of the industry has led to despair among drivers. Schifter’s suicide note, “a lengthy Facebook post,” sets out “the structural cruelties that had left him in such dire circumstance.” Schifter faced a sharp increase in work hours, the loss of his health insurance, and an accumulation of debt. He also appears to have lost a sense of respect and pride in his profession as it stopped being the domain of professional drivers. The increased competition in the industry from Uber and Lyft has lead to sharp declines in income for traditional drivers, and the Times reports that Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, is “increasingly concerned about the possibility that [drivers] would begin taking their lives.” Read more here.
Daily News & Commentary
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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.
September 9
Ninth Circuit revives Trader Joe’s lawsuit against employee union; new bill aims to make striking workers eligible for benefits; university lecturer who praised Hitler gets another chance at First Amendment claims.
September 8
DC Circuit to rule on deference to NLRB, more vaccine exemption cases, Senate considers ban on forced arbitration for age discrimination claims.