February 28th 2021
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According to ABC News, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued more than $2.8 million in fines and 204 citations to companies in the last few months. These fines cover various COVID-19 related worker protection violations including...
In a recent online survey, the Groundwork Collaborative gauged national approval of potential ideas on how to mitigate the effects of COVID-19. Two of these proposals included increased, federally-mandated collaboration between 1) worker representatives and...
New York City’s Transport Workers Union Local 100 is holding a contest for the photo capturing the NYC train car with the most litter. The contest, whose winner will receive a $500 reward, is intended to draw attention to recent cuts to subway cleaner jobs....
The biggest internationally coordinated strike by Lyft and Uber drivers is expected to take place today in major U.S. cities and in the United Kingdom, Australia, and South America. Driver demands vary by organizing group, but include calls for livable incomes,...
On Monday, President Trump's administration "proposed deep spending cuts" in the U.S. Labor Department's budget for the second consecutive year. The administration requested a 21% budget reduction over current levels for fiscal year 2019. In particular,...
In an interesting take, Austin Frakt at the New York Times, discusses how a healthy economy can shorten life spans---at least in the short term. According to Frakt, this counterintuitive finding (counterintuitive because economic growth promotes higher living...
For over a century, workers and their organizations have struggled to raise labor standards and expand employee rights and benefits. Whatever the benefits to workers and the society, to any one private firm those laws represent a tax on employing human labor, and part of the calculus in decisions to contract out work or to replace people with machines. A logical though dispiriting response to plausible predictions of escalating net job losses would be to find ways to unburden the employment relationship.
The challenge of automation is in many ways continuous with the challenges of “fissured” work – to use David Weil’s influential formulation. In particular, both trends are driven in significant part by the costs and risks of employing human beings. According to investment banker Steven Berkenfeld, CEOs these days ask, “’Can I automate it? If not, can I outsource it? If not, can I give it to an independent contractor?’ Hiring an employee is the last resort.”
The labor world took notice when Andy Stern emerged from a years-long deep dive into the future of work, and concluded that the future will bring a lot less work. His book, Raising the Floor, helped to spur a debate over the universal basic income (UBI), including on this blog. But the underlying issue of technology-related job loss has not yet engaged the close attention of labor and employment law scholars. That should change. Even more than firms’ flight from direct employment through fissuring, their replacement of human labor with ever more capable and cost-effective technology threatens the foundations of economic and social life, and calls for a reexamination of prevailing approaches to regulation of employment.
A New York Times piece covers the impact of drug tests (and drugs) on the economy. In particular, it profiles various manufacturing companies in the Midwest, revealing the challenges they face filling jobs due to the proportion of applicants who fail drug tests. ...
The distinction between work and leisure time has become increasing hard to identify. As other authors on the blog have demonstrated, technology plays a huge role in collapsing this distinction. Perhaps more disturbing than always being on call is the idea that...
The New York Times weighs in on the effect that Trump's "Hire American" order may have on tech worker visas. According to the Times, the order "represents a small win for bigger tech companies," but may hurt smaller technology companies that "cannot afford to pay...