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News & Commentary

March 7, 2019

Ryan Wheeler

Economists expect tomorrow’s jobs report to show an increase of 180,000 jobs and a reduction of the unemployment rate to 3.9%. If the prediction proves true, February would mark the 101st consecutive month of job growth.

 

Business groups expect that a forthcoming Department of Labor rule setting new criteria for overtime pay will expand the pool of workers eligible for time-and-a-half pay. However, the proposed rule will be less generous than the rule put forward by the Obama Labor Department, which sought to extend overtime to workers earning less than $47,000. The proposed rule reaches only workers earning up to $35,000, still an increase over the current threshold of $23,600.

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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.

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Ruelas v. County of Alameda — California Pretrial Detainees Denied Minimum Wage for Corporate Labor (Part 3)

In Ruelas v. County of Alameda, the Supreme Court of California denied pretrial detainees’ state minimum wage claim, reasoning that section 4019.3 of the state’s Penal Code — capping jail laborers’ wages at two dollars per day — instead governed.  The first part of this three-part series discussed the California Supreme Court’s holding and reasoning.  The second part gave a history of California’s constitution and jail labor in the state, concluding that the two-dollar daily wage cap could not have applied to plaintiffs, who were pretrial detainees performing unpaid labor for a corporation.  

Ruelas v. County of Alameda — California Pretrial Detainees Denied Minimum Wage for Corporate Labor (Part 2)

In Ruelas v. County of Alameda, the Supreme Court of California held that pretrial detainees forced to labor for a corporation are ineligible for a minimum wage under the state’s Labor Code.  The court construed Penal Code section 4019.3 broadly, interpreting it as incompatible with California’s Labor Code. The court concluded that the Penal Code prevents pretrial detainees from earning more than two dollars per day for their labor, absent a local ordinance.  

How Three Simple Labor Laws Helped Unions Organize Amazon and UBER in Canada

In early July,  the British Columbia Labour Relations Board (BCLRB) certified UFCW-Canada as the bargaining representative for over 500 UBER drivers in the province’s capital city of Victoria.  A few days later, the BCLRB issued another decision that certified the union Unifor (formerly the Canadian Auto Workers) for a bargaining unit of hundreds of employees employed at an Amazon distribution centre […]

Ruelas v. County of Alameda — California Pretrial Detainees Denied Minimum Wage for Corporate Labor (Part 1)

Pretrial detainees in Santa Rita Jail are forced to labor for Aramark, a food-preparation company that provides meals to third parties outside of the jail. Neither Aramark nor the county pays detainees for their labor.  In 1990, California amended its constitution to allow companies to contract with prisons — facilities run by the state or federal government that detain convicted offenders — for labor, so long as prisoners were paid comparable wages to non-inmate laborers.  

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