BossFeed Briefing for July 17, 2017. Last week was palindrome week, with each date able to be read in reverse all the way from 71017 to 71617; the magic continues through Wednesday. Yesterday was the birthday of Ida B. Wells, the suffragist, anti-lynching organizer, and NAACP co-founder. Today is International Emoji Day. And the Congressional effort to repeal healthcare has somehow come back to life again, with signs that the Senate could soon vote on a plan to pay for lower taxes on the rich by cutting healthcare for poor people, old people, working people, sick people, and their families.
Three things to know this week:
Three and a half years after SeaTac voters passed a $15 living wage for transportation & tourism workers, several large employers are still trying to avoid paying workers what they owe them. The Department of Labor & Industries has filed more than 150 citations against Hertz for backpay violations, with one employee due $27,000.
More than 100 members of Congress have signed on as cosponsors of the Schedules That Work Act, which would provide more stable and predictable schedules to workers across the country. In just a few clicks you can learn more about the bill and ask your members of Congress to support it — or thank them for their support if they’ve already signed on.
As Uber cuts fares in many markets, some drivers are working dangerously long shifts of sixteen hours or more to try and make up the difference. Federal law limits many types of commercial drivers to no more than ten consecutive hours, but Uber has argued the company is not covered by those laws (or many others) and so doesn’t generally limit hours worked.
Two things to ask:
Do we blame minimum wage for this too? Washington is the nation’s top state for business, CNBC found, with an economy that's growing more than twice as fast as the rest of the country. Meanwhile, Seattle has more construction cranes than any other city, by a huge margin.
Who watches the watchers? Donald Trump is expected to nominate Cheryl Stanton to lead up enforcement of federal wage and overtime laws. Stanton has a curious resume for the job: she was named last year in a lawsuit alleging she failed to pay her house cleaners.
And one thing that’s worth a closer look:
Lunch counters were the site of some of the great battles for desegregation, and while the laws of course have changed, dining out remains a highly segregated experience. In a thought-provoking interview with The Splendid Table, restaurant owner Andy Shallal details the many small and large things he has tried as he attempts to create a truly welcoming space for many kinds of people from many different backgrounds. From the way guests are seated when they arrive and the condiments on the table, to the manner of the service staff and the way menus are written, Shallal argues that an active and daily awareness of the implications of each decision in the larger context of race, class, and gender in America are necessary to create the kind of community spaces which many envision but few are able to execute.
Read this far?
Consider yourself briefed, boss.
The BossFeed Briefing is our weekly look at the world of work, wages, and inequality.