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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October 9
DHS proposes a $100k fee for the foreign grad employment program; Trump suspends tech company access to green card program; and private equity perpetuates poor working conditions for home care workers.
October 8
NLRB judge finds UPS unlawfully restricted union insignia; Harvard graduate workers authorize second strike; OSHA orders Union Pacific to pay $300,000 in damages in whistleblower case.
October 7
DOL scraps plan to remove decades-old wage-and-hour guidance from federal regulations; New York enacts personnel records access law; Starbucks loses bid to dismiss Workers United trademark suit.
October 6
Protect College Sports Act dampens athlete unionization outlook; Stanford RA union decides to withdraw petition
October 5
Delaware bans captive audience meetings; EEOC settles remote work national origin discrimination claim; First Circuit stays enforcement order in VA's dispute with AFGE.
October 4
Boston nurses announce open-ended strike; federal judge restores federal prison workers' union protections; St. Louis workers form the first movie theater union in Missouri.