
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
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
July 11
Regional director orders election without Board quorum; 9th Circuit pauses injunction on Executive Order; Driverless car legislation in Massachusetts
July 10
Wisconsin Supreme Court holds UW Health nurses are not covered by Wisconsin’s Labor Peace Act; a district judge denies the request to stay an injunction pending appeal; the NFLPA appeals an arbitration decision.
July 9
the Supreme Court allows Trump to proceed with mass firings; Secretary of Agriculture suggests Medicaid recipients replace deported migrant farmworkers; DHS ends TPS for Nicaragua and Honduras
July 8
In today’s news and commentary, Apple wins at the Fifth Circuit against the NLRB, Florida enacts a noncompete-friendly law, and complications with the No Tax on Tips in the Big Beautiful Bill. Apple won an appeal overturning a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision that the company violated labor law by coercively questioning an employee […]
July 7
LA economy deals with fallout from ICE raids; a new appeal challenges the NCAA antitrust settlement; and the EPA places dissenting employees on leave.
July 6
Municipal workers in Philadelphia continue to strike; Zohran Mamdani collects union endorsements; UFCW grocery workers in California and Colorado reach tentative agreements.