The Worker Thread

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Vrede too
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Re: The Worker Thread

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O Really wrote:
Fri Sep 15, 2017 8:49 pm
She'll have a harder time making wage-hour regulations ineffective and cutting enforcement than some of her other colleagues. If you think you've got a race discrimination or harassment problem with your employer, you are required to first go to the EEOC. With a Trump-appointed EEOC chair, the agency can ignore, stonewall, or just change the rules on how charges are processed. Eventually, the EEOC will issue a "right to sue" letter, but without some EEOC findings, it's an uphill battle. Wage-hour issues, on the other hand, are not required to go through the DOL Wage-Hour Division at all, and can go straight to federal court. Decisions at that level will be based on what the law says and on former decisions, not so much on transient regulations. So if she cuts enforcement, more complaints will go to court, resulting in higher costs to employers and more toys for defense attorneys.
Dolt .45 is so bad on so many things that individual items like Cheryl Stanton's appointment just join a list like:
Dolt .45 is bad for workers because ______.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Image

"This is huge – Target just announced that they are raising wages for all 323,000 of their employees to a minimum of $15 an hour by 2020."

:clap:
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Vrede too wrote:
Mon Sep 25, 2017 2:35 pm
Image

"This is huge – Target just announced that they are raising wages for all 323,000 of their employees to a minimum of $15 an hour by 2020."

:clap:
How soon before ALEC sponsors legislation saying they can't
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Re: The Worker Thread

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As in other instances I have seen, the EPI likes to start with some facts and add considerable spin. Yes, arbitration can be used by employers as "a courtroom where the employer gets to select the judge and jury..." and frequently when they do, the results of the arbitration or the mandatory arbitration contract clause is tossed by a court on the grounds of, for example, unconscionability. Courts have looked at 5 factors in upholding or rejecting arbitration agreements:

1. Provides for neutral arbitrators
2. Provides for more than minimal discovery
3. Requires a written award
4. Provides for all the types of relief that would otherwise be available in court and
5. Does not require employees to pay either unreasonable costs or any arbitrator’s fees or expenses as a condition of access to the arbitration forum.

The employer is not "selecting judge and jury" when the arbitrator is provided by the American Arbitration Association. And attempting to select ones own judge and jury can result in having your ass handed to you, as with such upstanding employers as Hooters,

But sure, employers try to get away with whatever they can. That doesn't mean arbitration is a bad process, any more than Papa John's trying to shaft its employees out of health insurance makes offering health insurance a bad thing.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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How much repeat work do arbitrators that are paid by employers yet tend to rule against employers get?

Here's EPI's report backing up its graphic's claims:

The growing use of mandatory arbitration
Access to the courts is now barred for more than 60 million American workers
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Good article. To be clear - I don't favor mandatory arbitration. I do favor arbitration, as well as mediation, as alternate dispute resolution paths that can have positive results for both sides. My real problem with it, however, from the perspective of one who used to be an AAA-certified arbitrator, is that the arbitrator's decision doesn't really have to be based on the law. Usually it is - but an arbitrator can say, if s/he finds it applicable, "yes, the employer was in violation, but due to circumstances we'll overlook that and decide the violation wasn't a big deal and find in the employer's favor anyway." Or "arbitrarily" find in the employee's favor, such as happens frequently in disputes over unpaid earned vacation time at termination. Some states don't require it to be paid. Nevertheless, arbitrators almost always find that it should be and rule for the ex-employee.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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I definitely defer to your expertise. From the little I know my issue is with having to agree to mandatory arbitration if you want to work, not with arbitration in general. If not forced, I'm sure that there are times when it's to the worker's advantage or at least not disadvantage to choose it.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Stand with Sen. Warren: Stop the corporate “right to work” race to the bottom

Petition to Congress:

"Stop the corporate race to the bottom that pits states against each other to lower wages and weaken workers’ rights by supporting the Protecting Workers and Improving Labor Standards Act to ban states from enacting so-called 'right to work' laws."
Won't pass now, probably wouldn't pass even with a Dem Congress and I'm not sure it's constitutional, but I'm glad that she's engaged in the fight.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Worker rights preemption in the USA
A map of the campaign to suppress worker rights in the states


Cities, counties, and other local governments are enacting policies that raise standards for working people, but state legislatures are lowering those standards back down with preemption—the use of state law to void local ordinances. Twenty-six states have preemption laws that target five key worker rights. Select a category above or click on the map to see the laws in each state.

North Carolina has preemption laws for:
Minimum wage (2016)
Paid leave (2016)

South Carolina has preemption laws for:
Minimum wage (2002)
Paid leave (2017)

Florida has preemption laws for:
Minimum wage (2003)
Project labor agreements (2017)
Prevailing wage (2017)
Paid leave (2013)
Cons hate workers and local control.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Union sues North Carolina over law stripping rights from 100,000 farmworkers

North Carolina farmworkers and a coalition of civil rights groups – including the SPLC – filed a federal lawsuit today challenging a state law that guts the ability of farmworkers to organize and make collective bargaining agreements with employers.

The lawsuit argues that the North Carolina Farm Act of 2017 impedes farmworkers’ First Amendment right to participate in unions, and asserts that the law is discriminatory, as more than 90 percent of the state’s agricultural workers are Latino. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that the government cannot impose special burdens on expressive associations such as unions.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of the only farmworkers’ union in the state — the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) — and two individual farmworkers. The union, the SPLC and the other groups are asking the court to block implementation of the law as the challenge proceeds....

The law’s primary sponsor was State Sen. Brent Jackson, who owns Jackson Farming Company and was recently sued for wage theft by Latino farmworkers who were helped by FLOC. State Rep. Jimmy Dixon, an owner of Jimmy Dixon farm in Duplin County, was the only legislator to speak in favor of the anti-worker provisions in the bill on the House floor. He said the law was necessary because “there seems to be a growing wave of folks that are interested in farm labor.” ...
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Yet another stupid, predictably loser Republican law that'll go down in flames. Didn't these people learn anything from JP Stevens back in the day? Idiots.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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O Really wrote:
Fri Nov 24, 2017 9:44 am
Yet another stupid, predictably loser Republican law that'll go down in flames. Didn't these people learn anything from JP Stevens back in the day? Idiots.
I'm happy to hear that you, an expert, think so. I wondered.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Well, it's a bit unusual approach, but it's a bad law that obviously steps over the line with regard to workers federal rights to organize. Also, the "right to work" part means that a worker can't be required to join the union (or pay union dues) in order to work for a given employer. And they could pass a law that prohibits forced dues deductions. That's different from prohibiting voluntary deductions for a legal use. Employers can allow voluntary deductions for most anything - charitable contributions, entertainment tickets, credit union loans, professional dues, yada, plus the required deductions like child support and garnishments. To isolate one particular type of deduction and prohibit it in a clear effort to discourage union membership seems a bit much. Won't be an easy fight, overall, though.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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Senator Grassley on why it's better to have tax cuts for the upper eschelons of society:
I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley said, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.
You aren't doing it wrong if no one knows what you are doing.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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JTA wrote:
Sun Dec 03, 2017 9:16 pm
Senator Grassley on why it's better to have tax cuts for the upper eschelons of society:
I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley said, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.
He's kind of accurate, but his conclusion fails Econ 101. By definition, spending on whatever boosts the economy, always, and that demand will lead to increase investment to meet the demand, always. Otoh, giving money to the fat cats may or may not lead to investment, and it may or may not be investment here in the US, be successful at producing anything or be of general benefit. Trickle down just doesn't work, other than to further enrich the fat cats.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Proposed rule would protect employers who steal workers’ hard-earned tips

Today the Trump administration took their first major step towards allowing employers to legally take tips earned by the workers they employ. The Department of Labor released a proposed rule rescinding portions of its tip regulations, including current restrictions on “tip pooling”—which would mean that, for example, restaurants would be able to pool the tips servers receive and share them with untipped employees such as cooks and dishwashers. But, crucially, the rule doesn’t actually require that employers distribute pooled tips to workers. Under the administration’s proposed rule, as long as the tipped workers earn minimum wage, the employer can legally pocket those tips....
:cussing:
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Re: The Worker Thread

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Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
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Re: The Worker Thread

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That's an outrageous proposal, but I don't know how many employers would really try to keep tips without distributing them around. Better servers stay where there's better tips and they can make a relatively decent total wage. It costs the employer nothing in cash to attract and keep good people, so the tip practice works in their favor. If they kept it, everybody who could get a job somewhere else would, and they'd be left with dregs. Employers could (as now) change to a "service charge" which is not legally tips, and distribute or not as they want. But whatever the real life impact, it's another example of Trumpsters screwing the little guy.

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Re: The Worker Thread

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O Really wrote:
Wed Dec 13, 2017 1:11 pm
That's an outrageous proposal, but I don't know how many employers would really try to keep tips without distributing them around. Better servers stay where there's better tips and they can make a relatively decent total wage. It costs the employer nothing in cash to attract and keep good people, so the tip practice works in their favor. If they kept it, everybody who could get a job somewhere else would, and they'd be left with dregs. Employers could (as now) change to a "service charge" which is not legally tips, and distribute or not as they want. But whatever the real life impact, it's another example of Trumpsters screwing the little guy.
Employers would pocket $5.8 billion of workers’ tips under Trump administration’s proposed ‘tip stealing’ rule

... Evidence shows that even now, when employers are prohibited from pocketing tips, many still do. Research on workers in three large U.S. cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York) finds that 12 percent of tipped workers had tips stolen by their employer or supervisor. Further, recent research shows that workers in restaurants and bars are much more likely to suffer minimum wage violations—meaning that they receive less than the applicable minimum wage—than workers in other industries. For tipped workers, some of these minimum wage violations occur when an employer confiscates tips.

With that much illegal tip theft currently taking place, it’s clear that when employers can legally pocket the tips earned by their employees, many will. And although the bulk of tipped workers are in restaurants, tipped workers outside the restaurant industry—such as nail salon workers, casino dealers, barbers, and hairstylists—could also see their bosses start taking a cut from their tips.

We estimate that under this rule, employers would pocket $5.8 billion in tips earned by tipped workers each year. This is 16.1 percent of the estimated $36.4 billion in tips earned by tipped workers annually. A detailed methodology describing how we arrived at that estimate is provided as an appendix, including a discussion of the uncertainty around the estimate. We believe employers will pocket between $523 million and $13.2 billion in workers’ tips annually, with $5.8 billion being our best estimate....

Two billion dollars in stolen wages were recovered for workers in 2015 and 2016—and that’s just a drop in the bucket

... And these recovery numbers likely dramatically underrepresent the pervasiveness of wage theft—it has been estimated that low-wage workers lose more than $50 billion annually to wage theft....

The GOP Respects States’ (and local) Rights, Unless Your State (or city) Gives You These Workplace Benefits
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