Jason Vazquez is a staff attorney at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2023. His writing on this blog reflects his personal views and should not be attributed to the Teamsters.
As a blistering heat wave descends on the west coast, California’s agricultural employers find themselves scrambling to finish their harvest before crops wither and perish in the searing conditions. The region’s thousands of agricultural workers — miserably exploited in the best of times — have been driven ever more intensely in recent days, with many toiling long hours in the scorching sun while deprived of breaks, shade, or water. Reports indicate that untold numbers of exhausted farmworkers have fallen ill as temperatures continue to climb — and some, tragically, have passed away.
Labor groups in California are attempting to leverage the brutal working conditions the soaring temperatures have created — or inflamed — to galvanize support for the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act, legislation that would empower a ten-member council, appointed by the Governor, to establish minimum standards on wages, hours, and other working conditions in the fast food sector.
In judicial news, President Biden nominated Jennifer Sung, a former labor lawyer and union organizer, as a judge on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, CA. The news comes on the heels of Jon’s prescient observation that the President has faced criticism for naming management lawyers, prosecutors, and corporate attorneys to the federal judiciary. While Biden has appointed several public defenders and civil rights lawyers to the bench, Sung is the first union lawyer he has tapped.
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March 11
The partial government shutdown results in TSA agents losing their first full paycheck; the Fifth Circuit upholds the certification of a class of former United Airline workers who were placed on unpaid leave for declining to receive the COVID-19 vaccine for religious reasons during the pandemic; and an academic group files a lawsuit against the State Department over a policy that revokes and denies visas to noncitizens for their work in fact-checking and content moderation.
March 10
Court rules Kari Lake unlawfully led USAGM, voiding mass layoffs; Florida Senate passes bill tightening union recertification rules; Fifth Circuit revives whistleblower suit against Lockheed Martin.
March 9
6th Circuit rejects Cemex, Board may overrule precedents with two members.
March 8
In today’s news and commentary, a weak jobs report, the NIH decides it will no longer recognize a research fellows’ union, and WNBA contract talks continue to stall as season approaches. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that employers cut 92,000 jobs in February while the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.4 percent. A loss […]
March 6
The Harvard Graduate Students Union announces a strike authorization vote.
March 5
Colorado judge grants AFSCME’s motion to intervene to defend Colorado’s county employee collective bargaining law; Arizona proposes constitutional amendment to ban teachers unions’ use public resources; NLRB unlikely to use rulemaking to overturn precedent.