BossFeed Briefing for June 14, 2021. Last Wednesday, Seattle became the first major US city to fully vaccinate 70% of residents 12 and older. Last Thursday, interim chief Cami Feek officially took over as the permanent head of the WA Employment Security Department. Last Friday, we responded to the reinstatement of job search requirements for unemployed workers in WA. This Saturday is Juneteenth. This Sunday is Father’s Day, a good day for the greeting card industry but not as good as Mother’s Day.
Three things to know this week:
The Biden administration has announced that long-delayed workplace COVID safety rules will only be mandatory in healthcare settings. Workers in high-risk work environments like meatpacking plants, agriculture, and grocery stores still face heightened risk of exposure, but evidently won’t be able to count on federal OSHA standards for protection.
A debt collections agency must return nearly $500K in garnished wages to thousands of people across WA. The state Attorney General’s office sued the company last year for habitually lying in court filings and charging illegal fees when collecting debts.
Experts are predicting another brutal wildfire season here in WA, with record numbers of fires already hitting the state this spring. Wildfire smoke safety rules for outdoor workers are currently nonexistent, though the state began the process of creating those rules back in December.
Two things to ask:
So, would you tax that? Leaked IRS tax filings reveal how billionaires in the US exploit loopholes to avoid paying income tax on the vast majority of their growing wealth. Between 2014 and 2018, Warren Buffett paid just 0.10% of his total wealth in taxes, while WA resident Jeff Bezos pitched in a heftier 0.98%.
Who among us doesn’t have to pinch pennies once in a while? Fast food chain Chipotle is raising menu prices, claiming the increase is meant to cover the cost of increased wages for workers. They did not note how they covered the expense of the $38 million Chipotle paid to the CEO in 2020.
And one thing that's worth a closer look:
Several states around the country are beginning to cut federal unemployment benefits months before they expire, and so far, it seems like the federal government is planning to let them get away with it. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people will immediately lose the economic security they need, with millions more losing benefits in the coming weeks as 21 other states follow suit. Washington isn’t among the states cutting federal benefits, though the US Department of Labor's apparent unwillingness to intervene and stop these cuts is puzzling: whenever we fight to improve unemployment benefits for workers here in WA, we hear a lot of talk from state officials about how federal rules stand in the way of making the system work better for workers. No single concept has been deployed to kill more state-level unemployment improvements than the specter of "federal conformity" — but now that our former ESD commissioner Suzi LeVine has a key role overseeing unemployment for the Department of Labor, it looks like it's fine to break the rules so long as your goal is to hurt workers instead of help.
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!