Edward Nasser is a student at Harvard Law School.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit in the Middle District of North Carolina on behalf of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) alleging that a new state law would make it all but impossible for the farmworkers’ union to continue operations. The lawsuit challenges the North Carolina Farm Act of 2017, which targets FLOC in two ways. First, the law invalidates contracts guaranteeing that employers will honor employees’ requests to deduct union dues from their paychecks. Second, the law invalidates settlement agreements negotiated by the union to advance farmworkers’ rights. The ACLU is making rights to association and equal protection arguments against the law.
More than half of US workers did not receive a salary raise in the past year, reports USA Today. A survey conducted by Bankrate.com also revealed that while Labor Department reports show average wages have gone up around 2.5% annually the last few years, most the gains are being reaped by more highly educated workers whose wages are growing faster than average. Just 17% of workers earning less than $30,000 a year got raises, compared to 43% of those earning $75,000 or more.
Jason Moyer-Lee, general secretary of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain, questions whether workers will actually get their rights after a UK appeals court ruled that Uber drivers are workers, not contractors. Mr. Moyer-Lee argues that last Friday’s ruling only reinforced what was already true: workers in Britain’s on-demand economy have always been entitled to employment rights under UK law. He concludes, “the fundamental problem of employment rights is a lack of enforcement of existing law.”
Daily News & Commentary
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
September 12
Zohran Mamdani calls on FIFA to end dynamic pricing for the World Cup; the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement opens a probe into Scale AI’s labor practices; and union members organize immigration defense trainings.
September 11
California rideshare deal advances; Boeing reaches tentative agreement with union; FTC scrutinizes healthcare noncompetes.
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.
September 9
Ninth Circuit revives Trader Joe’s lawsuit against employee union; new bill aims to make striking workers eligible for benefits; university lecturer who praised Hitler gets another chance at First Amendment claims.
September 8
DC Circuit to rule on deference to NLRB, more vaccine exemption cases, Senate considers ban on forced arbitration for age discrimination claims.
September 7
Another weak jobs report, the Trump Administration's refusal to arbitrate with federal workers, and a district court judge's order on the constitutionality of the Laken-Riley Act.