Maddy Joseph is a student at Harvard Law School.
The June jobs report was released this morning. There’s coverage here and here. In anticipation of the report, coverage in major papers this week remarked on the economy’s continued slow expansion and the slower-than-last-year jobs growth in the first five months of 2017.
The Department of Labor filed a brief defending most of its fiduciary rule, which was developed during the Obama Administration and partially implemented on June 9. The Department of Labor did not defend the rule’s anti-arbitration condition “[i]n light of the position adopted by the Acting Solicitor General” in NLRB v. Murphy Oil. See some of our previous coverage of the fiduciary rule here.
In Uber news, the New York Times details the mounting evidence that the company deducted far more than it has acknowledged from drivers’ earnings to pay New York State taxes that were supposed to be paid by passengers.
Yesterday, the New York Times had an editorial about stagnating wages and rising income inequality. Citing a recent NBER Working Paper, the editorial explained: “As workers lose ground, inequality deepens, because money that would flow to wages tends to flow instead to those at the top of the income ladder.” The Times argued that “[u]pdated overtime pay standards would raise pay broadly in the service sector, as would closing the gender pay gap, through better disclosure of corporate pay scales, anti-discrimination legislation and litigation.”
The changing U.S. job market also got some attention. The New York Times analyzed “How the Growth of E-Commerce is Shifting Retail Jobs.” And the Washington Post covered a new survey of Americans’ earnings from popular “gig economy” platforms, including Airbnb and Uber.
Daily News & Commentary
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June 23
Supreme Court interprets ADA; Department of Labor effectively kills Biden-era regulation; NYC announces new wages for rideshare drivers.
June 22
California lawmakers challenge Garmon preemption in the absence of an NLRB quorum and Utah organizers successfully secure a ballot referendum to overturn HB 267.
June 20
Three state bills challenge Garmon preemption; Wisconsin passes a bill establishing portable benefits for gig workers; and a sharp increase in workplace ICE raids contribute to a nationwide labor shortage.
June 19
Report finds retaliatory action by UAW President; Senators question Trump's EEOC pick; California considers new bill to address federal labor law failures.
June 18
Companies dispute NLRB regional directors' authority to make rulings while the Board lacks a quorum; the Department of Justice loses 4,500 employees to the Trump Administration's buyout offers; and a judge dismisses Columbia faculty's lawsuit over the institution's funding cuts.
June 17
NLRB finds a reporter's online criticism of the Washington Post was not protected activity under federal labor law; top union leaders leave the Democratic National Committee amid internal strife; Uber reaches a labor peace agreement with Chicago drivers.