BossFeed Briefing for January 31, 2022. Last Tuesday, the Seattle City Council voted to keep pandemic grocery hazard pay in place, upholding a mayoral veto of the Council’s previous vote to repeal it. Last Wednesday, Justice Stephen Breyer announced he will retire from the U.S. Supreme Court, allowing President Biden to nominate a replacement. Last Thursday, UFCW Canada announced an agreement with Uber Canada to jointly lobby in support of Uber’s policy agenda on gig workers’ rights. Tomorrow, the WA Senate Ways & Means Committee holds a hearing on the Billionaire Wealth Tax, and you can sign in PRO here to show your support. This Wednesday, the WA Senate Labor Committee holds a hearing on a bill to create an unemployment system for undocumented workers — sign in PRO here.
Three things to know this week:
Executives at Gopuff—the rapid convenience food delivery company—are working with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as they prepare to take the company public. Last year, Gopuff reached a $15 billion valuation while drivers across the country went on strike to demand better pay, flexible shifts, and deactivation protections.
The owners of an Auburn cleaning company pled guilty to felonies and are paying $33,000 to 24 workers in a criminal wage theft case. The pair failed to pay workers their wages, wrote checks that could not be cashed, and even required workers to sign contracts that explicitly prohibited them from asking about their paychecks.
A Biden Administration executive order requiring all federal contractors to earn at least $15/hr is now in effect. Tens of thousands of workers will see a pay raise as a result of the policy.
Two things to ask:
At whose will? When a group of Wisconsin hospital workers tried to take new jobs with a competing regional hospital, their current employer sued to prevent them from leaving, citing staffing shortages and requesting a restraining order from the court. Despite the fact that the workers were employed “at-will”, it took a judge nearly a week to dismiss the restraining order.
What if wealthy nations stopped hoarding vaccines? The director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control & Prevention warns that until wealthier nations ensure more people around the world can access COVID vaccines, newer and more dangerous variants of the virus will continue to emerge. Only 10% of the 1.3 billion people living on the African continent are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
And one thing that's worth a closer look:
Amazon paid $50,000 to create a class called “Amazon Logistics and Business Management Pathway” at a high school in San Bernardino, California, report Aaron Gordon and Lauren Kaori Gurley for Vice. The course includes lessons about how to manage labor unions, make “ethical decisions'', motivate employees, and navigate “bad press.” In one assignment, students are prompted to “brainstorm ways you could motivate your employees, other than large bonuses and high salaries.” The class isn’t Amazon’s only venture into paid youth propaganda: earlier this year, the company announced it will partner with the Girl Scouts of America to provide scout troops with guided tours of Amazon warehouses, with the noble aim of bringing more “underrepresented groups into STEM.”
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!