“Employers Brace for the Loss of an Immigrant Work Force,” says the New York Times. On Monday, the Trump administration announced that about 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador would have to leave the U.S. by September 2019. Over 45,000 Haitian immigrants will have to leave the U.S. by July 2019. The article describes the bind that immigrant workers from Central America and Haiti, who received temporary permission to live and work in the U.S. years ago, now face. The article also covers the perspective of employers dependent on this labor. In the view of many of those employers, “[t]here are no Americans out there to take the jobs.”
Carrie Gracie, the BBC China Editor, recently resigned to protest the gender pay gap at BBC. The gap gained attention last summer (see our brief coverage, here) after BBC published the salaries of its top anchors. BBC’s women journalists responded to the discovery in an open letter, demanding that BBC take steps to close the gap. Gracie’s resignation came after BBC offered her a significant raise which would have nonetheless left her with a lower salary than most of her men peers.
On the topic of gender equality across the pond, Iceland began implementing a law requiring employers to prove that they are paying men and women equally this week. The Equal Pay Standard (which we briefly covered, here) was proposed last spring, and directs companies with at least 25 full-time employees to review their salary structures every three years to ensure gender parity. Companies who fail to report the results to the government for certification will be subject to various penalties.
In an op-ed for the Atlantic, Gillian B. White argues that “The Black and Hispanic Unemployment Rates Don’t Deserve Applause.” White’s article responds to a tweet by President Trump lauding the dip in unemployment for black and hispanic workers. According to White, that dip is more accurately attributed to economic policies pre-dating the Trump Administration. Moreover, the tweet is decontextualized—the unemployment rate for black and hispanic workers is still much higher than that of white workers.
The Conference Board, a non-profit economic research organization, released a report Monday indicating that its employment trends index (an aggregate of eight labor-market indicators reflecting trends in employment conditions) rose in December, and represents a 5.2% increase from December 2016.
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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 […]