We may not know what will ultimately happen at the federal level regarding sick leave mandates, but the writing seems to be on the wall at the state level as more states are now taking a closer look at the issue. Notwithstanding strong opposition from the business community in the state of Maine, the Legislature’s…
Wage hike advocates may be loath to admit it, but according to a recently released study of Yelp data on the impact of minimum wage increases on lower to middle-quality restaurants, the impact is unmistakable. Buzz-feed, which wrote up the study, reported that researchers found that a $1 increase in the minimum wage in the…
With another lawsuit pending (yet again) on a new law enacted in the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney announced that the city will delay enforcement of the ban on salary history questions in employment interviews until the courts provide some clarity. The ordinance, which was unanimously passed by the City Council in…
The trains may not run any better, but the passengers won’t mind delays as much with Amtrak now ‘running on Dunkin’! The railroad and Dunkin Donuts announced an agreement this week where Dunkin’ coffee will now be served on the Acela high speed express throughout the northeast. Later this year, all Amtrak trains throughout the…
We’re not sure if it was increasing minimum wages, weather or March Madness, but restaurant sales were disappointing for the entire 1st quarter of the year. For the 11th time in the past 12 months, sales were negative again for the month of March with same store sales dropping 1.1 percent and traffic down 3.4…
Congress recessed last week without taking a vote on the nomination of Trump Labor Secretary-nominee Alex Acosta, so we are still without a Secretary of Labor. The latest projections are that a confirmation vote on the Acosta nomination will not happen before the last week of April. In the interim, the Department of Labor has…
Although the National Labor Relations Board is structured as an independent arbiter of labor issues, the agency’s apparent campaign to unionize as much of the US economy as possible continues unabated. Specifically, the recent NLRB recognition of graduate students as employees at universities across the country continues, most recently at Penn State, American University, Brown,…
Missouri may have officially become the 28th state in the union with a right to work law back in February when Governor Eric Greitens signed the right to work bill into law, but the issue is still very much in flux. Labor officials are pursuing their effort to collect enough signatures to put a ballot…
The state of Illinois is currently mired in a budget crisis of legendary proportions – for almost 2 full years, chaos has ruled. There have been unfunded pension issues, corruption allegations back and forth, the Attorney General sued to stop state worker paychecks, lawsuits between government agencies, furloughs of state employees, Northeastern Illinois and Chicago…
Senator Jack Latvala, who is the chief sponsor of Senate bill 750 to address the imbalance in the franchisee-franchisor relationship in Florida, is the sitting Chairman of the Florida Senate Appropriations Committee. In addition, Senator Latvala enjoys a seat on the powerful Senate Rules Committee, so he knows a bit about writing and moving legislation…
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