- Home
- News
- Features
- Topics
- Labor
- Management
- Opinions/Blogs
- Tools & Resources
List your business in the premium web directory for free This website is listed under Human Resources Directory
- Celebrating the Resilience of Low-Income Women
- CEOs Get to Retire Comfortably. Workers Like Me Deserve the Same.
- Jobs Increased 339,000 In May, Unemployment Up 0.3% To 3.7%
- The decline of job creation at new establishments
- Contractor faces 2 serious citations after US Department of Labor finds safety failures led to welder’s death at Bonner Bridge demolition project
- Investigation into worker’s severe arm injury finds Cusseta auto parts manufacturer, supplier willfully ignored safety precautions
- ‘It’s a sweat factory’: Instacart workers ready to strike for pay and conditions
- Ships backed up outside US ports pumping out pollutants as they idle
- Privacy fears as Moscow metro rolls out facial recognition pay system
- ‘We are not machines’: Hollywood workers poised to strike for better conditions
- Boeing pilot indicted for allegedly deceiving US regulators over 737 Max
- Ipswich apprentice butcher encourages others to consider industry
- Ipswich apprentice butcher encourages others to consider industry
- Over 10,000 John Deere workers strike over ‘years’ of poor treatment
- Corporations are pledging to be ‘water positive’. What does that mean?
- US Department of Labor investigation of crane collapse, double fatality on Interstate 10 finds Lufkin company failed to assemble crane properly
- For the 6th time in 7 years, federal inspectors find Illinois contractor putting construction workers at risk of industry’s deadliest hazard
- US Department of Labor proposes $83K in fines to healthcare facility for failing to protect workers from coronavirus hazards
- Facebook says it will do more to prevent online hate, harassment
- As U.S. prepares to reopen border, some urge Canada to relax testing requirement
- Biden orders companies to ease supply chain bottlenecks or he’ll ‘call them out’
- What is the ‘new model’ the EU is proposing for Northern Ireland?
- Apple to make 10 million fewer iPhones due to microchip shortage
- US Department of Labor, Mexican Consulate in Boston enter alliance to promote workplace safety, health among New England’s workers
- US Department of Labor sues Austin luxury car dealer that retaliated against employee who raised concerns of coronavirus hazards
- Vaccine hesitant New Yorkers consider leaving the city as mandates take effect
- Carbon emissions ‘will drop just 40% by 2050 with countries’ current pledges’
- House passes bill to raise US debt ceiling through early December
- ‘The stakes couldn’t be higher’: GE urged to invest in green US jobs
- Zellers returns — kind of — but the lowest price isn't quite the law
- Cement makers across world pledge large cut in emissions by 2030
- India faces electricity crisis as coal supplies run critically low
- California justice department to investigate enormous oil spill
Today’s News & Commentary — September 14, 2021
Missouri public employees’ unions continue to struggle against the governor’s office for collective bargaining. In 2018, former Governor Eric Greitens signed a law that gave meager raises in exchange for changing the states’ merit hiring system, effectively reclassifying state workers into at-will employees. Since then, current Governor Mike Parson, who was Greitens’s lieutenant governor, has allowed every single public sector union contract to expire. Last May, Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem ruled that the merit law was unconstitutional and ordered the state to resume good faith bargaining with state unions and for state agencies to begin processing filed grievances that have not been answered during Governor Parson’s term. Now, Governor Parson’s administration has filed an appeal contesting the decision, further delaying any union negotiations. The state employees are principally represented by AFSCME, CWA Local 6355, and SEIU Local 1. Missouri state employees remain some of the lowest paid state employees in the nation, with noncompetitive pay forcing agencies to shut down facilities and services due to staffing problems.
In the wake of President Biden’s upcoming vaccine mandate, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has threatened to fine local government employers $5,000 per vaccination they enforce. If DeSantis carried through with the threat, it would be the state Department of Health’s responsibility to enforce the rule beginning on September 16. However, the threat has not stopped some local governments in Florida from already imposing vaccine mandates for their employees. Firefighters in Pembroke Pines, City Hall workers in Weston, new applicants for city staff positions in Oakland Park, Plantation police and city employees, Delray Beach employees, Orange County employees, and some others are all currently subject to vaccine mandates. While DeSantis’s threat currently only applies to public employees, the governor’s office has stated that it is exploring ways to pressure private businesses not to impose mandates as well.
California’s state investigations into Activision Blizzard Inc. and Riot Games Inc. are being viewed as a referendum on the effectiveness of the state’s laws regarding nondisclosure agreements. Activision and Riot Games have been accused of using NDA agreements to hinder sexual harassment and discrimination investigations. California law prohibits overly broad gag orders, settlements, and other agreements from preventing workplace victims from speaking about workplace abuses, discrimination, and harassment claims. The state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing believes that Activision Blizzard is using NDAs with severe penalties to mask a “frat boy” office culture. Meanwhile, the DFEH is attempting to compel Riot Games to produce copies of private NDA settlements with over 100 women who have alleged unequal pay or sexual harassment. The cases stand out for being unusually aggressive enforcement actions of the state’s NDA laws.