The observance of Labor Day earlier this week has inspired a bumper crop of commentary on the history, present, and future of the American worker. In the New York Times, Noam Scheiber examines the relationship between established unions and grassroots labor a... More »
Cai Shuang Chen, a delivery worker in New York, won $327,738 in a wage theft case in September 2017. However, Chen is unable to collect this money under New York state law, as the restaurant he worked for changed its name and thus technically no longer exists... More »
New Jersey on Monday became the fourth state to raise its hourly minimum wage to $15. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy signed the bill into law, paving the way for the new minimum wage to be phased in over five years. New Jersey joins California, Massachusetts, N... More »
As the government shutdown lumbers into its 28th day, federal workers are beginning to file for unemployment en masse, reports the New York Times. About 380,000 furloughed federal employees are eligible for unemployment, and the longest government shutdown on ... More »
After winning back the House of Representatives in last Tuesday’s election, House Democrats plan to grill President Trump’s Department of Labor about its policies regarding tipped workers. In December, the DOL proposed a rule allowing employers who pay tipped... More »
Both chambers of the Massachusetts state legislature have passed a “grand bargain” bill that — if signed by Governor Charlie Baker — will increase the minimum wage for most workers from $11/hour to $15/hour over the course of five years and will in... More »
The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 has reached tentative agreements that would cover about half of its 50,000 hotel and casino workers who voted to strike this month in Las Vegas. Local 226 has now reached tentative agreements with both Caesars and MGM, but ... More »
Bloomberg Law reports that congressional lawmakers are negotiating a funding bill for the government that would include a provision to calm controversy surrounding a proposed Department of Labor rule about pooling tips. The proposed DOL rule would reverse an O... More »
Incarcerated men, women and children make up a third of California’s wildfire-fighting force. Doing dangerous and demanding 24-hour shifts, inmate-firefighters are paid $1 per hour. Their work and time off are the subject of a photo essay from the Marshall P... More »
The Department of Labor has published a proposed change to the rules around tip pooling. In 2011, the Obama Administration clarified the Fair Labor Standards Act regulations to reflect the Wage and Hour Division’s long-standing policy – based on 1974 FLSA am... More »
One year ago, this blog featured a post that outlined various reasons why the restaurant industry’s use of tips in lieu of guaranteed wages had come to provoke, in the author’s words, “a firestorm of criticism”: that reliance on tips as a significant component... More »
September 5th, 2019