Big Tech companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, and ServiceNow, have warned employees on visas to avoid leaving the country amid uncertainty about changing immigration policy and procedures.
Following an attack on National Guard members in Washington, the Trump administration expanded travel bans earlier this month, and beefed up vetting and data collection for visa applicants. The new policy now includes screening the social media history of some visa applicants and their dependents.
Soon after the announcement, U.S. consulates began rescheduling appointments for future dates, some as late as summer 2026, leaving employees who required appointments unable to return.
“Please be aware that some U.S. Embassies and Consulates are experiencing significant visa stamping appointment delays, currently reported as up to 12 months,” noted an email sent by Berry Appleman & Leiden LLC, the immigration firm that represents Google. The advisory also recommended “avoiding international travel at this time.”
Microsoft’s memo noted that much of the rescheduling is occurring in India, in cities such as Chennai and Hyderabad, and that new stamping dates are as far out as June 2026.
The company advised employees with valid work authorization who were traveling outside the U.S. for stamping to return before their current visa expires. Those still in the U.S. scheduling upcoming travel for visa stamping should “strongly consider” changing their travel plans.
Apple’s immigration team also recommended that employees without a valid H1-B visa stamp avoid international travel for now.
ServiceNow, a business software company, similarly issued an advisory recommending that those with valid visa stamps return to the U.S.
Microsoft declined to comment on its memo. Apple, Google and ServiceNow did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Companies warned that delays due to enhanced screening is for H-1B, H-4, F, J and M visas.
H-1B is a high-skilled immigration visa program that allows employers to sponsor work visas for individuals with specialized skills. The program, capped at 85,000 new visas per year, is a channel for American tech giants to source skilled workers, such as software engineers.
Big Tech companies such as Amazon, Google, and Meta have consistently topped the charts in terms of the number of H-1B approvals, with Indian nationals as the largest beneficiaries of the program, accounting for 71% of approved H-1 B petitions.
H-1B visas are awarded through a lottery system, which its critics say has been exploited by companies to replace American workers with cheap foreign labor.
In September, the Trump administration announced a $100,000 fee for new H-1B employee hires. But after severe pushback, it clarified that it applied only to employers seeking to use the H-1B visa to hire foreign nationals not already in the U.S.
The H-1B program is an issue that has not only animated the right but also splintered it. Those on the tech-right, such as Elon Musk and David Sacks, are strongly in favor of strengthening skilled immigration, while the core MAGA base is vehemently opposed to it.
Proponents of the program often highlight that skilled worker immigration made the U.S a technological leader, and nearly half of the fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, creating jobs for native-born Americans.
Open enrollment season begins November 1, and many employees are stunned by price increases in their company-provided health insurance coverage. The sticker shock many workers feel now were already a source of stress for employers, and next year’s hikes are expected to be steeper, according to a healthcare think tank’s latest report.
The most recent alert about rising health insurance prices came from KFF, a non-profit organization that monitors the medical sector and healthcare issues. Its 27th annual survey of more than 1,800 businesses with at least 10 employees found premiums for the family plans that most workers opt for rose 6 percent this year, well over twice the 2.7 percent inflation rate during the same period. For employers, that pushed the average annual cost of those plans up to nearly $27,000, with about 23 percent of the outlays — or $6,850 —passed along to covered workers.
Those findings were largely in line with results of a September survey by consulting firm Mercer, which pegged the rises at 6.5 percent — but only after business owners adjusted plans to pass on part of the higher costs with covered workers. Mercer also found employers expect an additional 9 percent hike in health plan prices next year, slightly lower than the 10 percent or more KFF respondents anticipated.
“Many employers may be bracing for higher costs next year, with insurers requesting double-digit increases in the small-group and individual markets on average, possibly foreshadowing big increases in the large-group markets as well,” the KFF report said.
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The price differences between plans for small and large companies come down to volume — and leverage.Corporations with big staffs can more easily negotiate lower coverage prices with insurance providers than companies with 200 employees or less, many of which participated in the KFF survey. Consequently, most of those smaller businesses pay higher premiums.
That means once small business owners pass along the typical 20 percent to 25 percent of those costs to staff, their employees on average wind up paying $12,000 per year for family plans, or nearly twice the national amount KFF identified. Many other entrepreneur-owned companies are denied coverage entirely, with insurers considering them too small to bother with.
When that happens, workers usually turn to plans offered under the Affordable Care Act, which are also expected to rise even higher amid the tax and spending cuts passed in President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” As things stand, pretty much all businesses, organizations and individuals seeking health insurance are on the hook for price hikes.
Employers told KFF that a big driver of the increases are the surging costs of prescription drugs, especially GLP‑1s medication. That’s now frequently being used for weight loss, and by a far higher number of people than any insurance companies or client businesses expected.
But prices for virtually all aspects of healthcare — including insurance itself — have spiked as consolidation across the sector continues, concentrating pricing power as competition declines. That evolution is one reason KFF warned of even bigger shocks to both employers and workers in 2026.
“There is a quiet alarm bell going off,” said KFF President and CEO Drew Altman in comments accompanying the survey’s results, in which coverage of semaglutide weight-loss drugs play an increasingly significant role. “With GLP-1s, increases in hospital prices, tariffs and other factors, we expect employer premiums to rise more sharply next year.”
But there’s another reason for Altman’s alert. While businesses have managed to make changes in the past to negotiate limited increases from insurers — and shift some higher costs to employees — their margin for maneuver has now significantly narrowed. That’s especially true when it comes to skyrocketing prescription drug prices, which are almost entirely out of their control.
As a result, many employers may have no other option than to require their staff to shoulder more of their health insurance costs, or simply stop including many expensive drugs and treatments that are pushing expenses up.
“Employers have nothing new in their arsenal that can address most of the drivers of their cost increases,” Altman warned. “(T)hat could well result in an increase in deductibles and other forms of employee cost sharing again, a strategy that neither employers nor employees like but companies resort to in a pinch to hold down premium increases.”
A Fontana preschool that implemented an English-only policy for its employees agreed to a $200,000 settlement with California after a teacher’s aide claimed management retaliated against her for speaking Spanish. The money could be distributed to former and current employees affected by the policy.
In 2023, the state agency began its investigation into Leaps and Bounds, a private preschool and elementary school with locations in Escondido, La Puente and Fontana.
An employee of the school claimed her hours were drastically cut and that she felt discriminated against based on her cultural background. After someone overheard an employee speaking Spanish — they were asking a co-worker for a pen — the school implemented an English-only policy at work, the Civil Rights Department said. The person claimed the employees were gossiping in Spanish, so management responded by requiring employees to sign an agreement that blocked them from speaking Spanish at work, unless they needed to communicate with a parent who did not speak English, according to the settlement agreement.
“Educators deserve to feel celebrated for their heritage, but instead Leaps and Bounds’ alleged language ban fostered a hostile work culture that made staff feel unvalued and unwelcome,” Kevin Kish, director of the California Civil Rights Department, said in a statement.
California civil rights laws prohibit employers from discriminating against its employees based on their national origin, race or ethnicity, according to the Civil Rights Department.
The employee who filed the complaint was able to enter into a mediation with the state agency and their employer. Leaps and Bounds agreed to end its English-only policy and train its staff on California’s civil rights laws.
Leaps and Bounds did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the California Civil Rights Department could not be reached for additional information about the case. The settlement will fund a $35,000 award for the employee who filed the complaint, and cover the costs that will be incurred to notify current and former employees who may be entitled to money.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill that aimed to make it easier for farmworkers to make a workers’ compensation claim for heat illness.
SB 1299 would have changed the burden of proof in workers’ compensation claims when a farmworker develops a heat-related injury after laboring outdoors for an employer who fails to comply with the state’s heat safety standards. Instead of the farmworker having to prove the injury occurred on the job, as is typical in workers’ compensation cases, it would have been the employer’s responsibility to prove the illness was not work-related.
Under the bill’s provisions, if an employer failed to comply with the rules, any resulting heat-related injury to an employee would be “presumed to arise out of and in the course of employment.” It would have created a “rebuttable presumption,” which is more commonly used for law enforcement officers and firefighters who develop certain injuries that could arise from the risks inherent to their jobs.
In a veto message issued Saturday, Newsom said there is “no doubt” that California farmworkers need strong protections from the risk of heat-related illness, especially as climate change drives an increase in extreme temperatures.
“However, the creation of a heat-illness presumption in the workers’ compensation system is not an effective way to accomplish this goal,” he said. Newsom said heat safety rules are currently enforced by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA, which is better equipped to enforce those worker protections.
Newsom also noted that Cal/OSHA is establishing an agricultural unit that specializes in worker protections and hazards found at agricultural worksites, and opening new district office locations in Fresno, Santa Barbara and Riverside.
“This dedicated unit will increase Cal/OSHA’s reach to farmworker communities throughout the Central Valley, where the largest number of farmworkers and their families reside,” Newsom said.
The legislation came as many farmworkers continue to labor in unsafe conditions and Cal/OSHA confronts a severe staffing shortage that is hampering its ability to enforce heat regulations for outdoor workers.
First enacted in 2005, the state’s heat illness prevention rules require employers to provide outdoor workers with fresh water, access to shade at 80 degrees and warmer, and cool-down breaks whenever a worker requests one. Employers must also maintain a heat illness prevention plan with effective training for supervisors to recognize the signs and symptoms of heat illness.
But nearly two decades after the rules were first enacted, ensuring compliance has remained challenging.
In 2009 and 2012, the United Farm Workers sued Cal/OSHA, accusing the agency of failing to enforce the regulations.
A 2022 study by the UC Merced Community and Labor Center found many farmworkers were still laboring without the protections. Of more than 1,200 workers surveyed, 43% reported their employers had not provided a heat illness prevention plan and 15% said they had not received heat illness prevention training.
The bill’s author, Sen. Dave Cortese (D-San José), previously described SB 1299 as a “creative work-around” that was “taking the tools that we do have available and trying to cobble together an approach that will hopefully spur greater compliance.”
“The employers hate the workers’ comp presumptions so much that it makes me feel like it might actually work,” Cortese previously told The Times. “The avoidance factor is so high with them that they’ll say, ‘My God, it’s actually easier for us to provide shade and water than to have to deal with a proliferation of expedited workers’ comp claims.’”
“We’re trying to take something that they view as kind of a thorn in their side and use it as a disincentive for the kind of behavior we’re seeing,” he said.
The UFW backed SB 1299.
“Despite the Governor’s veto of SB 1299, the UFW will continue to work to save farm worker lives,” UFW President Teresa Romero said in a statement Saturday.
Opponents of the bill, including the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Farm Bureau, acknowledged the importance of protecting farmworkers from heat illness, but had argued the issue should not be addressed through the workers’ compensation system.
This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative,funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to addressCalifornia’s economic divide.
Ahead of statewide minimum wage increases for fast-food workers, hundreds of California Pizza Hut franchises announced cuts in their delivery services, laying off more than 1,100 drivers, according to federal and state filings.
The Pizza Hut locations, run by two different franchise operators, reported the change to their business models for restaurants from Orange to Stanislaus counties, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications filed to the California Employment Development Department.
The layoffs of more than 1,100 delivery drivers are expected to go into effect as soon as February, just weeks before the state’s $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers is set to go into effect.
The pay increase is the result of Assembly Bill 1228, which applies to California workers employed by any fast-food chain that has more than 60 locations in the United States. California’s minimum wage is currently $15.50 for all workers. Statewide, the increase is estimated to affect more than 500,000 workers. The legislation also created a council of representatives of workers and employers to partner with state agencies to recommend minimum standards for work hours and other working conditions. Restaurant owners opposed the legislation, arguing they couldn’t bear the increased costs without raising prices for their customers.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the new wage requirements were a factor in the move, but the notifications said the companies “made a business decision to eliminate first party delivery services and as a result the elimination of all delivery driver positions.”
Officials with the two Pizza Hut operators, PacPizza affiliates and Southern California Pizza Company, did not immediately respond to questions from The Times. The PacPizza operators include Southern PacPizza, CalPac Pizza II and Cal PacPizza.
The restaurants affected include those in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Sacramento, Tulare and Kern, among others.
The parent company of Pizza Hut, in a statement to Business Insider, said it was “aware of the recent changes to delivery services at certain franchise restaurants in California.”
“Our franchisees independently own and operate their restaurants in accordance with local market dynamics and comply with all federal, state, and local regulations while continuing to provide quality service and food to our customers via carryout and delivery,” according to the statement.
When COVID-19 struck, companies had little choice but to adapt swiftly. Office spaces were replaced by living rooms and in-person meetings transitioned to virtual calls — a temporary solution, or so it was thought.
But months have turned into years, and now it’s clear this is not just a fleeting phase but a profound transformation in work dynamics.
There are several reasons why you’d want to use a VPN on your iPhone. Let’s first briefly talk about what a VPN is.
What is a VPN?
A VPN, or virtual private network, is a service that creates a secure connection over the internet between your iPhone and a remote server. This connection hides your IP address and encrypts your data, making it harder for others to track your online activities.
Protect Your Privacy and Security
If you don’t want your ISP, the government, hackers, or your employer to see what you’re doing on the internet, a VPN can help. It adds an extra layer of security, especially when connected to a public Wi-Fi network, protecting your data from potential threats.
Access Geo-Restricted Content
A VPN can also be used to access geo-restricted content. For instance, if you’re traveling in another country but want to access the US version of Netflix, a VPN can make it seem like you’re still at home, allowing you to access content that is typically unavailable in other countries.
So, if you’re concerned about privacy and security or want to access geo-restricted content, a VPN is just what you need on your iPhone. Now let’s discuss which VPN to choose and how to set it up.
When choosing a VPN, consider what you need from the service and how much you’re willing to pay. While there are free VPN options available, it’s recommended to go for paid options for better encryption, faster speeds, and more features.
Here are three paid VPNs that are considered some of the best:
ExpressVPN
This VPN offers high-quality service and a user-friendly app. It has a wide range of server locations and excellent security features. ExpressVPN is priced at $99.95 per year.
NordVPN
NordVPN’s iOS app is simple to use and offers cheaper introductory pricing of $60 for the first year. It provides various speciality servers, like Onion over VPN, which lets you use the Onion network.
Surfshark
Surfshark’s iOS app is the most affordable option, priced at $60 per year ($48 introductory price for the first year). It comes with features like dynamic multihop connections, an IP rotator, and an ad and tracker blocker.
To explore more VPN options, you can check out our full list of the best iPhone VPNs in 2023. However, it’s important to note that free VPNs may offer weaker encryption, slower speeds, and potential security risks due to data collection and advertisements.
Using a VPN on your iPhone is simple. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
Go to the App Store and search for the VPN app you want to use. Download and install it on your iPhone.
Open the VPN application, create an account, and sign up for a plan. Look for any available free trials or special offers.
Choose a location and connect to the VPN server. You may be asked to install a new VPN profile on your iPhone, which can be done by tapping “Allow” and entering your passcode.
Once connected, explore the various settings in your VPN app. Many VPNs allow for multiple simultaneous connections, so you can protect your other devices as well.
If you want quick access to your VPN, go to Settings > VPN. From there, you can easily disconnect and connect to the last VPN server you were connected to.
By following these steps, you can enjoy the benefits of using a VPN on your iPhone and ensure your privacy and security while browsing the internet.
When Norelis Vargas heard about housekeeping work at a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport, she did not hesitate to sign up.
Vargas, 39, who migrated from Venezuela and entered the U.S. about three months ago seeking asylum, had been living with her husband and four children for months at Union Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter on Skid Row, and needed the income. But when she arrived at Four Points by Sheraton on Oct. 6, Vargas said she was surprised to find a group of hotel employees picketing.
“I thought, it’s good they are fighting for their rights,” Vargas said. But she said she felt uncomfortable. “The people outside, it was their job, and I was the one replacing them.”
Vargas is among those from Skid Row’s migrant population who have been recruited in recent weeks to work at unionized hotels in Santa Monica and near Los Angeles International Airport where workers have gone on strike. In addition to the Four Points by Sheraton hotel, migrants were hired at the Le Meridien Delfina Santa Monica and the Holiday Inn LAX, according to interviews with migrants employed as temporary workers and organizers with Unite Here Local 11.
Now Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón is launching an investigation into working conditions for migrants hired at hotels based on information brought to him by Unite Here Local 11, which represents workers involved in the largest U.S. hotel strike. Gascón said he is concerned about potential wage theft and violations of child labor law.
“We are going to make sure this is investigated thoroughly. It will be a fair and impartial investigation,” Gascón said at a news conference Monday in front of Le Meridien Delfina.
“If there are violations of the law, there will be severe consequences for this. We want to make sure that our community understands there will be no tolerance for the exploitation of refugees,” Gascón said, citing reporting by The Times on the issue.
Gascón recently claimed the endorsement of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor in announcing his reelection campaign.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón announced at a Monday news conference that he is launching an investigation into working conditions for migrants hired at hotels.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
At Monday’s news conference, state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) expressed outrage over the allegations against the hotels and staffing agencies.
“It makes me furious,” said Durazo, who represents Central and East L.A., and once served as president of Unite Here Local 11.
The hotel’s actions are “indefensible,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of the advocacy organization Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles. “Staffing agencies, companies taking advantage of the desperation of the individual to try to begin their life, and then not pay them their proper earnings, not give them a full accounting of their hours worked — we see this every day here in L.A.”
Since more than 15,000 workers began intermittent strikes at about 60 Southern California hotels in early July, employers have been replacing those union members with managers and temporary workers recruited through apps, such as Instawork, staffing agencies and by other means.
For the record:
4:33 p.m. Oct. 23, 2023An earlier verison of this story misspelled Hannah Petersen’s last name as Peterson.
Unite Here organizer Hannah Petersen, who has been working with the migrants, said some hired at Le Meridien Delfina were among hundreds of migrants Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shipped on buses to L.A. this year as a political stunt meant to harness anti-immigrant sentiment and deride “sanctuary” cities across the country. Frank Wolf, a pastor at Echo Park United Methodist Church, is among those who have greeted migrants arriving on buses from Texas.
“They were exhausted and they were tired and they were scared when they came to Los Angeles,” he said at the news conference. “It’s heart-wrenching to find out that some of these very workers that we welcomed on those buses are being exploited.”
Refugees and asylum seekers are legally allowed to seek work in the U.S. Federal labor law allows employers to hirereplacement workers during unfair labor practice strikes and economic strikes, but unions typically condemn the use of so-called scab labor.
Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said employers who hired migrants “had stooped to a new low” by tapping a vulnerable group of workers to undermine employees striking for a living wage.
“I can’t believe they are forcing these people, who are so desperate, to cross the picket line,” Petersen said. “Instead of addressing L.A.’s housing crisis, the hotel industry prefers to exploit the unhoused as strikebreakers to avoid paying their own workers enough to afford housing themselves.”
Owners and operators of the three hotels did not respond to requests for comment. Real estate investment group Pebblebrook Hotel Trust owns Le Meridien Delfina Santa Monica, and Capital Insight owns Four Points LAX. Highgate Hotels operates both hotels. The Holiday Inn LAX is owned by a subsidiary of Chinese firm Esong Group and is operated by Aimbridge Hospitality.
Eleven people living at the Skid Row shelter confirmed they had been hired at hotels where employees were protesting outside. Most had migrated from Venezuela or Colombia. Many did not provide their names, fearing repercussions.
They described heavy cleaning loads and long hours. Some said they were given no prior information on how much they would be paid hourly, although others said they were told on their first day that they would be paid $19 an hour. Migrant workers said they were not told and did not know the name of the agency that recruited them.
Venezuelan migrant Sebastian Atencio, 34, showed up at Le Méridien Delfina Santa Monica on Sept. 26 during a recent wave of strikes. Atencio said he was given a heavy workload and forced to work without breaks. He was hired to wash dishes at another hotel — but they also asked him to clean bathrooms during the same shift, which he said he felt was unsanitary.
One migrant worker, a 17-year-old student at Belmont High School who requested anonymity, said he skipped two days of school to clean rooms at the Holiday InnLAX.
He and his mother, who secured work as a housekeeper at the Holiday Inn, received payment via banking app Zelle from an agency called Arya Staffing Services Inc. Aimbridge Hospitality did not respond to questions about whether staffing agencies it used had secured appropriate permits to employ minors.
A review of an Oct. 13 pay stub for a worker hired at the Four Points by Sheraton shows that person obtained hotel work through staffing agency AV Professional Services.
Alinne Espinoza, who is listed as the registered agent for both staffing agencies, said her business is properly licensed and operates legally.
“Our company works with many different types of people that come from our local community,” she said in an email. “We work hard on a daily basis to incorporate as many people as possible into the labor market under competent, dignified and just conditions.”
Unite Here Local 11 organizer Hannah Petersen speaks with workers outside the Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row.
(Suhauna Hussain / Los Angeles Times)
Outside the Skid Row shelter on a recent evening, Petersen introduced herself in Spanish to a group of migrants who had been hired at striking hotels. Several pushed strollers. Young children crowded around their parents, one sucking a green lollipop.
“My name is Hannah,” she said to the group. “The union is out there fighting for the rights of immigrant workers.”
Many migrants living at the shelter had told her they wanted permanent jobs, she explained, and so that day she and other organizers would be gathering information to help them create their resumes.
Some of the shelter’s residents approached the organizers, who were armed with clipboards, and fielded questions about the migrants’ work experience, scribbling their answers down. Other migrants, concerned that the organizers were working for immigration authorities, left.
Petersen, the daughter of the union’s co-president, said she first encountered homeless migrant workers Sept. 27 when she was protesting alongside Unite Here Local 11 members at Le Meridien Delfina.
Hotel housekeepers, front desk workers, cooks and other employees are seeking new contracts with higher wages and improved benefits and working conditions. The union members say they don’t earn enough to afford housing near their jobs.
But hotel operators say the union is overreaching in its demands for raises and employer support of housing initiatives unrelated to hotel operations, including a measure set for the 2024 ballot that would require hotels in Los Angeles to rent vacant rooms to homeless people. American Hotel & Lodging Assn. Chief Executive Chip Rogers called it a “dangerous demand,” citing a September poll the industry group commissioned in which 72% of respondents said they would be reluctant to book a hotel room in Los Angeles “if hotels there are forced to house homeless people next to paying guests.”
Petersen said it is hypocritical for hotels to oppose homelessness measures while employing unhoused people as replacement workers during the strike.
Keith Grossman, an attorney representing a group of more than 40 Southern California hotel owners and operators in negotiations with Unite Here Local 11, said in an email that hotels “did not knowingly use unhoused individuals, if they even did so.”
“I do wonder how a hotel is supposed to know whether a person is homeless if they list an address and show up bathed and clean and sober?” he said. “This appears to be another red herring generated by Local 11.”
Unite Here Local 11 has previously criticized hotels’ strike-time use of Instawork, an app that matches businesses with short-term, seasonal workers in hospitality.
In July, the union filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against Instawork and hotel management company Aimbridge. In one allegation, the union said the company violated federal labor law by disqualifying workers hired through the app from future work when they miss a single shift, even if they do so to participate in legally protected activity, such as respecting a strike.
Vargas, the worker hired at the Four Points hotel, was among a handful of people remaining that evening outside Union Rescue Mission. The rest had dispersed, distrustful and worried that union organizers were sent by immigration authorities. Vargas said she hoped the other residents would come around.
“I’m going to be the one who finds good work so they know it’s not a lie,” Vargas said.
The deep uncertainty that the COVID pandemic created in the workforce hasn’t waned. U.S. workers are struggling with inflation, burnout, and fresh waves of layoffs. This comes as people expect more from employers — more leadership, more urgency, more action, and better jobs.
The public’s perspective is clear and consistent: companies need to prioritize their employees. In today’s unstable economic climate, worker wages and treatment are more important to Americans than ever.
When it comes to creating U.S. jobs with strong wages, good benefits, safe environments and opportunities for upward mobility, a handful of companies lead the pack.
Bank of America BAC,
NVIDIA NVDA
and Microsoft MSFT
are the top-three companies in JUST Capital’s 2023 rankings of America’s most JUST companies. They all share one crucial thing in common — a clear commitment to addressing worker issues and investing in employees.
Since 2018, JUST Capital’s rankings have provided a snapshot of how U.S. companies are measuring up to the public’s priorities, as determined through an annual survey to identify issues that define principled business behavior. Companies that are just provide a clear benefit for investors. For example, If an investor purchased an index tracking the JUST 100 companies at its March 2019 inception, the index would have generated 13.3% in excess return versus the Russell 1000 as of December 2022.
Worker issues have risen to the forefront of Americans’ vision for what is a just business. Paying a fair and living wage, supporting workforce advancement, protecting worker health and safety, and providing benefits and work-life balance are top priorities for the public. Notably, regardless of demographic differences including political affiliation, Americans agree that companies should do more to address worker needs.
What makes a great company?
Bank of Americademonstrates strong leadership on the top priority — paying a fair, living wage – by raising its minimum wage to $22 per hour, a key step in its pledge to offer a $25 starting wage by 2025. In addition, employees receive an extensive benefit package, including 16 weeks of paid parental leave for primary- and secondary caregivers, and career development opportunities through tuition assistance and professional training.
NVIDIA works to ensure equal pay for equal work, performing detailed pay equity analyses, and is one of only a few companies to disclose pay-analysis results separated by racial and ethnic categories. Like Bank of America, NVIDIA is one of 10% of Russell 1000 RUI
companies that offer at least 12 weeks of paid parental leave for both caregivers, providing 22 weeks of paid leave to primary caregivers.
Microsoft offers at least 12 weeks of parental leave for both caregivers, in addition many other generous paid-time-off benefits, including 15 days of paid vacation and an additional 10 days of paid sick leave for every worker — a policy still rare for many companies. Additionally, Microsoft discloses the results of its pay-equity analyses, going above and beyond other companies by disaggregating pay ratios for specific racial and ethnic categories — including Black, Asian and Latinx — all of whom are paid on par with their white counterparts.
“ When companies ensure the economic security, advancement, equity and safety of their workforces, employees are more engaged and productive. ”
These efforts provide tangible benefits to employees, but prioritizing workers offers much more to companies than just an assurance of moral good. When companies ensure the economic security, advancement, equity, and safety of their workforces employees are more engaged and productive, strengthening their companies’ business in turn.
Americans expect the private sector to better support employees. Effective business leadership today puts workers at the center of an organization’s strategy. When businesses take this approach, we get much closer to an economy that works for all Americans.
Alison Omens is chief strategy officer at JUST Capital.
