News & Commentary

July 12, 2018

The BBC has made progress in closing the wage gap between its male and female stars, but its dozen highest-paid stars continue to be all men. An enormous pay disparity at the network was revealed last year, causing outrage among many employees and members of the British public. Since last year, the median pay gap for men and women doing comparable work has dropped from 9.3% to 7.6%, but equal-pay advocates says the network still has a lot of room for improvement.

Trial began this week in a sexual harassment suit against Columbia Business School. Enrichetta Ravina, a former professor at the school, alleges that she was denied tenure because she complained to school officials about another professor’s inappropriate sexual advances. Ms. Ravina has sued the school for over $20 million in damages.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that teachers’ unions in Florida have noticed an uptick in membership after the state passed a new law targeted at the unions. The law, which did not apply to any public employees other than teachers, said that a union could be disbanded if fewer than half of the teachers in a district were members of that district’s union. Since the law’s passage, union organizers have increased their outreach to members. The Orange County teachers’ union, for example, has seen its membership rate rise from 46% to 55%, giving hope to unions looking for paths forward after the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Janus.

The House Appropriations Committee began debate on legislation that proposes to cut funding to the Labor Department and the NLRB. The bill would cut Labor’s discretionary funding by $88 million dollars (to $12.1 billion) and the NLRB’s by $12.8 million (to $261.3 million). The bill also includes riders criticized by Democratic members of the committee, like a provision blocking the NLRB from exercising jurisdiction over tribal governments, which would prevent workers at tribal casinos from unionizing.

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