With inflation cooling , thousands of Californians got a double dose of good news in the last month with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) signing of two high-profile bills raising the minimum wage of health care and fast-food workers. SB 525 , by Sen. Maria Elena...
TX Weighs COVID-19 Vaccine Ban In their 3rd special session of the year, Texas lawmakers are considering a bill ( SB 7 c ) that would bar private employers from requiring their workers to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Employers that take “adverse action”...
CA Gov Nixes Unemployment Benefits for Striking Workers California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) vetoed a bill ( SB 799 ) that would have allowed striking workers to receive unemployment benefits. The governor stated in his veto message that such an expansion of unemployment...
NC Budget Would Preempt Local Government Minimum Wage Rates The state budget ( HB 259 ) approved largely along party lines this month in North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature includes a provision that would prohibit local governments and municipalities...
TX Judge Strikes Down ‘Death Star’ Law A county judge in Texas declared the state’s new so-called “Death Star” law preempting local ordinances, including those mandating water breaks for construction workers, “entirely unconstitutional...
New UPS Labor Contract Averts Strike The union that represents over 300,000 UPS workers ratified a new labor agreement last week, preventing a strike that might have crippled the U.S. economy. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters said the contract will...
Workforce Development High Priority for State Lawmakers With virtually every sector of the U.S. economy suffering a major worker shortage, state lawmakers are taking steps to boost their workforces in the near- and long-term. To try to attract workers now Vermont...
PA Launches Infrastructure Workforce Development Program Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) issued an executive order directing up to $400 million in federal funding to a new infrastructure workforce development program. The Commonwealth Workforce Transformation...
The weather, of course, is notoriously difficult to predict. But if early projections are to be believed, the cities of Austin and Dallas in Texas are in for some hot days come September. Both cities are expected to see temperatures in the low 90s and high 80s...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, paid leave emerged as a critical policy issue in state legislatures all over the country. Now, with the pandemic retreating in the rearview mirror, the paid leave landscape is changing, but the issue remains just as popular with state...
Pay Transparency Laws Followed More Loosely in Some Industries Thanks to pay transparency laws enacted in states like California, Colorado, Illinois and Washington, as well as in a handful of cities like New York, many job advertisements now include a pay range...
For more than half a century, we’ve been talking about equal pay for women. Sixty years ago, the U.S. Congress passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963 , which required employers to pay men and women equally for equal work. (For more on this see Equal Pay Act:...
Environmental, social and corporate governance, ESG, has taken off in recent years. And in the process, it has broadened the ideological divide between liberal-leaning states and conservative ones, with lawmakers in the former embracing ESG principles and those...
MI to Repeal Right-to-Work Law Michigan is poised to become the first state in almost 60 years to repeal a right-to-work law, after the state’s Democrat-led Legislature approved a bill ( HB 4005 ) along party lines last week that would repeal the 2012 Republican...
Seattle Becomes First U.S. City to Ban Caste Discrimination Seattle’s City Council passed an ordinance ( CB 120511 ) prohibiting discrimination in various arenas, including employment and housing, based on caste, which it defines as “a system of rigid...