On Sunday, the Department of Labor issued new guidance clarifying gig workers’ eligibility for unemployment benefits under the CARES Act—the federal government’s coronavirus relief package. The guidance answers some key questions about the administrability of ... More »
On Wednesday, Congress passed the first widespread federal paid sick leave mandate within its coronavirus emergency relief package. Only a massive pandemic—current estimates predict, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States—could conv... More »
Last Monday the Labor and Employment Action Project (LEAP) at Harvard Law School hosted David Webber, professor at Boston University School of Law, for a discussion of his book The Rise of the Working-Class Shareholder: Labor’s Last Best Weapon. In difficult t... More »
For the discriminatory loss of early retirement benefits, the New York State Nurses Association has won a $20.8 million-dollar settlement from New York City. The city repeatedly denied requests from the Assoc. to classify nursing as a “physically taxing” job,... More »
“Gig economy” or “online platform” companies that provide personal labor services—Uber, Lyft, TaskRabbit, Handy, Instacart, Grubhub, and others—challenge American law’s system for classifying workers as “employees” or “independent contractors, As I explain in... More »
Minimum wages are rising across the country. On Sunday, San Francisco’s minimum wage reached $15 an hour for all businesses, the highest rate of any major U.S. city. (Seattle’s $15 minimum in effect last year applies only to large businesses with 501 or more e... More »
In Chicago, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled in favor of sandwich franchise Jimmy John’s, who argued that the company cannot be liable for the FLSA violations of its individual restaurants. Jimmy John’s may control mayonnai... More »
The Province of Ontario is testing the effects of a basic income program on poverty, reports the New York Times. Ontario will provide a basic income to 4,000 people who are unemployed or who make an annual salary of less than 34,000 Canadian dollars ($24,000) ... More »
The Independent Drivers Guild launched its own open enrollment campaign to raise awareness of health insurance options for app-based drivers and assist in health plan enrollment. The move comes in response to the Trump administration’s decision to cut fu... More »
Once simply the subject of academic books and articles, Universal Basic Income (UBI)—wherein the state provides a uniform cash grant to every citizen without a means test or work requirement—has seemingly become de rigueur for progressive activists. In their t... More »
I appreciate Andy Stern’s response to my recent post on labor law reform and UBI. I think we agree on almost everything, but disagree in a couple important respects. Let me first trace the large zone of agreement. I think we’re both committed to an egalitarian... More »
The debate between Brishen Rogers and Andy Stern points to important questions about the best strategy for achieving a progressive UBI in the United States. We look forward to publishing Rogers’ reply to Stern soon. In the meantime, I want to offer a t... More »
November 29th, 2017