Daily News & Commentary – October 19, 2017
On Tuesday, federal Judge Watson of Hawaii issued a nationwide order blocking the implementation of the third iteration of Trump’s travel ban from taking effect for Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Chad. Judge Watson stated that the ban suffers “precisely the same maladies as its predecessor” and “plainly discriminates based on nationality.” Yesterday, federal Judge Chuang of Maryland blocked the ban from taking effect for individuals with a “bona fide” relationship to the US. A discussion of the role of the labor market in the standing of state AGs and other parties in past travel ban litigation is discussed on the blog here.
States and cities are offering Amazon billions of dollars in tax breaks to incentivize the company to build its second headquarters, “Amazon HQ2” in their city. Amazon HQ2 is expected to be a $5-billion-plus investment and up to 50,000 jobs.
Three former Tesla contract workers have filed suit against the company for racial harassment and discrimination, including both Tesla and the three staffing agencies that the contractors received their positions through. The LA Times reports.
The Swiss Executive branch is encouraging voters to vote against a new ballot initiative that would grant fathers at least 20 days of paid paternity leave. The signatures required for the ballot referendum had been collected earlier this year. Switzerland is currently the only country that does not have statutory paternity or paternal leave. Currently, men can take 1 day off after their child is born.
Greg Asbed, a co-founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), was rewarded a MacArthur Genius grant last week. The CIW has organized a Fair Food program, where companies like Walmart and McDonalds agreed to pay 1 penny more per pound and growers agree to abide by a code of conduct for worker safety and pay. The program has helped transform the tomato fields in Immokalee from ones rife with abuse and modern-day slavery to better working environments. A full interview with The New York Times may be found here.
