New York City’s Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 endorsed Mayor Bill De Blasio’s proposed Brooklyn-Queens Connector (BQX)—a sixteen-mile, 24/7 streetcar planned to run along the East River. The project is controversial in part because of how expensive it would be. John Samuelson, TWU’s president, said that the project would facilitate “several hundred jobs.”
Yesterday, Teamsters working at Vistar Foodservice’s distribution facility in Ontario, CA began an unfair labor practice strike. Vistar delivers food to movie theater chains throughout southern California. The strike was undertaken in order to protest Vistar’s decision to give some workers a raise, but withhold a raise for others.
On Friday, the D.C. Circuit upheld the NLRB’s revision to the formula it uses to calculate backpay awards to workers who have been unlawfully terminated. The D.C. Circuit panel ruled, unanimously, in the case against King Soopers (a division of the Kroger supermarket company) that King Soopers had to pay a former employee’s “search-for-work” expenses. The rule laid down by the Board requires the NLRB’s general counsel to demonstrate that the unlawfully terminated employee’s expenses are reasonable. Philip A. Miscimarra, who Trump appointed Chairman of the NLRB this past spring, was the lone dissenter in the NLRB’s 3-1 ruling. In Miscimarra’s view, the rule would produce a windfall to claimants whose interim earnings equal or surpass the sum of their lost earnings and search-for-work expenses.
On Wednesday, the EEOC will meet, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Age Discrimination and Employment Act (ADEA). The meeting will feature speakers like Laurie McCann of the AARP Foundation Litigation, and Jacqueline James of Boston College’s Center for Research and Education. The Commission will consider the state of age discrimination and the future challenges it poses. Also on Wednesday, a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce will hold a hearing on three Republican bills: The Employee Rights Act (which we have previously discussed); The Workforce and Democracy Fairness Act; and The Employee Privacy Protection Act.
Daily News & Commentary
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May 8
Court upholds DOL farmworker protections; Fifth Circuit rejects Amazon appeal; NJTransit navigates negotiations and potential strike.
May 7
U.S. Department of Labor announces termination of mental health and child care benefits for its employees; SEIU pursues challenge of NLRB's 2020 joint employer rule in the D.C. Circuit; Columbia University lays off 180 researchers
May 6
HHS canceled a scheduled bargaining session with the FDA's largest workers union; members of 1199SEIU voted out longtime union president George Gresham in rare leadership upset.
May 5
Unemployment rates for Black women go up under Trump; NLRB argues Amazon lacks standing to challenge captive audience meeting rule; Teamsters use Wilcox's reinstatement orders to argue against injunction.
May 4
In today’s news and commentary, DOL pauses the 2024 gig worker rule, a coalition of unions, cities, and nonprofits sues to stop DOGE, and the Chicago Teachers Union reaches a remarkable deal. On May 1, the Department of Labor announced it would pause enforcement of the Biden Administration’s independent contractor classification rule. Under the January […]
May 2
Immigrant detainees win class certification; Missouri sick leave law in effect; OSHA unexpectedly continues Biden-Era Worker Heat Rule