Free subscription to the Capitol Journal keeps you current on legislative and regulatory news.
MA Lawmakers to Weigh Four-Day Work Week The Massachusetts House Labor and Workforce Development Committee scheduled a hearing last week on legislation ( HB 3849 ) that would provide tax credits to businesses...
Bills to Overhaul Long-Term Care and Control Prescription Drug Costs on Move in MA The Massachusetts House unanimously passed a bill ( HB 4178 ) that would overhaul the long-term care industry, while...
OpenAI Ousts CEO Sam Altman The board of directors of OpenAI, developer of ChatGPT, announced on the company’s blog last week that its CEO Sam Altman would be stepping down. The blog post said...
For more than half a year, labor strife has swept the country. First, Hollywood writers went on strike in May. Then actors joined them in walking off the set a couple months later, in July. Detroit...
IL Lawmakers Approve Bill Lifting Moratorium on Nuclear Power Plants: The Illinois General Assembly passed legislation ( HB 2437 ) that, as amended, will lift a nearly four-decades-old moratorium on new...
The actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, reached a tentative contract agreement with Hollywood studios last week. In July, actors joined the strike initiated by screenwriters in May over streaming-service pay and concerns about rapidly developing artificial intelligence technology. The Writers Guild of America reached an agreement with studios and ended its strike in late September. SAG-AFTRA members will begin voting this week on whether to accept their new contract, which among other things would give them more compensation for streaming movies and shows, and guarantee that AI-generated replicas of their likenesses wouldn’t be used without their approval or pay. (NEW YORK TIMES)
Las Vegas hotel workers reached new contract agreements with Caesars, MGM Resorts and Wynn Resorts last week, narrowly avoiding a strike at 18 hotel-casinos located on the Strip. Among other things, the proposed contracts would guarantee the workers significantly higher wages and daily room cleanings, which hotels discontinued during the pandemic, placing the workers in jeopardy of cutbacks. Rank and file members of the Culinary Workers Union will vote on whether to approve the proposed five-year contracts within the next couple of weeks. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
California employers will have until July 1 of next year to create workplace violence prevention plans and train workers how to follow them. Robert Rodriguez, an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Sacramento, said meeting that deadline “is not going to be an easy undertaking for employers” and “will likely require the involvement of many internal stakeholders.” (SHRM)
—Compiled by SNCJ Managing Editor KOREY CLARK