Posts tagged paid sick leave
Unionized Science Museum workers await contract as cultural nonprofits face changing labor market
April 1, 2024 // Inspired in part by pandemic-era lay-offs, as well as record inflation, Twin Cities labor movements have seen an uptick in mobilization. Janitors, school teachers, university graduate students, plow truck operators, firefighters, nurses, rideshare drivers and coffeeshop baristas have all recently taken their arguments for better pay and working conditions to the public picket line, or threatened to. Museums have had a lower-profile in those labor efforts, but workers at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul, Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis and Science Museum all have unionized in the past four years with the goal of collective bargaining for employee-friendly contracts. Most of the Science Museum’s workers were laid off and sent home when the pandemic forced closures in March 2020, only to be gradually called back months later into a climate marked by social distancing and general uncertainty. Hazard pay for frontline staff in visitor services disappeared after a few months. Workers rallied and got it back.
Opinion: The Biden Administration Should Look to Virginia Democrats For a Better Way to Help Gig Workers
February 25, 2024 // The concept of coupling the protection of contracting status with a flexible benefits system is an idea that also should appeal to right-leaning policymakers. That’s because such an approach not only helps businesses, but stands to benefit workers by preserving the entrepreneurial flexibility they desire as independent contractors. In addition to this flexibility, it likewise provides workplace protections and benefits that can help these workers weather the exigencies of life—all without the harmful negative impacts of widespread worker reclassification. According to our sources, local Virginia labor unions initially expressed interest in this Democrat-introduced portable benefits model, only to catch flak from their national parent organizations who pressured them to reverse course. Unfortunately, the influence of the national labor brass appears to have doomed the bill for now, although its mere existence suggests that Democratic lawmakers are starting to buck the party’s consensus on worker reclassification.
Op-ed: Watch out — California’s damaging gig workers law is going nationwide
February 20, 2024 // The rule is slated to take effect on March 10. U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) have both declared they will use the Congressional Review Act to have this rule rescinded. Previous legislation has been tendered in support of small businesses and the self-employed. The “Fight for Freelancers” group of female writers and editors has filed a lawsuit challenging this rule, which serves to appease Big Labor in the same manner as AB5.
Pro-Worker, Not Pro-Union
January 31, 2024 // What the Right has often overlooked in this debate is that the protection of independent-worker status can be coupled with a revamping of worker-benefit options. Lack of benefits is frequently cited as the main drawback of independent work. Republicans could burnish their pro-worker credentials, while protecting businesses from reclassification and other draconian left-wing policies, by proposing a flexible benefit setup for contractors and gig workers that has features similar to a SEP-IRA. It would use a system of employer contributions while giving workers the ability to make pre-tax contributions of their own. The funds could be used for benefits such as paid sick leave, unemployment insurance, or even health insurance, some of which could be purchased through newly created worker-benefit exchanges that act as brokerages for the benefits. Benefit-flexibility concepts can be applied as well to retirement savings, even those of noncontract workers. The current system largely relies on employer-based retirement plans, but many workers find it difficult to roll old retirement accounts over to new jobs. That has led to a proliferation of abandoned “orphan” accounts. Automatic portability for retirement accounts would make it possible for more workers to take their accounts with them to new jobs. Also due is a nuanced rethinking of noncompete agreements in labor contracts. While libertarian notions of the freedom of contract have long led right-leaning policy-makers to resist the imposition of restrictions on contractual arrangements, recent years have seen more free-market proponents question the efficacy of noncompetes with respect to their impact on worker freedom and earnings.
Rolling rally highlights push for Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize
July 13, 2023 // The industry-backed group Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work, which has also rallied drivers at the State House this year, says many drivers prefer the independence that comes with contractor status. The group favors one bill that would establish drivers as independent contractors while also providing some new benefits, and another that would create company-funded “portable benefit accounts” for drivers. Conor Yunits, spokesman for the Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work, said in a statement to GBH News that unionization bill “would force drivers to become employees for all intents and purposes,” and that his group will “continue to encourage the legislature to bring all parties to the table to find a compromise that protects the independence that drivers demand and the benefits they deserve.” Other bills on Beacon Hill also propose different strategies for addressing the pay, benefits and classification of gig economy drivers. Lawmakers on a pair of committees, the Financial Services Committee and the Labor and Workforce Development Committee, will hold hearings at some point in the two-year session to explore the issues.