Posts tagged post-COVID
LA lost 11K hotel jobs in 2024, new $38.35 minimum wage risks more, group says
June 6, 2025 // According to an April report from the American Hotel and Lodging Association, LA ranks last among major U.S. cities in post-COVID recovery, and with current visitor levels at just 79% of what they were in 2019. A CUF analysis of state data found the city lost 11,000 hotel jobs in 2024 as a result, and warned in a full-page advertisement on Thursday, the day before an anticipated final vote approving the new wage and benefit ordinance, that “this new proposal will kill more jobs and raise costs for visitors.”
After Democrats lost the working class, union leaders say it’s time to ‘reconstruct the Democratic Party’
November 18, 2024 // “We can’t communicate with every nonunion laborer. We can only communicate with a portion of our members,” said Booker, who thinks Democrats could have performed better with a fierier populist message on the economy and a cooler one on cultural issues that make some of his members feel like Democrats are out-of-touch elitists. “A lot of our members own guns. A lot of our members hunt.” Booker said that when he toured job sites this year, he heard about inflation, immigration and the demise of the Keystone Pipeline, which would have created jobs for his members but was killed for environmental concerns — all issues that played to the GOP’s favor.
New UCSD Report Shows Younger Workers Are Supportive of Unions
August 28, 2024 // Younger workers are far more likely to support but also be uncertain about unions, according to a report released today by UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy. The report, published by the Economics Policy Institute, identifies three major shifts occurring among U.S. workers: a recent, marked decline in opposition to labor unions, a rise of workers who are interested in — but unsure about — unions and an emerging generation gap in attitudes toward unionization.
Op-ed: Will COVID-era work-from-home flexibility disappear?
September 19, 2023 // Telford points out the irony that even Zoom – the company that made remote work possible for millions, has recently instructed its own employees who live within 50 miles of a Zoom office to start coming in at least twice a week. Mark Zuckerberg has informed Meta employees that they could face termination if they do not come in at least three days a week starting this month. The sources quoted in the Post story seem to all be pointing toward the long schlep back to the office as being inevitable. Venture capitalist Matt Cohen said “During the pandemic, a lot of salespeople were taking calls from the top of mountains on hiking trips. That’s not working anymore.” Of course, all of this exists only within the world of the office worker. The remote work debate is largely a moot point for anyone who works in a warehouse, a restaurant, or on a road crew. It’s rather difficult, after all, to give a client a work-from-home pedicure. In so far as we’re supposed to be most worried about the outcomes of those least well off, there are probably plenty of employment issues that should be far higher up on our priority list.
Opinion: TALKING TRANSPORTATION: Union Power and the Potential Strike at Metro-North
August 8, 2023 // The union, which represents car inspectors, coach cleaners and mechanics has been without a contract since 2019 and says MTA management is dragging its heels on a new contract. The union has entered mediation through the Railroad Labor Act but says the first round did not go well. Under New York State law the union does have the right to strike and that would pretty much halt train service. But the effect of that might be far less in these post-COVID times as we’ve all learned how to WFH (work from home). This labor unrest comes as the MTA admits it paid $1.3 billion in overtime last year. About 1100 of its employees doubled their salaries with OT. There are mechanics and MTA cops taking home over $300,000 due to extra duty. Under their contracts, available overtime must first be offered to the most senior (and highest paid) staffers so those veterans, closest to retirement, are raking it in.
New union contract offers hope for better labor relations at the Social Security Administration
July 25, 2023 // a key difference between the new labor-management forums and previous ones, such as those aimed at addressing issues related to the return to traditional offices, is the commitment of agency senior leaders that they will participate. “Unlike the former union-management meetings, which were largely operated by [Office of Labor-Management and Employee Relations] staff, the [cooperation council] meetings will be jointly run and chaired by labor and management with jointly set agendas and more open sharing of information,” Couture said. “The whole idea is using pre-decisional involvement to solve issues facing employees and public service, and hopefully improve the relationship since they’ll interact and work with each other, while also avoiding, to the extent possible, obstacles inherent to traditional post-decisional and pre-implementation collective bargaining.”
THE GREAT RESIGNATION: WHY ARE SO MANY AMERICANS LEAVING THEIR JOBS?
March 30, 2022 // Employers cannot control external factors that take employees out of the workforce, like personal health issues. However, they can attract workers by offering the maximum amount of flexibility, including enough flex to be able to care for children or other family members while employed. Employers must also reexamine their compensation packages to ensure they are competitive in the post-COVID environment with record-breaking inflation. Government, for its part, must not saddle businesses with needless burdensome requirements that restrict how businesses can adapt to attract workers.
Can the trend of decreasing employee unions be reversed?
March 14, 2022 // A task force established by the Biden administration has issued dozens of recommendations for unionizing federal agencies and contractors. Will it have any effect? After all, the percentage of the workforce that is organized has been falling steadily for years. For analysis, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin turned to the managing partner of the D.C. office of the law firm Tully Rinckey, Dan Meyer.