Linh is a student at Harvard Law School.
For the first time, Amazon is facing a National Labor Relations Board complaint for allegedly refusing to bargain with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), who represents its workers at the Staten Island warehouse. The ALU became the workers’ representative after a vote in April 2022, which made the location the first Amazon warehouse to have unionized. The certification of the union as the exclusive bargaining representative was an uphill battle––there were months-long legal battles with Amazon where the company accused ALU of illegally pressuring workers to vote for the union.
On Wednesday, the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor sent the White House a proposal to expand overtime protections to more workers. Currently, salaried workers who make more than a certain amount of money per year and work in a “bona fide executive, administrative, or professional capacity” are exempt from the one-and-a-half overtime pay requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The new proposal purportedly raises the salary threshold piece of the test, which would expand overtime protections to more workers. More details of the proposal will be available once it is cleared by the White House to be published in the Federal Register.
Also on Wednesday, Democratic Gwynne Willcox was nominated to continue another five-year term on the National Labor Relations Board. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approved the nomination in a 12-9 vote, with one sole Republican vote in support of Wilcox. If Willcox remains on the Board, Democrats will continue to control the five-member NLRB with a 3-1 majority.
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September 12
Zohran Mamdani calls on FIFA to end dynamic pricing for the World Cup; the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement opens a probe into Scale AI’s labor practices; and union members organize immigration defense trainings.
September 11
California rideshare deal advances; Boeing reaches tentative agreement with union; FTC scrutinizes healthcare noncompetes.
September 10
A federal judge denies a motion by the Trump Administration to dismiss a lawsuit led by the American Federation of Government Employees against President Trump for his mass layoffs of federal workers; the Supreme Court grants a stay on a federal district court order that originally barred ICE agents from questioning and detaining individuals based on their presence at a particular location, the type of work they do, their race or ethnicity, and their accent while speaking English or Spanish; and a hospital seeks to limit OSHA's ability to cite employers for failing to halt workplace violence without a specific regulation in place.
September 9
Ninth Circuit revives Trader Joe’s lawsuit against employee union; new bill aims to make striking workers eligible for benefits; university lecturer who praised Hitler gets another chance at First Amendment claims.
September 8
DC Circuit to rule on deference to NLRB, more vaccine exemption cases, Senate considers ban on forced arbitration for age discrimination claims.
September 7
Another weak jobs report, the Trump Administration's refusal to arbitrate with federal workers, and a district court judge's order on the constitutionality of the Laken-Riley Act.