Today’s News & Commentary — June 5, 2017

AT&T West, DirecTV West, and the Communications Workers of America, District 9 reached a tentative labor agreement on Friday.  The labor agreement would cover 17,000 workers in California and Nevada for four years.  This contract is the first union contract for DirecTV workers, as DirecTV was bought out by AT&T in 2015.  The terms of the agreement are available here.  They include a 3.0% wage increases upon ratification, with further increases down the line.

In response to an admission last week by Uber that it had made a mistake calculating commissions for its New York City drivers, costing them tens of millions of dollars overall, two drivers in a proposed class action asked U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis to reconsider his dismissal of their breach of contract claim against Uber, arguing that the admission counts as new evidence.  Uber then asked the court to reject the request to reconsider. Uber had miscalculated drivers’ commission by mistakenly including state sales tax in the total fare charged to customers.  Uber states that it will return to the drivers the full amount owed plus interest.

Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta will testify on the Department of Labor’s fiscal budget request for 2018 this Wednesday before the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies.  However, much of the questioning is expected to focus instead on Secretary Acosta’s refusal to delay the June 9 implementation of the Obama-era fiduciary rule, a decision he announced last week.  Secretary Acosta explained that he could find no legal justification for delaying the rule, though he is looking into potential changes to the rule.