#united states labor rights

[sunderstruck]

This is your friendly reminder that it is very illegal for companies in the United States to prohibit employees from discussing wages amongst themselves!*

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!

*Excluding public-sector employees (employees of state, federal and local governments and their sub-divisions), agricultural and domestic workers, independent contractors, workers employed by a parent or spouse, employees of air and rail carriers covered by the Railway Labor Act, and supervisors.

Source:

[reasonsforhope]

Federal regulators on Tuesday [April 23, 2024] enacted a nationwide ban on new noncompete agreements, which keep millions of Americans — from minimum-wage earners to CEOs — from switching jobs within their industries.

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday afternoon voted 3-to-2 to approve the new rule, which will ban noncompetes for all workers when the regulations take effect in 120 days [So, the ban starts in early September, 2024!]. For senior executives, existing noncompetes can remain in force. For all other employees, existing noncompetes are not enforceable.

[That's right: if you're currently under a noncompete agreement, it's completely invalid as of September 2024! You're free!!]

The antitrust and consumer protection agency heard from thousands of people who said they had been harmed by noncompetes, illustrating how the agreements are "robbing people of their economic liberty," FTC Chair Lina Khan said. 

The FTC commissioners voted along party lines, with its two Republicans arguing the agency lacked the jurisdiction to enact the rule and that such moves should be made in Congress...

Why it matters

The new rule could impact tens of millions of workers, said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist and president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. 

"For nonunion workers, the only leverage they have is their ability to quit their job," Shierholz told CBS MoneyWatch. "Noncompetes don't just stop you from taking a job — they stop you from starting your own business."

Since proposing the new rule, the FTC has received more than 26,000 public comments on the regulations. The final rule adopted "would generally prevent most employers from using noncompete clauses," the FTC said in a statement.

The agency's action comes more than two years after President Biden directed the agency to "curtail the unfair use" of noncompetes, under which employees effectively sign away future work opportunities in their industry as a condition of keeping their current job. The president's executive order urged the FTC to target such labor restrictions and others that improperly constrain employees from seeking work.

"The freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy," Khan said in a statement making the case for axing noncompetes. "Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand."

Real-life consequences

In laying out its rationale for banishing noncompetes from the labor landscape, the FTC offered real-life examples of how the agreements can hurt workers.

In one case, a single father earned about $11 an hour as a security guard for a Florida firm, but resigned a few weeks after taking the job when his child care fell through. Months later, he took a job as a security guard at a bank, making nearly $15 an hour. But the bank terminated his employment after receiving a letter from the man's prior employer stating he had signed a two-year noncompete.

In another example, a factory manager at a textile company saw his paycheck dry up after the 2008 financial crisis. A rival textile company offered him a better job and a big raise, but his noncompete blocked him from taking it, according to the FTC. A subsequent legal battle took three years, wiping out his savings. 

-via CBS Moneywatch, April 24, 2024

--

Note:

A lot of people think that noncompete agreements are only a white-collar issue, but they absolutely affect blue-collar workers too, as you can see from the security guard anecdote.

In fact, one in six food and service workers are bound by noncompete agreements. That's right - one in six food workers can't leave Burger King to work for Wendy's [hypothetical example], in the name of "trade secrets." (x, x, x)

Noncompete agreements also restrict workers in industries from tech and video games to neighborhood yoga studios. "The White House estimates that tens of millions of workers are subject to noncompete agreements, even in states like California where they're banned." (x, x, x)

The FTC estimates that the ban will lead to "the creation of 8,500 new businesses annually, an average annual pay increase of $524 for workers, lower health care costs, and as many as 29,000 more patents each year for the next decade." (x)

Clearer explanation of noncompete agreements below the cut.

Noncompete agreements can restrict workers from leaving for a better job or starting their own business.

Noncompetes often effectively coerce workers into staying in jobs they want to leave, and even force them to leave a profession or relocate.

Noncompetes can prevent workers from accepting higher-paying jobs, and even curtail the pay of workers not subject to them directly.

Of the more than 26,000 comments received by the FTC, more than 25,000 supported banning noncompetes. 

[troythecatfish]

[woodlandcreatur]

Kinda fucked that we, as Americans, have accepted that our time has no inherent value.

The discussion about minimum wage focuses too much on the value of any given type of labor. We're sitting here bickering amongst ourselves over whos job is worth more, and who deserves less... and we've completely lost the plot.

Minimum wage is strictly about the value of the time our employers take- or, at least, it needs to be. If a company demands 32 to 40 hours of your time every week, this time should have an intrinsic value regardless of the work you're doing. And, given that this time makes up most of your waking life, it should pay more than enough for you to survive in this society.

The value of our labor is what gets paid on top of that.

But here we are, acting like our work is all they're taking from us while they burn away our lives for nothing.

[bfpnola]

about the ongoing hunger strike to ensure that the historic anti-casteism bill passes in california ^^ wanna support?

if you’re on mobile, go to: https://tinyurl.com/Signsb403

other devices, like laptops: https://www.gov.ca.gov/contact/

—

sample email below from the mobile link, not my own writing:

Subject: Please Sign SB403 (Wahab) to End Caste Discrimination

I am writing to request the governor to sign the historic bill SB403 introduced by State Senator Aisha Wahab, which would end discrimination on the basis of caste. This bill aims to clarify existing California state law and make explicit that discrimination based on caste is illegal by adding caste to ancestry and defining caste in the Civil Rights Act, Fair Employment and Housing Act, and Education Code.

Caste systems are social stratification where each position is characterized by hereditary status, endogamy, and social exclusion. Caste discrimination manifests as workplace discrimination, housing discrimination, gender-based violence, and other physical and psychological forms of violence.

Caste discrimination occurs across industries, including technology, construction, restaurants, and domestic work. In these sectors, caste discrimination has included harassment, bias, wage theft, and even trafficking. Caste is today inextricably intertwined with existing legal protections in state and federal civil rights laws such that discrimination based on one’s caste is effectively discrimination based on the intersection of other protected identities. However, because of the grave discrimination caste-oppressed Californians face, these existing protections must be made explicit.

Caste is a workers rights issues, a women's rights issues, and racial justice issue. It is also a bill that has bipartisan support. That is why we are joined by Asian Law Caucus, Stop AAPI Hate, AAPI Equity Alliance, Tech Equity, Equality Labs, Alphabet Workers Union, Ambedkar Association of North America, Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO, Californians for Caste Equity, Hindus for Caste Equity, Jakara Movement, South Asian Network, Sikh Coalition, and Sikh American Legal Defense Fund. Every major legal association is in support of caste equity and the lawfulness to make caste equity explicit. This includes the American Bar Association, South Asian Bar Association, National Asian American Pacific Bar Association, and Asian Law Caucus.

That is why we urge you to make history and sign his bill without hesitation. Justice delayed is justice denied. Let's ensure California opportunity for all by ensuring that ancestry and caste discrimination is explicitly prohibited and make history across the country.

Thank You,

[Name]

—

and if you don’t know what caste is? send in an ask @bfpnola or join our Discord server, link in bio, so we can answer you in real-time!

[thoughtportal]

[redditreceipts]

One of the worst consequences of patriarchy is unequal pay and the bad working conditions for women. These include: 

no maternal leave

discriminatory hiring practices

harassment from higher-ups and colleagues

lesser pay 

no or bad healthcare benefits

etc. 

Also, the jobs typically occupied by women are paid worse around the world, while oftentimes being more demanding and higher in stress, such as nurses, teachers, cleaning personnel, etc. 

Material equality is crucial for women’s liberation! 

In the United States, women in unions make higher wages and reduce the gender pay gap significantly. Women in unions on average make 205 $ more per week. The union bonus is higher for women than for men, especially for Latina and Black women: unionized Latinas make 271 $ more per week, while Black women make 175 $ more per week. This effect is also true for Asian and white women (Asian women in unions make more than men lmao)

Unions provide health protection for female workers in precarious working conditions: 84 percent of unionized workers have access to employer-sponsored healthcare, while only 54 percent of non-unionized workers have access to healthcare 

Patriarchy is a social construct that was implemented to extract free labour from women. Patriarchy is a justification for lesser pay, worse jobs, harassment in the workplace and a healthcare system that is centered around the male body. 

If you want to help women, especially women of color, join a union today!

(source)

[walkawaytall]

Hey, in case you didn’t know, if you live in the States, you’re legally allowed to talk about your pay with coworkers. Workplaces may not want the discussions to happen on the clock (but, even then, if they’re allowing other conversations that don’t relate directly to the work you’re performing and only prohibit conversations about pay, that may very well be illegal), but it’s illegal for them to outright prohibit or punish you for having such conversations with coworkers.

The only one who benefits from employees not discussing their pay rates with one another is the company, and if they truly believe they’re paying everyone fairly, the company shouldn’t care if you discuss your pay amongst yourselves.

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Speech Vice President Harris Gave at the IBEW Labor Union #5 Union Hall in Pittsburgh, PA!

~BR~

[lookingforcactus]

Non-paywall version here.

"Shawna Freeman Lane, 34, continued to teach college-level business by laptop after she gave birth by C-section in 2017. Her husband, Eric Lane, was home with her in Fircrest, Wash., for three weeks. The same thing happened in 2018, when their second child was born—except this time, Mr. Lane only got two weeks at home.

Having to leave his still-healing wife in the lurch was hard for Mr. Lane, as was tracking his children’s development via text messages while at work. But when their third was born last May, things were different. In 2020, Washington state had passed a new law entitling working parents to 12 weeks of paid leave, to bond with their newborn.

“It felt like winning the lottery, honestly,” said Mr. Lane, who stayed home for six weeks after their son was born, then another six weeks when Ms. Freeman Lane went back to work.

They are part of an explosion in the number of workers taking parental leave. In the 12 months through February [2023], a monthly 406,000 workers were absent on average due to paid or unpaid parental leave, up 13.5% from 2021, according to Labor Department data. The 478,000 working parents absent in January was the most since records began in 1994.

One driver behind the upswing is likely the increase in births in the past two years versus the prepandemic trend. The pandemic itself may also be a factor, as lockdowns and Covid kept many workers home.

But the main factor appears to be government and employer policies. While the U.S. remains the only advanced economy without nationally mandated paid parental leave, the share of workers with access to leave is growing, to 25% in March last year versus 19% in 2019, according to the Labor Department. Seven states plus the District of Columbia now require employers to provide paid leave, up from four in 2018, while private employers are also expanding the benefit. Four more states will require paid parental leave by 2026.

“As the state laws have passed, there has been a culture change, and more awareness and support for mothers and—especially—fathers around taking leave,” said Jane Waldfogel, a public affairs professor at Columbia University.

A greater propensity by fathers to take leave is an important contributor. The number of men on parental leave tripled to an average of 76,500 in the six months ended in February [2023] from five years earlier, whereas the number of women rose 11% to 336,000, according to census data.

More parental leave-taking benefits the economy in the impact on families’ well-being, said Emily Oster, economics professor at Brown University—ranging from near-term outcomes such as infant mortality rates to longer-term measures, including child test scores and adult earnings. “In this sense, leave now is an investment in the economic future,” Ms. Oster said...

Leave policies are a small but increasingly key way that firms compete for workers, according to Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. About 3% of currently active online job postings nationwide explicitly advertise parental leave, about a fivefold increase from before the pandemic, ZipRecruiter data show.

Industries seeing the biggest increase are retail, and transportation and warehousing, said Ms. Pollak—something she calls the “Amazon effect.” The e-commerce giant was at the forefront of offering parental-leave benefits, prompting competitors to do the same...

Parents are also taking longer leaves. The typical mother now takes 120 days of bonding leave, up from 110 in 2019, and the median father is out for 60 days, a 15-day increase, according to Sparrow, a leave-management platform. New York state family bonding claims data show a similar trend, with moms claiming 9.9 weeks in 2021, a three-week gain from 2018, and dads extending their average leave by 2.3 weeks, to 6.9...

“My son is so much fun now. He’s getting to the stage where he’s his own human,” [Jonathan Leslie, a 36-year-old software engineer] said. “Having the open-ended play with him—that opportunity won’t come again.”

-via The Wall Street Journal, 4/8/23. Non-paywall version via ProgramBusiness, 4/10/23.

[47thpennvols]

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Labor Day! (Image: U.S. Postal Service's 1956 postage stamp tribute to Labor Day.)

[reasonsforhope]

"The Writers Guild has reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers to end its strike after nearly five months. The parties finalized the framework of the deal Sunday when they were able to untangle their stalemate over AI and writing room staffing levels.

“We have reached a tentative agreement on a new 2023 MBA, which is to say an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language,” the guild told members this evening in a release, which came just after sunset and the start of the Yom Kippur holiday that many had seen deadline to wrap up deal after five days of long negotiations...

Despite today’s welcome news, it still will take a few days for the strike to be officially over as the WGA West and WGA East proceed with their ratification process. During the WGA’s last strike in 2007-08, a tentative agreement was reached on the 96th day and it wasn’t over until the 100th...

All attention will now turn to ratifying the WGA deal and getting SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP back to the bargaining table to work out a deal to end the actors’ strike, which has now been going on for 70 days.

Details of the WGA’s tentative agreement haven’t been released yet but will be revealed by the guild in advance of the membership ratification votes. Pay raises and streaming residuals have been key issues for the guild, along with AI and writers room staffing levels."

-via Deadline, September 24, 2023

[constructbreakdown]

Solidarity Forever - Bernie Sanders ft. United Auto Workers (UAW)

New music video for my new YouTube channel, Construct Breakdown. This is NOT AI, this is actually Bernie Sanders singing.

[pokemontwink]

[historyandarthijinks]

In the United States, corrupt individuals in charge have tried to paint a picture that members of Gen Z don't want to work or are useless employees.

At the same time, legal and illegal child labor has been going up a lot in the states, with states like Iowa even trying to convince the populous that it's not Immoral for 12 year olds worm

[ostensiblynone]

What is the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act?

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) is a new law that requires covered employers to provide “reasonable accommodations” to a worker’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless the accommodation will cause the employer an “undue hardship.”

When does the PWFA go into effect, and will the public have input on any regulations?

The PWFA goes into effect on June 27, 2023. The EEOC is required to issue regulations to carry out the law. The EEOC will issue a proposed version of the PWFA regulations so the public can give their input and offer comments before the regulations become final.