Holden Hopkins is a student at Harvard Law School.
In today’s News & Commentary, concerns about AI-based discrimination in hiring, Boston hotel workers on strike, and more women of color are obtaining leadership roles in their unions.
The EEOC has raised concerns to federal lawmakers about the potential for AI to be used to facilitate discrimination in hiring job candidates according to reporting by Bloomberg Law. The agency cited a number of cases as emblematic of the problem, including companies which had used AI-hiring software to systematically exclude certain candidates on the basis of age, gender, and nationality.
The report raised concerns over the growing dependence on “AI to manage the workplace has the potential to outpace our nation’s capacity to ensure that they are deployed in a manner that comports with federal anti-discrimination laws.” In order to combat this trend, an accompanying letter from the agency’s head of legislative affairs stressed the need for “resources to keep pace with the use of these increasingly sophisticated tools and their potential impact on equal employment opportunity.”
Amid the ongoing strikes against Hilton that Esther reported on, two Boston area Hilton hotels are now the subject of open-ended strikes. On Friday, workers walked off the job at the Hilton Boston Logan and Boston Park Plaza hotels after the company failed to meet the union’s demands. UNITE HERE Local 26 represents the workers, who say they will not return to work until Hilton agrees to a new contract that includes higher pay and better working conditions.
New reporting shows that Black and Latine women are increasingly obtaining leadership roles in their unions. While women make up about half of union membership, the rates of representation in leadership for women, and especially women of color, has lagged behind. But over the past five years, more and more top leadership positions have gone to women. Most notably, this has included the top leadership of some of the country’s largest unions, including SEIU, NEA, National Nurses United, and the AFL-CIO.
This increase in representation has also corresponded with unions focusing more attention on the race-gender pay-gap, parental leave, harassment policies, and other issues which may have been overlooked by previous generations of union leadership.
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.