Posts tagged Minimum wage
Uber drivers won a 12-year fight to unionize. Robots have already taken the wheel
August 19, 2026 // It’s a real victory for their cause, but in the years since drivers began organizing, the ride-hail industry has entered a new era. Robotaxis, once a bug-faced curiosity(opens in new tab), are shaping up to be an existential threat to human rideshare drivers. Experts disagree on the pace and scale of the labor transition, and policymakers are crafting regulations that may bear down on the autonomous vehicle industry. However, there are some warning signs in early-adopter cities. In San Francisco, Uber saw utilization and hourly earnings decline in 2025, it says.
New Jersey employers face evolving union negotiations
August 11, 2026 // New Jersey’s worker-protection laws add further complexity. “When worker-protection laws are enacted or amended in New Jersey, they add layers to collective bargaining,” Gonzalez said. “There’s no requirement to bargain over a law’s implementation, but where statutes are ambiguous, employers must negotiate the gaps.” She pointed to CREAMMA [the state’s Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization Act] as an example. “The law prohibits adverse action based on cannabis use outside of work,” she noted. “But unionized employers still need to address how drug testing, safety policies, and fitness-for-duty standards interact with the CBA.” Benefits like paid sick leave and NJ WARN Act severance can also stack on top of contractual obligations. “That dual obligation can catch employers off guard if they are not planning for it at the bargaining table,” she detailed.
Unions Are Coming for Your Uber Driver
August 4, 2026 // The sectoral-bargaining approach made headway in 2022, when California signed the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Act, or FAST, into law. The act was replaced by a compromise agreement before going into full effect. But under the original provisions, it would have established a 10-member Fast Food Council appointed by the governor and state Legislature to set labor rules for the Golden State’s fast-food industry. The FAST Act marked a pivot toward sectoral-bargaining strategies in America, importing the tactic from Europe and Australia. For decades before the FAST Act, the United Auto Workers used tactics like “pattern bargaining” in negotiations with the Big Three automakers.
Newsom celebrates boosting California’s minimum wage to highest rate in the country
August 3, 2026 // California's push for higher wages has also faced opposition from business groups that warn increased labor costs can translate into higher prices, reduced hiring, or fewer hours for workers. The debate has been particularly pronounced around the state's fast-food wage law. Newsom, meanwhile, has increasingly contrasted California's economic policies with those of the president and congressional Republicans as he raises his national political profile.
Commentary: California’s War on Goats Could Worsen the Wildfire Crisis
July 30, 2026 // State lawmakers intervened by passing legislation to allow goat herders to be paid the same alternative minimum as sheep herders until July 1, 2026. Now that the exemption has expired, goat herders must be paid according to traditional overtime rules. Given the 24/7 availability required for herding, this means that Golden State goat herders are now set to be paid $20,000 per month, which works out to $240,000 annually. (For comparison, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's salary currently sits at $245,000). An effort to extend the goat herding exemption beyond 2026 stalled in the state legislature due to opposition from labor unions. Goat-herding businesses have been left scrambling. Western Grazers, a company that deploys roughly 5,000 goats across Northern California, says the new rules push the annual cost of employing each herder above $250,000 once room and board, food, and other expenses are included.
Minimum Wage Myths are Flooding the Internet
July 27, 2026 // Salaries are a function of supply and demand, not government planning. Employers hire workers up to the point where the value of their labor justifies the wage, while workers decide whether to supply their labor based on the pay offered. As the Texas example shows, the true minimum wage is whatever the market decides, and in 2026 that’s almost never as low as $7.25. Minimum wages can also hurt the workers that they’re meant to help. California’s minimum wage is among the highest in the nation, and California now has the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states.
Union and Troubled Home Care Company Maintained Close Partnership, Records Show
July 21, 2026 // Home health aides the company employs have decried missed paychecks, glitchy software, and hours-long waits on the phone, among other issues. Last month, PPL agreed to a $162 million settlement to resolve claims of wage theft, and the US Department of Justice sued the company, alleging Medicaid fraud. The powerful health care union 1199SEIU is currently seeking to unionize PPL’s roughly 200,000 workers, who care for disabled and elderly New Yorkers. But 1199 has also been working closely with the PPL for years, according to internal records obtained by New York Focus.
Report: 5 unintended effects kicked in after California raised minimum wage
July 10, 2026 // So the $20 wage may technically work. Some workers really do earn that much per hour now. But the bigger goal, helping fast food workers build a stable life, is slipping away in a different direction. The jobs are shrinking. The hours are shrinking. And the restaurants of the future may not need a person at the counter to hand you your food at all.
Seventeen States & Localities ‘Are Increasing Their Minimum Wage In July’
July 6, 2026 // On July 1st, the Minimum Wage rose in the States of Alaska, Oregon and in our Nation’s Capital, Washington, D.C. - lifting wages for more than 361,000 Workers and collectively raising their earnings by more than $221 million. In addition to these two States and Washington, D.C. - 14 Cities and Counties also increased their Minimum Wage this Summer, including Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
A $20 minimum wage sounded like a win—until these 5 consequences kicked in
June 26, 2026 // California’s $20 minimum wage sounded like a win—until these five ripple effects hit workers, prices, and jobs. Here’s what leaders need to know to design business models that actually work. A recent University of California Santa Cruz study quantified a pattern every leader should recognize before issuing a mandate: When you impose rapid cost change on a complex system, you get unintended consequences.