Maddy Joseph is a student at Harvard Law School.
Google was sued yesterday in a class action alleging that the company pays women less than it pays men for similar work and that the company places women into lesser job tracks. The suit comes on the heels of last week’s New York Times report of salary data detailing how “female employees are paid less than male staff members at most job levels within Google, and the pay disparity extends as women climb the corporate ladder.” In April, the Department of Labor acknowledged that an investigation of Google had “found systemic compensation disparities against women.” An Administrative Law Judge ordered Google to turn over limited salary data to DOL in July.
Earlier this week, the Senate Commerce Committee took up a draft measure that would hasten the introduction of self-driving cars and trucks. A version of the bill passed the House last week by unanimous voice vote; it would allow autonomous cars and trucks to be exempted from certain safety requirements and would allow yearly deployment of as many as 100,000 of the vehicles. The House bill exempted large commercial trucks, and the Teamsters, which represents about 600,000 truck drivers, is advocating for a similar exclusion in the Senate version. Teamsters President James Hoffa told Reuters, “I’m concerned about highway safety. I am concerned about jobs.”
A recent analysis demonstrates that the pay gap between black and white workers is not only persistent but also growing. The study finds: “these gaps cannot be fully explained by differences in age, education, job type, or location.”
New figures from the Census Bureau this week showed that median household income was up in 2016, while poverty rates declined. However, as Bloomberg and others noted, income inequality remains “high,” and is unchanged from 2015.
Daily News & Commentary
Start your day with our roundup of the latest labor developments. See all
September 16
In today’s news and commentary, the NLRB sues New York, a flight attendant sues United, and the Third Circuit considers the employment status of Uber drivers The NLRB sued New York to block a new law that would grant the state authority over private-sector labor disputes. As reported on recently by Finlay, the law, which […]
September 15
Unemployment claims rise; a federal court hands victory to government employees union; and employers fire workers over social media posts.
September 14
Workers at Boeing reject the company’s third contract proposal; NLRB Acting General Counsel William Cohen plans to sue New York over the state’s trigger bill; Air Canada flight attendants reject a tentative contract.
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.