Posts tagged Small Business
New for 2024: Minnesota law to grant more workers access to sick and safe time
December 29, 2023 // Four Minnesota cities — Bloomington, Duluth, Minneapolis and St. Paul — have already adopted similar policies. If a city offers more generous earned sick and safe time benefits, employers operating there would be asked to honor those.
25 states will hike minimum wage in 2024
December 22, 2023 // Sean Higgins, an analyst at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, said many food and hospitality workers already earn more than their state minimum. He noted that employers have raised salaries to compete for a shrinking pool of applicants. “Raising state and local rates does hurt the smaller businesses, the classic mom and pop enterprises, who will employ local high school or college-age kids if they can but may not be able to justify that if the minimum rate increases,” Mr. Higgins said.
Opinion: NLRB says ‘common law’ — and common sense — defines joint employers
December 5, 2023 // The mandate, to take effect Dec. 26, says when two employers — think a local McDonald’s franchise and McDonald’s headquarters in Chicago — control a worker’s toil, from wages and hours to duties and work rules to hiring and firing to uniforms and training, then both are responsible for obeying or breaking Labor law. And that means it should be easier for workers to organize and bargain without being bounced from pillar to post when it comes to whom to bargain with. Using that same “basic common sense” explanation, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler called the new rule “an important win” for workers.
Small business owners not optimistic as inflation, labor struggles continue: NFIB survey
November 14, 2023 // The NFIB's Optimism Index was 90.7 points in October, significantly lower than the survey's 50-year average of 98 A seasonally adjusted net of 17% of owners plan to create new jobs in the next three months and 61% of owners overall said they were hiring or attempting to hire in October – but 90% reported few or no qualified applicants for open positions.
Op-Ed: Biden’s joint-employer rule is bad for workers
November 9, 2023 // Included in the Employee Rights Act are the commonsense provisions of the Save Local Business Act, which would provide much-needed clarity in determining joint-employer status and prevent franchise owners from becoming corporate middle managers. More specifically, the bills amend the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act to clarify that two or more employers must have “actual, direct, and immediate” control over employees to be considered joint employers. It rolls back a convoluted joint-employer scheme that threatens job creation and undermines the American dream, and it restores a commonsense definition of employer to provide certainty and stability for workers and job creators. Simply put, the Employee Rights Act seeks to update our nation’s labor policies to match the needs of the 21st-century worker and workforce.
AB5 needlessly reclassifies genuine independent contractors, OOIDA says
November 8, 2023 // OOIDA, which is serving as an intervenor in a case against the state’s worker classification law, told the court in its Oct. 27 reply brief that AB5 needlessly causes genuine independent contractors to be reclassified as employees. “AB5 discriminates against and imposes undue burdens on interstate commerce in violation of the dormant Commerce Clause, and the disparate treatment of AB5’s business-to-business and construction exemptions violates the U.S. and California constitutions’ equal protection clauses,” OOIDA wrote.
WA electrical contractors jolted by new law they say favors big contractors, unions
September 7, 2023 // Tim Rockwell is the owner of Rockwell Electric Inc, which is a small electrical contractor also based in Bellingham. Rockwell said trying to start his own apprenticeship program was extremely difficult. To do so, he had to receive a recommendation of approval of the apprenticeship program through the state Department of Labor & Industries, followed by another recommended approval by the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. The Washington State Apprenticeship Training Council could then provide provisional approval after one year. Prior to a council meeting, the proposed apprenticeship program can be objected to by another apprenticeship program that operates within the same region. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union objected to Rockwell's proposed apprenticeship program.
Op-ed: Workers need empowerment, not more Bidenomics failures
September 7, 2023 // The act would restore the flexibility workers deserve. Finally, the bill protects workers from being forced to undermine their own deeply held beliefs. Unions can spend workers’ dues to support politicians and political causes without expressed approval from each member. The Employee Rights Act requires unions to get workers’ permission before spending their hard-earned money on partisan politics. The American people overwhelmingly support every provision of the Employee Rights Act — including those in union households. They want to unleash workers, not shackle them with the demands of special interests, and they’re looking for leaders who put workers first.
Labor Day 2023: Here’s a principled way for workers ‘to make their own choices’
September 1, 2023 // The best way to help workers and families is to remove barriers to their freedom and opportunity, instead of erecting new ones. That means empowering workers to make more of their own choices instead of letting bureaucrats and union officials control what they earn, where they work, and how our economy functions. Workers don’t need more leaders who advocate the failed ideas of the past. They deserve leaders who respect their role as the protagonists in their own and their families’ lives and will deliver better jobs, bigger paychecks, and a brighter future.
The PRO Act is wrong for Pennsylvania
August 21, 2023 // Fortunately, there’s an alternative to the PRO Act that lawmakers can get behind. The Employee Rights Act–also introduced this year–would empower workers and bolster the small business community. Among provisions, the bill would guarantee that any vote to form a union would be done via secret ballot election, protect the autonomy of self-employed Americans, and preserve the franchise small business model.