Hannah Belitz is a student at Harvard Law School.
At the New York Times, Claire Cain Miller weighs in on another gender gap: the amount of time that men and women spend on paid and unpaid work. Perhaps unsurprisingly, women spend more time on unpaid work (such as cooking, cleaning, and childcare) than do their male counterparts. According to O.E.C.D. data, women worldwide spend an average of 4.5 hours a day on unpaid work — more than double the number of hours spent by men. Although richer countries tend to have a smaller “time gap” for unpaid work than do poorer countries, the gap nonetheless persists. In the United States, for example, women spend approximately 4 hours a day on unpaid work, compared to about 2.5 hours for men. As Miller points out, when women are responsible for more unpaid work, “it prevents them from doing other things.” O.E.C.D. data supports that claim: when the time women spend on unpaid labor decreases from 5 hours a day to 3 hours a day, their participation in the workforce increases 10 percent.
The Los Angeles Times reports that a recent alliance between labor unions and business groups has come under “serious strain.” The unions and business groups had been working together for months to defeat “the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative,” a ballot proposal that supporters say will curtail real estate overdevelopment and opponents argue would halt housing production. Last week, however, union leaders announced that they had independently submitted a competing measure — which the business groups now oppose. Whether the union’s proposal will fracture the labor-business alliance remains to be seen.
The Department of Labor has concluded that Fenox Venture Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, misclassified 56 employees as interns. According to the Wall Street Journal, the firm has agreed to pay $331,269 in back wages. Investigators discovered that the unpaid workers had displaced regular employees, performing work that included screening startups for potential investments, sending reports to Japanese investors, and recruiting potential employees.
Daily News & Commentary
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September 16
In today’s news and commentary, the NLRB sues New York, a flight attendant sues United, and the Third Circuit considers the employment status of Uber drivers The NLRB sued New York to block a new law that would grant the state authority over private-sector labor disputes. As reported on recently by Finlay, the law, which […]
September 15
Unemployment claims rise; a federal court hands victory to government employees union; and employers fire workers over social media posts.
September 14
Workers at Boeing reject the company’s third contract proposal; NLRB Acting General Counsel William Cohen plans to sue New York over the state’s trigger bill; Air Canada flight attendants reject a tentative contract.
September 12
Zohran Mamdani calls on FIFA to end dynamic pricing for the World Cup; the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement opens a probe into Scale AI’s labor practices; and union members organize immigration defense trainings.
September 11
California rideshare deal advances; Boeing reaches tentative agreement with union; FTC scrutinizes healthcare noncompetes.
September 10
A federal judge denies a motion by the Trump Administration to dismiss a lawsuit led by the American Federation of Government Employees against President Trump for his mass layoffs of federal workers; the Supreme Court grants a stay on a federal district court order that originally barred ICE agents from questioning and detaining individuals based on their presence at a particular location, the type of work they do, their race or ethnicity, and their accent while speaking English or Spanish; and a hospital seeks to limit OSHA's ability to cite employers for failing to halt workplace violence without a specific regulation in place.