Posts tagged unemployment
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.
Biden takes shot at Trump on jobs in battleground Pennsylvania
September 5, 2023 // A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month showed that the economy, unemployment and jobs remained Americans' top concern. A full 60% of Americans, including one in three Democrats, said they disapproved of Biden's handling of inflation, according to the poll. The Fed's preferred inflation gauge has moved down to 3.3%, from its peak of 7% last summer. Although the decline was a "welcome development," Fed Chair Jerome Powell said late last month, inflation "remains too high" and interest rates may need to move higher. Republicans and some economists say Democratic policies helped spark the rise in prices, making Americans pay more for rent, groceries and gasoline under Biden's watch. Economists say inflation was also stoked by the lifting of COVID-era restrictions and revival of business activity that followed.
Julie Su Pining for Labor Secretary
June 1, 2023 // The National Education Association, one of the largest unions in the nation, began placing ads in states with senators who have yet to commit to voting for Su if – and when – her nomination comes before the full Senate. Ads like these are running in Alaska (Murkowski, R), Arizona (Kelly, D, and Sinema I-ish), West Virginia (Manchin, D). None – along with Angus King (I) of Maine and John Tester (D) of Montana – have said for sure they will vote Su for sure. The NEA came out in favor of Su even before she was nominated, and unusual thing to do for the union, a union that – like its counterpart the AFT led by the egregious Randi Weingarten – pushed strongly to keep schools closed across the country during the pandemic.
Biden’s ‘nightmare’ Labor nominee under fire from small businesses, contract workers
April 5, 2023 // "As the chief enforcer of AB 5, Julie Su was a nightmare for freelancers and small businesses in California. She has no business being Labor Secretary after her track of failure," said Freelancers Against AB 5 founder Karen Anderson. Wes Snyder, the owner of a FASTSIGNS franchise in Arizona, criticized Su’s stance on franchise liability. "This business model gives anyone the opportunity to experience the transformative power of entrepreneurship while strengthening their local communities," he said. "Julie Su wants to rob us of this opportunity – she will turn the American dream into the American nightmare."
Workers exert leverage in tight labor market: Strikes doubled in 2022
February 23, 2023 // About 224,000 total people walked off the job in 424 strikes, up from 279 strikes in 2021. Most of them were demanding better pay and healthcare. Fast food workers with the "Fight for $15" campaign and Starbucks baristas organized over 100 strikes. In one of the most memorable, a number of Starbucks workers at stores across the country refused to man the espresso machines on "Red Cup Day" — the start of the profitable holiday drink season for the company. But education workers put the biggest stamp on labor action. About 60% of the workers striking in 2022 were educators, meaning the spotlight continues to be on frontline sectors after healthcare workers drove most of the action 2021, during the height of the pandemic.
U.S. labor strikes went up almost 50% between 2021 and 2022
January 18, 2023 // Union membership and strike activity has fallen in the decades since King’s death. But more recently, that has been changing. The number of strikes in the United States rose almost 50% between 2021 and 2022, according to Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. That pickup in activity has momentum.
Worker strikes and union elections surged in 2022 – could it mark a turning point for organized labor?
January 10, 2023 // The increase in strike activity is also important. And while the major strikes that involve 1,000 or more employees and are tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics arouse the greatest attention, they represent only the tip of the iceberg. The bureau recorded 20 major strikes in 2022, which is about 25% more than the average of 16 a year over the past two decades.
Opinion: Liberate markets to help workers succeed
January 10, 2023 // From educational services and child care to transportation, housing, and health care, the Cato team offers sensible reforms that either eliminate barriers to opportunity or make it easier for individuals to spend public dollars in the way most likely to meet their particular needs. As Lincicome observes in the book’s conclusion, our political debate is filled with supposedly “pro-worker” proposals that are based on faulty assumptions about the past, present, and future of the American workplace. Far too many politicians think of workers as “helpless and in need of government protection from cradle to grave, despite the long‐term harms that such policies inflict on these very same workers and the economy more broadly,” he writes. “By contrast, pro‐market policies that respect the individual agency and ability of all workers would allow them to pursue their unique hopes and dreams in a more dynamic, diverse, and high‐wage economy—and to adjust to whatever comes next.”
Union wins made big news this year. Here are 5 reasons why it’s not the full story
December 29, 2022 // Spirited union campaigns at coffeehouses, on university campuses and at companies such as Starbucks and REI that have long positioned themselves as progressive have brought a new generation of workers into labor's fold. Whether they stay will likely depend on their career prospects in other fields and how they fare in collective bargaining.
$11 billion was stolen from taxpayers in a massive fraud — will officials just ignore it?
November 28, 2022 // The Labor Department repeatedly blamed identity theft for its fraud problems — but the audit revealed it didn’t implement a system that could meaningfully curb identify theft until February 2021. Labor Department officials still can’t say how many fraudulent claims were paid or how long it took to detect them. Audits revealing incompetence and bad decisions aren’t uncommon. But DiNapoli’s team, to its lasting credit, found something worse: Labor Department officials had gone rogue, repeatedly misleading legislators and the public. When Labor Commissioner Roberta Reardon addressed lawmakers in January 2022, she said the department had “prevented over $36 billion from falling into the hands of criminals.” Auditors, however, found that claim couldn’t be substantiated.