Greg Volynsky is a student at Harvard Law School.
In today’s News and Commentary, New Jersey advances a temp worker rights bill; Johns Hopkins doctoral students join a wave of unionized graduate students; canvassers systematically misrepresent a petition for a veto referendum on the California fast food workers bill; and strikes continue in the UK.
The New Jersey Senate approved a bill that would guarantee temp workers the same wage as ordinary workers, and create new transparency requirements for employers hiring temp workers. The bill passed the state Assembly four months ago, but voting in the Senate was postponed four times as business groups and temp agencies lobbied against it. Governor Murphy vetoed an earlier version of the bill, but is expected to sign the narrower measure into law.
On Monday and Tuesday, doctoral students at Johns Hopkins University overwhelmingly voted to unionize. The vote comes less than a month after Yale graduate students voted to unionize by a 10-to-1 margin, and Northwestern students voted to unionize by a 14-to-1 margin. In other graduate-student news, nearly 750 Temple University graduate students went on strike.
Governor Newsom signed the FAST Recovery Act in September, which would create a council to oversee labor practices in the fast-food industry. Last week, industry groups announced they had secured enough signatures to mandate a veto referendum. The L.A. Times reports canvassers systematically misrepresented the referendum petition to potential signers. Any canvasser who “intentionally makes any false statement concerning the contents, purport or effect of the petition” to potential signers commits a misdemeanor.
In the UK, strikes continue. The UK Department of Education estimates that more than 50% of state-funded primary and secondary schools in England are restricting attendance, including 8.9% of schools that are fully closed.
Daily News & Commentary
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November 24
Labor leaders criticize tariffs; White House cancels jobs report; and student organizers launch chaperone program for noncitizens.
November 23
Workers at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority vote to authorize a strike; Washington State legislators consider a bill empowering public employees to bargain over workplace AI implementation; and University of California workers engage in a two-day strike.
November 21
The “Big Three” record labels make a deal with an AI music streaming startup; 30 stores join the now week-old Starbucks Workers United strike; and the Mine Safety and Health Administration draws scrutiny over a recent worker death.
November 20
Law professors file brief in Slaughter; New York appeals court hears arguments about blog post firing; Senate committee delays consideration of NLRB nominee.
November 19
A federal judge blocks the Trump administration’s efforts to cancel the collective bargaining rights of workers at the U.S. Agency for Global Media; Representative Jared Golden secures 218 signatures for a bill that would repeal a Trump administration executive order stripping federal workers of their collective bargaining rights; and Dallas residents sue the City of Dallas in hopes of declaring hundreds of ordinances that ban bias against LGBTQ+ individuals void.
November 18
A federal judge pressed DOJ lawyers to define “illegal” DEI programs; Peco Foods prevails in ERISA challenge over 401(k) forfeitures; D.C. court restores collective bargaining rights for Voice of America workers; Rep. Jared Golden secures House vote on restoring federal workers' union rights.