Fred Wang is a student at Harvard Law School.
In today’s news and commentary, San Francisco airport workers approve a new contract after a 3-day strike, while new research reveals how unpaid labor affects women’s and men’s mental health differently.
After a thousand fast-food workers at San Francisco International Airport ended a three-day strike on Thursday, they’ve voted — by 99.5% — to approve a new contract that will, among other things, raise wages, provide family health insurance, and protect jobs when outlets change operator. The victory comes over nine months of negotiations with employers and after years without a raise.
Unpaid labor — think housework and childcare — hurts women’s mental health more than it does men’s, according to new research covered in the New York Times’s Upshot section. A recent literature review in the Lancet — a peer-reviewed medical journal — took a look at studies examining the relationship between unpaid labor and mental health in employed adults.
The review found “substantial gender differences in exposure to unpaid labour,” concluding that unpaid labor “is associated with poorer mental health in women.” That’s likely driven by the unequal volume of unpaid labor performed by men and women. Women tend to do much more housework and child care than men. But the difference in the kind of unpaid work that men and women do may matter too. Men, the Times piece notes, typically perform “less time-sensitive and more enjoyable, or at least more tolerable,” work. A chore like lawn mowing, for instance, is “done less often and on a more flexible schedule.” Cooking and cleaning, on the other hand, “need to be done at certain times.”
Daily News & Commentary
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
September 21
In today’s News and Commentary, the Seventh Circuit raises the bar for the NLRB to obtain preliminary injunctions, the California Primary Care Association sues SEIU-UHW for racketeering, and the Seventh Circuit finds that an employer group and think tank do not have standing to challenge an Illinois law banning captive audience meetings. On Friday, the […]
September 20
Culinary Workers Union members protests union leadership; lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft reveal internal concerns about the threat of AI training to human labor.
September 17
Unions push to block Google from buying Spirit Airlines employment records; U.S. Department of Labor sues Oklahoma coffee chain over alleged wage violations.
September 16
Trump nominates Catherine Eschbach as EEOC general counsel; NLRB declines to resolve union work-assignment dispute; Allina Health physicians begin four-day strike.
September 15
Documents reveal the inner workings of Amazon's union avoidance program; Washington state public sector unions reach tentative deals amid a difficult bargaining cycle; hundreds of Nevada Culinary Union members protest their union's health care changes.
September 14
NCAA and Big Ten file motion to dismiss in former star player's NIL suit; Seventh Circuit rules against former postal worker in discrimination suit.