This week: SeaTac goes back to the future, Arizona takes a stand, Gap gets fashionable, nail salon workers draw their own conclusions, and local color in the animal kingdom.
Back to the future with $15 in SeaTac
It finally happened: chanting for “$15 now” is old news. That’s because the hottest new demand is for $15 retroactively. At least that’s appropriate at Sea-Tac Airport, after the poverty-wage airport workers who sparked the original $15 campaign that won at the ballot box way back in November 2013 prevailed in court last week.
While it’s wonderful to see the $15 law finally take effect at the airport, the prospective protest chants are a little complicated. The SeaTac minimum wage includes an inflation adjustment, so it bumped up to $15.24 this year, which means you might expect to hear: “What do we want? $15 in inflation-adjusted 2014 dollars. When do we want it? Retroactive to more than a year-and-a-half-ago!”
With friends like the State of Arizona…
This week the State of Arizona agreed to add its not-so-good name in support of the franchise industry’s lawsuit arguing Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law is unfair to McDonald’s.
Attorneys defending the law are presumably now trying to win support from an outlying Canadian province in order to even things up.
Suddenly khakis seem on-trend again
The Gap did something this week which investors have long been demanding: they got a little ahead of the fashion curve. They did it by becoming the latest big retailer to commit to eliminate the practice of scheduling on-call shifts. No longer will employees at Gap brands have to call in a couple hours before a shift is set to start to see if they are in fact getting work that day or not.
Up next: recognizing the fundamental humanity of every worker in their supply chain.
Nailed it
The big New York Times exposé earlier this year on working conditions at nail salons led to big changes — and it also led many to ask how crazy-low-wages and toxic workplaces have been allowed to persist for so long.
A gorgeously drawn & powerfully-told bilingual piece of graphic journalism by Sukjong Hung tells the backstory, letting workers & their family members speak for themselves about their work, their lives, and their organizing efforts. It also does a phenomenal job of explaining various approaches to taking on wage theft. In comic form. (Really.) Just go read it already.
That’s quite an analogy
A team of scientists used cages of fish and chicken meat to catch an extremely rare nautilus, which is apparently a shell-type-thing and not just an exercise machine. The lead researcher excitedly reported that “it reminds me of half a swimming ear muff.”
A Zimbabwean lion named Nxaha, a former neighbor of Cecil, mauled and killed a safari guide who was tracking him & his pride. It may or may not have been an act of retaliation, but there does not appear to be a dentist involved in any way.
A Yellowstone visitor complained by comment card that the park needed to better train their bears for the enjoyment of guests. It’s a complex issue for Yellowstone’s HR department, because the bears are more independent contractors than traditional employees.