BossFeed Briefing for February 25, 2019. Last Monday, our bill to improve working conditions for dancers at strip clubs moved forward with a unanimous vote in the House Labor Committee. Last Thursday, the Seattle Times reported that a Kentucky call center worker with Crohn’s disease is suing Amazon for refusing to allow him sufficient bathroom breaks. Today the State House Appropriations committee hears our secure scheduling bill (HB 1491). This Wednesday is the 80th anniversary of a Supreme Court decision that limited sit-down strikes. And this Friday would be leap day except that day doesn’t exist this year because calendars gonna calendar.
Three things to know this week:
Our statewide secure scheduling bills have advanced out of committee, but there’s an amendment that would exclude workers who work for big chains in “rural” counties. Now we need to make sure statewide secure scheduling is actually statewide secure scheduling.
Restaurant owners in Seattle apparently now believe they are having trouble finding workers because there is so much competition for labor… because there are so many restaurants. This latest gripe comes after years of complaints that higher labor standards would mean a falling sky and fewer restaurants.
Food delivery app DoorDash recently raised $400 million from venture capital funders. That’s enough money to cover as many as 400 million deliveries on DoorDash, since they pay as little as little as $1 per job.
Two things to ask:
What’s Next? Instacart workers across the country got backpay this past Thursday after the company was forced to admit they had been taking tips. Now workers are launching the #PayUp campaign to reboot the gig economy with $15+expenses, tips on top of that, and more transparency.
Who’s Next? Former Congressmember Joe Crowley, who was defeated last year by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has launched a new career with a corporate lobbying firm. This career move comes several weeks after former Obama campaign aide Bill Burton announced he's working for Howard Schultz’s presidential campaign.
And one thing that's worth a closer look:
The past several years of worker mobilization has forced a lot of writers to look at how poverty wages hold workers back. But workers have now won higher pay in enough places that Matthew Desmond (of Evicted fame) was able to put together a powerful feature in the New York Times on how higher pay changes lives. Desmond features the voices of workers like Julio Payes, who was able to reduce his workweek from 80 hours a week between two jobs to more like 48 or 60 after the city where he works raised the minimum wage. And he also takes an extraordinary survey of the data on how a $15 minimum wage can address depression, fatigue, stress, dietary issues, workplace safety, and do so much more, simply by offering the basic dignity of getting paid enough to support yourself.
Read this far?
Consider yourself briefed, boss.
Let us know what you think about this week's look at the world of work, wages, and inequality!