Alexa Kissinger is a student at Harvard Law School.
This morning Senators Bernie Sanders and Patty Murray along with 21 Democratic members of Congress came together to support a $15 minimum wage. The Raise the Wage Act would gradually increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, jumping to $9.20 an hour upon passage and adding around dollar a year until it reaches $15 in 2024. The minimum wage would rise automatically after that with the country’s median wages. The bill as proposed would also gradually do away with the tipped minimum wage.
According to POLITICO, Minneapolis attorney Doug Seaton, described as an an anti-union executive, is on President Trump’s shortlist to fill one of the two empty seats on the NLRB. Reports say none of the three candidates is pro-union, but Seaton — who calls himself a “lawyer for employers” — stands apart.
The New York Times reported that eleven current and former Fox News employees filed a class-action lawsuit against the network, accusing it of “abhorrent, intolerable, unlawful and hostile racial discrimination.” The lawsuits claim that Fox News employees repeatedly complained about racial discrimination to current network executives but that no action was taken and that the discriminatory behavior continued. This lawsuit comes on the heels of a spate of employee complaints of sexual harassment and the public ousting of Bill O’Reilly.
The New York Times published a January study from the Department of Energy showing that the clean energy industry employed more Americans than the coal industry last year. In 2016, 1.9 million Americans were employed in electric power jobs, 373,000 in solar energy, and only 160,000 in coal.
Daily News & Commentary
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March 13
Republican Senators urge changes on OSHA heat standard; OpenAI and building trades announce partnership on data center construction; forced labor investigations could lead to new tariffs
March 12
EPA terminates contract with second-largest union; Florida advances bill restricting public sector unions; Trump administration seeks Supreme Court assistance in TPS termination.
March 11
The partial government shutdown results in TSA agents losing their first full paycheck; the Fifth Circuit upholds the certification of a class of former United Airline workers who were placed on unpaid leave for declining to receive the COVID-19 vaccine for religious reasons during the pandemic; and an academic group files a lawsuit against the State Department over a policy that revokes and denies visas to noncitizens for their work in fact-checking and content moderation.
March 10
Court rules Kari Lake unlawfully led USAGM, voiding mass layoffs; Florida Senate passes bill tightening union recertification rules; Fifth Circuit revives whistleblower suit against Lockheed Martin.
March 9
6th Circuit rejects Cemex, Board may overrule precedents with two members.
March 8
In today’s news and commentary, a weak jobs report, the NIH decides it will no longer recognize a research fellows’ union, and WNBA contract talks continue to stall as season approaches. On Friday, the Labor Department reported that employers cut 92,000 jobs in February while the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.4 percent. A loss […]