ReportWire

Tag: labor

  • Orlando International Airport sees union flight attendants rally for fair contracts, against corporate greed

    Orlando International Airport sees union flight attendants rally for fair contracts, against corporate greed

    [ad_1]

    click to enlarge

    photo by McKenna Schueler

    ‘Pay us or chaos’: Union flight attendants for various airlines picket outside MCO (Feb. 13, 2024)

    Dozens of union flight attendants for major U.S. airlines including Southwest, American and United picketed outside Orlando International Airport on Tuesday, as part of a global day of action spanning more than 30 major airports in the United States, the United Kingdom and Guam.

    Tuesday’s protest was organized as a call to improve industry standards for flight attendants. It marked a historic act of solidarity by an estimated 100,000 workers represented by three labor unions.

    “This was historic in the fact that there are [flight attendants from] several airlines here for the first time ever combined, asking for equality and equity,” said Transport Workers Union Local 579 president Tyesha Best over the chants of flight attendants marching behind her outside of Terminal A. “We’re excited to be standing in solidarity.”

    Two-thirds of U.S. flight attendants — working for airlines including American Airlines, Southwest, United, Alaska Airlines, Omni and Frontier — are currently in negotiations for new union contracts. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants, representing 26,000 flight attendants for American Airlines, has been in contract talks with the airline since 2019 — and the union workers haven’t received a raise since then.

    The same is true for flight attendants with Southwest Airlines, represented by Transport Workers Union, who have been in contract negotiations with the airline for five years. “Airlines are making record profits,” says TWU Local 556 member Claudio Adams, an Orlando-based flight attendant for Southwest Airlines. “The people that are facing customers the longest are the ones least benefiting.”

    Airlines are making record profits, while starting wages for flight attendants aren’t enough for workers to make ends meet.

    tweet this

    Adams, who’s worked as a flight attendant for 20 years, says flights have been getting fuller and attendants have been working longer hours with shorter rest times. They act as first responders on flights, essentially — a responsibility that took on even more weight during and after the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    As NPR reported this week, flight attendants are generally not compensated until passengers have boarded their flights and the doors to the aircrafts close. That means much of the time they spend in airports between flights is uncompensated, even if they’re still expected to be on-duty. Even the chaotic time spent on the plane shepherding passengers and their bags into seats and overhead bins, typically the most stressful part of any flight, is unpaid.

    “One of our things that we’re fighting for is that when we show up to work, we’re getting paid from the moment that we’re required to be there until we leave,” says Randy Hatfield, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA Local 22.

    The APFA, representing folks with American Airlines, told NPR they’ve reached an agreement during contract talks that would, at the very least, pay flight attendants for boarding time, similar to Delta.

    Delta is the only major airline that does pay flight attendants for boarding time, as of 2022, according to NPR. Delta is also the only major U.S. airline where flight attendants are not unionized.

    Flight attendants for the airline publicly launched their own organizing campaign with the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA in 2019 and are still fighting for formal union recognition. Past union drives, with both the AFA-CWA and the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM), have been unsuccessful, thanks in part to aggressive anti-union campaigns by Delta management over the years, according to In These Times.

    Hatfield, with the AFA-CWA, tells Orlando Weekly that it’s new hires who suffer the most from underpayment by the airlines. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, flight attendants earn $37,690 on the low end, while the highest 10 percent earn nearly $100,000 annually. The median wage, as of May 2022, was $63,760.

    Hatfield estimates that starting wages for flight attendants, however, are even lower, ranging between $20,000 to $30,000 annually, because the “juniors” are only permitted to work a set amount of hours each month.

    That’s nothing close to a livable wage for metro areas like Orlando, where it’s now virtually impossible to find a place to rent below $1,000 a month. Many Florida homeowners, meanwhile, have recently faced skyrocketing property insurance costs, and inflationary pressures have also made it difficult for more working families to make ends meet. Some flight attendants take up side hustles just to pay the bills.

    click to enlarge Claudio Adams, Southwest flight attendant and TWU member, pickets outside MCO with fellow flight attendant Gisela (Feb. 13, 2024) - photo by McKenna Schueler

    photo by McKenna Schueler

    Claudio Adams, Southwest flight attendant and TWU member, pickets outside MCO with fellow flight attendant Gisela (Feb. 13, 2024)

    The same squeeze isn’t hitting airline CEOs. American Airlines CEO Robert Isom raked in $4.8 million in total compensation in 2022, equal to roughly 70 times the median employee’s pay. About $3.6 million of that total compensation came from stock awards, on top of a $1.16 million base salary.

    The airline itself reported record revenue of nearly $53 billion last year, generating more than $13 million in revenue in the fourth quarter alone. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby, meanwhile, received $9.8 million in total compensation in 2022. The airline similarly reported higher revenue last quarter of $13.6 billion, up 9.9% from 2022.

    A multibillion-dollar industry bailout for major airlines, secured through the advocacy of flight attendant union leaders to protect flight attendants’ jobs during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, helped keep airlines afloat during a period of significant economic losses.

    Now, many airlines — including American Airlines — have recovered and then some. Flight attendants say it’s time, past time even, for them to receive their fair share through fair contracts.

    The APFA, for instance, wants an immediate 33% wage increase, telling Orlando Weekly that this is something they’ve been pushing for since 2014.

    The airline has offered just one-third of that — an 11% raise, the APFA president told NPR this week. The union has, consequently, sought to increase the stakes by threatening to strike. Under the federal Railway Labor Act, rail and airline workers are prohibited from striking unless they first get permission from federal mediators.

    The APFA initiated this process last year, after union members overwhelmingly voted in favor of doing so, but federal mediators through the National Mediation Board rejected their request. They’ve submitted another request and are meeting with federal mediators in March.

    The AFA-CWA — which represents roughly 50,000 flight attendants for airlines like United, Frontier, Spirit and Alaska Airlines — similarly isn’t messing around. They’ve literally trademarked a strategy they call CHAOS: “Creating Havoc Around Our System” (the phrase “Pay us or CHAOS” was visible on some of the picketers’ signs Tuesday).

    click to enlarge Union flight attendants picket outside MCO (Feb. 13, 2024) - photo by McKenna Schueler

    photo by McKenna Schueler

    Union flight attendants picket outside MCO (Feb. 13, 2024)

    The union’s CHAOS strategy — possible if and only when the union is authorized by the federal government to strike — involves nontraditional strike actions aimed at leveraging the element of surprise. For instance: directing just a small group of flight attendants (not the entire union workforce) to walk off the job just as a flight is boarding, with no advance notice.

    This isn’t dissimilar to what the United Auto Workers did last year in calling strikes at various auto manufacturing plants and parts centers last year — with just hours of advance notice, if that — after Ford, General Motors and Stellantis failed to take the UAW’s strike threat seriously.

    According to Reuters, over 98% of Southwest Airlines flight attendants — represented by TWU — voted to authorize a strike last month, shortly after rejecting a tentative agreement reached between Southwest and the union.

    Flight attendants wearing pro-union pins and lanyards marched outside ticketing at MCO on Tuesday, carrying signs with phrases like “Corporate greed doesn’t fly” and “Flight attendants save lives.”

    Representatives of other local unions, like the Communications Workers of America and Unite Here, showed up to the picket in solidarity, along with union pilots and Central Florida Jobs With Justice.

    According to the unions, flight attendants staged protests at airports all across the country Tuesday in Tampa, Miami, Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles and other cities.

    “It is amazing — within the last 20 years that I’ve been working, we’ve never seen this,” said Adams, the Southwest flight attendant, in a nod to the scale of the action across multiple unions. “This moment is not about what uniform we wear: It’s about what unites us,” the AFA-CWA and APFA stated.

    More labor action is coming to Orlando tomorrow

    On Wednesday, Uber and Lyft drivers organized with the Independent Drivers Guild similarly plan to rally near the airport as part of a national day of action with the Justice for App Workers coalition in support of fair pay. According to the coalition, participating drivers will not be taking rides to and from the airport all day in Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Hartford, Chicago, Austin, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Rhode Island.

    The Independent Drivers Guild, a coalition member associated with the Machinists union, first launched its Florida chapter last April.

    Rideshare drivers, as independent contractors, don’t have the same legally established union rights as employees under federal law, but that doesn’t mean they can’t organize for better rideshare policies and working conditions, anyway. It has scared companies like Uber enough for them to lobby against organizing efforts to establish union rights for contractors.

    Adalberto Perez, a local Uber driver, told Orlando Weekly last week that drivers with the Guild meet regularly. They have a WhatsApp group of over 5,000 rideshare drivers involved in their organizing effort.

    In a strike announcement, Justice for App Workers says they are tired of being scared for their safety and worrying about the companies “deactivating” them with no notice or consequences, exhorting their fellow workers, “Let’s come together to fight to transform the industry and improve our lives. We deserve better!”

    Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.

    Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | or sign up for our RSS Feed

    [ad_2]

    McKenna Schueler

    Source link

  • Candidate for NC labor commissioner, Republican Travis Wilson, answers our questions

    Candidate for NC labor commissioner, Republican Travis Wilson, answers our questions

    [ad_1]

    Travis Wilson, candidate for N.C. labor commissioner in the 2024 Republican primary.

    Travis Wilson, candidate for N.C. labor commissioner in the 2024 Republican primary.

    READ MORE

    Candidates for North Carolina labor commissioner

    The North Carolina labor commissioner primary has four Republican candidates vying for the nomination: Luke Farley, Jon Hardister, Chuck Stanley and Travis J. Wilson. Incumbent Labor Commissioner Josh Dobson, a Republican, is not seeking reelection. Democratic candidate Braxton Winston is unopposed, so he will appear on general election ballots with the Republican primary winner.

    RALEIGH

    To help inform voters, this candidate questionnaire is available without a subscription and may be republished by local publications across North Carolina without any cost. Please consider subscribing to The News & Observer to help make this coverage possible.

    Name: Travis Wilson

    Political party: Republican

    Age as of March 5, 2024: 37

    Campaign website: Wilsonforlabor.com

    Current occupation: Grocery stocker

    Professional experience: Former media technician, janitor and stocker.

    Education: Master’s degree, library science, East Carolina University; BA, history, Montreat College.

    What offices have you run for or held before? Have you had any other notable government or civic involvement? Previous candidate for Union County commissioner and current member of the Union County Historical Preservation Commission.

    What do you think is the biggest issue in North Carolina that you would be able to shape if elected?

    I look forward to working with the commissioner of insurance and the Industrial Commission to protect those who wish to be classified as independent contractors.

    What do you think is or is not working well under the current labor commissioner? If not, how would you change it?

    Until recently the commissioner had been fairly conservative in the creation of new rules, but that changed when he moved to mandate* an Exposure Control Plan upon employers. Placing additional workplace education burdens on employees and giving outside entities increased influence on defining and combating airborne illnesses is a step backwards.

    *Editor’s Note: There is a proposal before the Department of Labor for consideration that deals with airborne infectious diseases. It was submitted as a rulemaking petition by groups including Episcopal Farmworker Ministry; North Carolina State AFL-CIO; Union of Southern Service Workers; Western North Carolina Workers’ Center; the Hispanic Liaison of Chatham County/El Vinculo Hispano; and the North Carolina Conference of the NAACP.

    What can be done to make sure the state is regularly inspecting workplaces for health and safety?

    Schedules and time allotments need to be reviewed to ensure efficiency.

    Should North Carolina increase penalties for health and safety violations by employers? Do you believe that would reduce workplace deaths and injuries?

    No.

    What should be done to address staff vacancies in your agency and in state government as a whole?

    First determine if existing staff are being utilized efficiently and then engage in conversations with high school students who are choosing an education path to pursue after graduation.

    North Carolina has the second lowest unionization rate in the country. Do you think that should change, and how?

    Low rates of unionization do not concern me. What concerns me instead are efforts throughout the country, sometimes backed by unions, to redefine independent contractors as employees.

    Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan is the Capitol Bureau Chief for The News & Observer, leading coverage of the legislative and executive branches in North Carolina with a focus on the governor, General Assembly leadership and state budget. She has received the McClatchy President’s Award, N.C. Open Government Coalition Sunshine Award and several North Carolina Press Association awards, including for politics and investigative reporting.

    [ad_2]

    Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan

    Source link

  • Tax implications of cannabis rescheduling – Cannabis Business Executive – Cannabis and Marijuana industry news

    Tax implications of cannabis rescheduling – Cannabis Business Executive – Cannabis and Marijuana industry news

    [ad_1]





    Tax implications of cannabis rescheduling – Cannabis Business Executive – Cannabis and Marijuana industry news





























    [ad_2]

    Michael Harlow

    Source link

  • Adult dancers in Washington state want a strippers’ bill of rights. Here’s how it could help them

    Adult dancers in Washington state want a strippers’ bill of rights. Here’s how it could help them

    [ad_1]

    SEATTLE — For months, Andrea studied for her master’s degree in library sciences between dancing naked at clubs in Seattle. But then she was sexually assaulted at work and slapped by a customer — and nobody stepped in to help.

    Now, she and hundreds of other strippers in Washington state are fighting for statewide protections that would be the most comprehensive in the U.S., according to advocates.

    “We shouldn’t be verbally abused for just doing our job and existing,” said Andrea, who has seen a DJ at one club harass dancers if they don’t tip him enough. She avoids the club if he’s there, said the 24-year-old, who would only use her first name. The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

    Known as the “strippers’ bill of rights,” proposals being considered in the Legislature would require a security guard at each club, keypad codes to enter dressing rooms, training for employees on preventing sexual harassment, and procedures if a customer is violent. They would also require training on how to de-escalate conflict between dancers, employees and customers, and signs stating that dancers are not required to hand over tips.

    The Senate bill was approved by the full body Wednesday on a 29-20 vote.

    “Without this legislation, the conditions are not safe. There are harassment and abuse that is happening,” said Democratic Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, who sponsored the Senate bill. “But with this the workers are now empowered to have protections.”

    The bills are the culmination of six years of advocacy work by Strippers Are Workers, a dancer-led organization in Washington, in response to wide regulation gaps for strippers at the 11 clubs across the state, said Madison Zack-Wu, its campaign manager.

    But those regulation gaps extend beyond Washington. and during those six years of work by Strippers Are Workers, only one other state added worker protections for adult entertainers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In 2019, Illinois started requiring that adult entertainment establishments, along with other businesses, have a written sexual harassment policy. That same year, Washington added a few initial regulations, including panic buttons and blacklists for customers.

    The list by NCSL doesn’t include bills focused on age minimums or human trafficking, a criminal industry whose victims are often recruited to work in U.S. strip clubs, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. These bills rarely address workplace protections like the ones in Washington, said Landon Jacquinot, an NCSL policy associate.

    There have also been efforts at the local level, including a bar in Los Angeles and a strip club in Portland, Oregon, where dancers voted to unionize. And, in a 2014 decision with statewide implications, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that dancers at one Las Vegas club are employees, and are entitled to minimum wage and other protections.

    But Zack-Wu said many strippers don’t want to become full-time employees. “This job is all about flexibility and trying to make it your own,” she said. The bills in Washington would apply to all strippers, no matter their employment status.

    “It is a legal, licensed business operation in the state of Washington, so the people who work there deserve our attention and our respect and the protections that every other Washington worker gets,” said Democratic Rep. Amy Walen, who sponsored the House bill.

    A similar bill in Washington stalled last year after concerns were raised over it allowing alcohol in strip clubs. The Senate bill clears the way for the clubs to serve alcohol, while the House bill does not.

    Most dancers in Washington are independent contractors, and they can be blacklisted if they report abuse or exploitation by managers, said Zack-Wu. Customers pay the dancers, who then have to pay club fees every shift, which could be as much as $200.

    The proposed measures would cap club fees at $150 or 30% of the amount they made during their shift — whichever is less — while barring clubs from carrying over unpaid fees from previous shifts as part of dancers accessing the space.

    In late 2022, Eva Bhagwandin had just given a man three lap dances at a club in Seattle only to have his card declined, the 28-year-old said. He became aggressive, yelling that he already paid. The manager didn’t step in and there was no security guard, so she and a waitress had to get him and his screaming friends out of the club. She was never paid the $140 she was owed, but still had to pay $200 to the club.

    Afterward, she learned that another dancer had experienced something similar two days before with the same men.

    “The lack of security and training and the lack of support between the management to the dancers, creates this culture where customers know that they can come in and not pay, they can come in and assault dancers, and they can come in and pretty much do whatever they want,” she said.

    But Zack-Wu said there is concern that adding these protections without also adding revenue from alcohol sales could result in businesses, which have struggled since the pandemic, shutting down.

    “We don’t want clubs to shut down now or in the future because that will just put everyone out of work and then put them in even riskier or more dire situations,” she said.

    Republican lawmakers said they support protecting employees in this industry, but it’s challenging to know the best way to regulate it.

    “We also want to make sure that we’re doing this correctly and striking the right balance for, not just the workers, but communities and neighborhoods as well,” said House Minority Leader Drew Stokesbary, a Republican.

    Andrea, the dancer in Seattle, received her degree in November and wants to work in a library while continuing to dance. But she hopes soon there will be added protections.

    “It’s not the easiest place for us to be sometimes but, you know, a lot of people persevere because we love the job,” she said. “But with all these protections in place, it would really help a lot.”



    [ad_2]

    By Hallie Golden | Associated Press

    Source link

  • Florida bill that would give construction companies more child laborers advances with Democratic support

    Florida bill that would give construction companies more child laborers advances with Democratic support

    [ad_1]

    click to enlarge

    image via The Florida Channel

    Sen. Corey Simon, R-Tallahassee, sponsor of Florida SB 460

    Florida Democrats have joined Republican state lawmakers in supporting a bill that would weaken the state’s child labor protections, relying on changes made by the Republican bill sponsor to water it down. The Florida Senate Appropriations Committee on Education unanimously approved the bill Thursday in a 7–0 vote by five Republicans and two Democrats.

    While Democrats still don’t agree with Republicans on abortion rights or rights for transgender Floridians, state lawmakers appear to have found common ground on conceding to deep-pocketed industry groups that want to help employers in the construction industry fill labor shortages.

    Senate Bill 460, sponsored by first-term Sen. Corey Simon, would amend Florida law to explicitly allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work jobs on residential construction sites that are currently prohibited for minors due to health and safety concerns.

    Currently, minors are only allowed to be employed in what the government defines as “hazardous” jobs if they are doing so as part of a federally approved apprentice or student learner program, which are subject to strict regulations and supervisory requirements. Federal law also prohibits minors from working “on or about a roof,” although office or sales work for construction companies is permissible.

    The Republican senator’s proposal, reflecting a trend of similar proposals across the country, is folded into a broader bill written by lobbyists for the construction and home builders industries that would otherwise enhance career and technical education opportunities in Florida’s public school system (something no one is opposed to).

    Since the bill was first filed in November, Simon has amended the legislation several times, after facing public pressure, specifically to clarify that minors would not be able to work on roofs, scaffolding or superstructures more than six feet off the ground, nor work on commercial construction sites.

    Simon has also clarified in the bill that no minor would be permitted to work in violation of any federal labor law, including the Fair Labor Standards Act (which sets a federal baseline for child labor standards) or any rules from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

    Other safeguards, such as requiring older teens to first obtain OSHA-10 certification and to work under the supervision of an adult 21 or older who has at least two years’ experience in the industry, are also included in the legislation.

    According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, however, there is only one direct supervisor on construction and extraction sites in Florida for every seven workers, as it is. Behind agriculture, construction is the deadliest industry for youth, who are more likely to be injured on the job compared to their older counterparts.

    Opponents have pointed out that children may also be less likely to speak up if their boss isn’t paying them what they’re owed, or works them overtime without extra pay. This kind of behavior — wage theft — is common in the construction industry, and Florida has no meaningful mechanism  for combating it.

    Florida Sen. Tracie Davis, a Democrat, pleaded with Sen. Simon on Thursday to better explain how safe and prudent his legislation really is, as Davis continues to hear concerns from labor and social advocacy groups in opposition to it.

    “I just want the sponsor of the bill to stress how we are not talking about a 16- or 17-year-old going up on a roof [anymore],” said Davis. “Enforcement is very important.”

    Davis has a point. Enforcement of child labor law is, in fact, important. And there’s very little capacity for it in this state already.

    According to the Department of Business and Professional Regulations, there are just seven state personnel dedicated to enforcing Florida’s child labor law across the state, tasked with covering thousands of businesses.

    Both the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division and OSHA can also investigate alleged violations of regulations on hazardous work and child labor. But enforcement personnel from those agencies are also in limited supply. There were just about 75 OSHA employees tasked with monitoring Florida businesses as of 2021, and the WHD division has said it is operating with “historically low staffing levels.” The latter has been flat-funded by U.S. Congress for years.

    Florida relies on federal OSHA regulators to conduct workplace inspections and investigate complaints, and has done so since state lawmakers and then-Gov. Jeb Bush abolished the state Department of Labor and Economic Security in 2002.

    Dr. Rich Templin, lobbyist for the Florida AFL-CIO, told state lawmakers on Thursday, “There’s so few OSHA investigators in the state of Florida, it would take hundreds of years to investigate all job sites.” The AFL-CIO estimated in 2022 that, with the agency’s current staffing levels, it would take OSHA over 200 years to conduct inspections at the millions of workplaces under its jurisdiction even once.

    Theresa King, president of the Florida Building and Construction Trades Council, told lawmakers that although her organization supports the idea of drawing more young people into the construction industry, enforcement of safety standards for youth remains a concern. “We would like to see a few more safety provisions in the bill,” said King. “I’m a construction worker, and I know how it is out there.”

    Construction happens to be one of the most common industries in which child labor violations occur, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and failing to follow the law can have devastating, long-term consequences for youth.

    At best, when safety guidelines aren’t followed, a child may be injured on the job. At worst, they may suffer a permanent, debilitating injury or even die in the interest of learning a new trade or supporting their family’s ability to eat or pay rent.

    Sen. Keith Perry, who owns a roofing company in Alachua County, conceded that there are already employers who violate federal labor law (he would know), but argued that this bill won’t change that in any meaningful way.

    “I started roofing when I was 16 years old. I started my business when I was 17 years old — which was illegal, is still illegal, and will be illegal under this bill,” said Perry, in his own interesting way of defending the legislation. “People who break the law are not going to follow the law anyway, whether this bill is passed or not.”

    “People who break the law are not going to follow the law anyway, whether this bill is passed or not.”

    tweet this

    The bill’s primary cheerleaders — including the Florida Home Builders Association and Associated Builders and Contractors — argue that the bill will help fill gaps in Florida’s school system, which doesn’t offer construction courses for teens (in a safe environment) in all Florida counties. Supporters also point to current and looming labor shortages in the industry as more older workers retire to emphasize the need for drawing more young people into the trades.

    “More than 50% of the industry is 50 years of age or older and retiring, and we are just uniformly working to expose students in school to career and technical education opportunities,” said Carol Bowen, lobbyist for the ABC of Florida, during a committee hearing for the House version of the bill, HB 917.

    Sen. Simon, who was fed draft language for the Senate bill by Bowen in October, has defended his legislation by gaslighting the bill’s critics, arguing that they are unnecessarily causing “confusion” that “doesn’t help our kids.”

    “These are young people that are looking for an opportunity, and looking to find an interest that they can turn into a really successful career,” Simon said in closing.

    Sen. Shevrin Jones, the only other Democrat on the Senate panel with Davis, voted with his colleagues in favor of moving the legislation forward without comment. The bill has also (tellingly) garnered the support of Americans for Prosperity, aka the “union-hating Koch brothers’ lobbying arm.”

    The House version of the bill, HB 917, has similarly cleared its first two committees with support from some Democrats. The legislation would need support from both the full House and Senate in order to pass.

    Meanwhile, the Republican-dominated legislature is also trying to extend the number of hours older teens can work, make it even harder for adults to access unemployment benefits, and prohibit local governments from requiring their contractors to provide cooling measures like water and shade to employees who work outdoors.

    Subscribe to Orlando Weekly newsletters.

    Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | or sign up for our RSS Feed



    [ad_2]

    McKenna Schueler

    Source link

  • Biden administration announces $5 billion commitment for research and development of computer chips

    Biden administration announces $5 billion commitment for research and development of computer chips

    [ad_1]

    FILE – U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo speaks Dec. 11, 2023, during a visit to BAE Systems, in Nashua, N.H. The Biden administration on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, will announce the investment of $5 billion in a public-private consortium aimed at supporting research and development in advanced computer chips. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • In possible test of federal labor law, Georgia could make it harder for some workers to join unions

    In possible test of federal labor law, Georgia could make it harder for some workers to join unions

    [ad_1]

    ATLANTA — As Georgia shovels out billions in economic incentives to electric vehicle manufacturers and other companies, the state’s ruling Republicans are moving to make it harder for workers at those firms to join labor unions, in what could be a violation of current federal law.

    The state Senate voted 31-23 on Thursday for a bill backed by Gov. Brian Kemp that would bar companies that accept state incentives from recognizing unions without a formal secret-ballot election. That would block unions from winning recognition from a company voluntarily after signing up a majority of workers, in what is usually known as a card check. Senate Bill 362 moves to the House for more debate.

    Union leaders and Democrats argue the bill violates 1935’s National Labor Relations Act, which governs union organizing, by blocking part of federal law allowing companies to voluntarily recognize unions that show support from a majority of employees.

    “At the end of the day, voluntary recognition is a protected right, period,” said Hannah Perkins, political director for the Georgia AFL-CIO union federation, which claims 500,000 members in the state. Only 4.4% of Georgia workers are union members, the eighth-lowest rate among states.

    The National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency overseeing union affairs, did not immediately respond Thursday to an email seeking comment.

    Georgia’s bill is modeled after a law passed in Tennessee last year, but there could be similar legislation offered in many other states. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council is promoting the idea. Governors in other Southern states traditionally hostile to organized labor have been speaking out against unions in recent weeks, after the United Auto Workers vowed a fresh push to organize nonunion auto factories after multiple failed attempts.

    Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey said her state’s economic success is “under attack.” Henry McMaster, South Carolina’s Republican governor, told lawmakers in the nation’s least unionized state last month that organized labor is such a threat that he would fight unions “ all the way to the gates of hell.”

    Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp proclaimed his support for the bill in a January speech to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, echoing the chamber’s own agenda. He said the move would protect workers’ “right to opportunity” from President Joe Biden’s pro-union agenda and outside forces “who want nothing more than to see the free market brought to a screeching halt.”

    Kemp and fellow Republicans argue that they are protecting workers from being bullied into joining unions by giving them the protection of a secret ballot.

    “Why is it such a bad policy to say, if you’re in the state of Georgia, you have a right to be protected, you have a right to choose whether or not to unionize, and you’re not going to get bullied, and you’re not going to get blackmailed?” asked state Sen. Bo Hatchett, a Cornelia Republican who Kemp appointed as one his floor leaders in the Senate.

    Democrats, though, say the bill is really about making it harder for unions to organize and for companies to accept them. Most employers who oppose unions require employees voting on organizing to attend mandatory anti-union meetings before a vote, which can cause employees to vote against unions.

    “All too often employers are engaging in these scorched-earth campaigns against workers,” said state Sen. Nikki Merritt, a Lawrenceville Democrat who said a union contract protected her in a former job. Like most Senate Democrats Thursday, Merritt wore a red bandanna as a symbol of union solidarity.

    State. Sen Mike Hodges, a Brunswick Republican who is sponsoring the bill, denied that it would violate federal law.

    “It does not prohibit a company’s employees from unionizing or require an employer to oppose unionization in any action,” said Hodges, another Kemp floor leader.

    Hodges said he has a number of relatives who had been union members and understands “the addition to a lifestyle that union wages make.”

    “If I thought this bill in any way, shape or form was injurious to unions or to union members, I would not carry it,” Hodges said.

    But Democrats said they think the bill is an attempt to attack federal labor law.

    “They think that they found a loophole, so they want this to be a test case,” said Sen. Jason Esteves, an Atlanta Democrat. “They want this to go to court because they’re hoping the Supreme Court will allow them to chip away.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Small businesses are paying 100%+ of profits to Uncle Sam after tax-law change

    Small businesses are paying 100%+ of profits to Uncle Sam after tax-law change

    [ad_1]

    Small businesses in sectors like software and manufacturing are panicking over the expiration of a critical tax deduction that they say could lead to mass layoffs and business closures, unless Congress acts quickly to amend the law.

    “This is a life-and-death scenario for small software companies,” Michelle Hansen, co-founder of the geocoding company Geocodio, told MarketWatch.

    The tax change that Hansen and other software executives are taking issue with was signed into law by President Trump in 2017, as part of a larger tax overhaul that slashed the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

    But in order to satisfy Senate budget rules and pass the law with only Republican votes, the bill could not increase the budget deficit over a 10-year window.

    So lawmakers included a provision that, beginning in 2022, drastically reduced how much research-and-development spending a business could deduct from their annual revenue to determine taxable income.

    The change penalizes certain industries like software and information technology — where engineer salaries are often classified as R&D expenses — as well as manufacturing and pharmaceuticals
    IHE.

    IntervalZero CEO Jeff Hibbard, whose Massachusetts-based company designs and sells software for installation on precision machines like semiconductor manufacturers, told MarketWatch that he has had to tap into company savings for the past several years in order to avoid laying off engineers.

    He said that his firm brings in about $9 million in revenue annually with expenses of $8 million — but 60% of those expenses come in the form of engineer salaries, which can only be deducted from taxable income over a five-year period because the IRS treats it as R&D.

    He said that after taxes consumed all his profits in 2022, he had to pay an additional $800,000 to Uncle Sam, and an additional $600,000 for the 2023 tax year.

    “We’ve had to do a hiring freeze and postpone projects” in a cutthroat industry where technology progresses rapidly, Hibbard said. “We’ve been in existence for 15 years. For the first 14, we always hired additional people. Now we have a hiring and salary freeze.”

    The House of Representatives voted last week 357-70 to restore full expensing for R&D as part of a $79 billion tax package that boosted the child tax credit and extended other business tax breaks.

    The bill now heads to the Senate, which already has its hands full debating immigration and national-security issues, and analysts say election-year politics could thwart its passage in 2024.

    Henrietta Treyz, director of economic-policy research at Veda Partners, gave just a 10% chance of the bill passing the Senate in a recent note to clients.

    “This year’s effort to pass a tax package has been more robust than the effort we saw in 2022 and 2023,” she wrote. Treyz added, however, that “the competing need to pass border reform and Ukraine/Israel aid, and general dysfunction in Washington keep us pessimistic that we’ll see a bipartisan economic-stimulus package come out of Congress this year.”

     On top of Republicans not wanting to give President Joe Biden a victory that would provide tax relief for businesses and families, Senate Republicans could decide to drag their feet on the bill in the hope that they’ll retake the chamber next year and can play a bigger role in the process, according to Owen Tedford, policy analyst at Beacon Policy Advisors.

    “The critical member to watch is Senator Mike Crapo [of Idaho], the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee,” Tedford wrote. “Crapo has not outright opposed the bill but has raised policy concerns and has expressed a desire to have a chance to amend it.” 

    Political considerations may be dictating the bill’s fate in Washington — but some business owners fear they don’t have the wherewithal to wait until next year for the problem to be fixed.

    Benjamin Bengfort, co-founder and CEO of Iowa-based software firm Rotational Labs, told MarketWatch that he had to lay off workers last year after his 2022 tax bill rose by 438%.

    He noted that even demand for his products has taken a hit because of the change in the law, because his services can count as an R&D expense for his customers, too.

    “So it is [between] a rock and a hard place for us, no matter how you look at it,” Bengfort said. “This is an existential threat for software engineering companies.”

    Andrew Keshner contributed.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Snap, the owner of Snapchat, is laying off about 10% of its global workforce

    Snap, the owner of Snapchat, is laying off about 10% of its global workforce

    [ad_1]

    The owner of Snapchat is cutting approximately 10% of its worldwide workforce, or about 530 employees, the latest tech company to announce layoffs

    The owner of Snapchat is cutting approximately 10% of its worldwide workforce, or about 530 employees, the latest tech company to announce layoffs.

    Snap Inc. said in a regulatory filing that it currently estimates $55 million to $75 million in charges, mostly for severance and related costs. It expects the majority of the costs to be incurred in the first quarter.

    This isn’t the first time Snap has eliminated jobs. The Santa Monica, California-based company announced in August 2022 that it planned to cut about 20% of its global workforce. In the third quarter of 2023, it began winding down its AR Enterprise business, which included reducing its global employee headcount by approximately 3%, according to a regulatory filing.

    There are 406 million users on Snapchat every day, on average, according to Snap’s website. It has more than 7 million Snapchat+ subscribers.

    Snap is among several in the tech industry announcing layoffs. Microsoft is laying off some 1,900 employees in its gaming division, according to an internal company memo. Online retailer eBay Inc. will cut about 1,000 jobs, or an estimated 9% of its full-time workforce. And Google has said that it was laying off hundreds of employees working on its hardware, voice assistance and engineering teams. Other companies that have announced layoffs include TikTok, Amazon divisions Twitch and Audible and Riot Games.

    Snap is expected to report its fourth-quarter and full-year financial results on Tuesday after the market close.

    Its stock declined 2.7% in Monday afternoon trading.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Union reaches deal with 4 hotel-casinos, 3 others still poised to strike at start of Super Bowl week

    Union reaches deal with 4 hotel-casinos, 3 others still poised to strike at start of Super Bowl week

    [ad_1]

    LAS VEGAS — A union representing hospitality workers has reached a tentative agreement with four hotel-casinos in downtown Las Vegas as employees at three other properties remained poised to strike Monday when the city kicks off Super Bowl week.

    By Saturday morning, the Culinary Workers Union had announced it had reached a tentative five-year contract with Binion’s, Four Queens, Fremont and Main Street that covers about 1,000 workers.

    The Golden Nugget, Downtown Grand and Virgin Las Vegas near the Strip haven’t reached an agreement with the union.

    The Las Vegas Strip’s three largest employers — MGM Resorts International, Caesar Entertainment and Wynn Resorts — reached deals late last year with union that covered 40,000 members, narrowly averting a historic strike.

    The union then turned its attention to winning the same contract terms for works at other hotel-casinos in Las Vegas.

    Since early January, the union had settled negotiations with most of those properties, including Circus Circus, Sahara Las Vegas, the Strat, Circa Resort and the El Cortez.

    But after hitting a snag in negotiations with some of the remaining casinos, the union announced last week that it would go on strike if tentative contracts weren’t in place by 5 a.m. Monday for downtown casino workers at properties that hadn’t reached agreements.

    The NFL’s 58th championship game is expected to bring some 330,000 people to Las Vegas this week, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

    The Culinary Union is the largest in Nevada with about 60,000 members statewide. It negotiates on behalf of its members for five-year contracts.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Union reaches deal with 4 hotel-casinos, 3 others still poised to strike at start of Super Bowl week

    Union reaches deal with 4 hotel-casinos, 3 others still poised to strike at start of Super Bowl week

    [ad_1]

    LAS VEGAS — A union representing hospitality workers has reached a tentative agreement with four hotel-casinos in downtown Las Vegas as employees at three other properties remained poised to strike Monday when the city kicks off Super Bowl week.

    By Saturday morning, the Culinary Workers Union had announced it had reached a tentative five-year contract with Binion’s, Four Queens, Fremont and Main Street that covers about 1,000 workers.

    The Golden Nugget, Downtown Grand and Virgin Las Vegas near the Strip haven’t reached an agreement with the union.

    The Las Vegas Strip’s three largest employers — MGM Resorts International, Caesar Entertainment and Wynn Resorts — reached deals late last year with union that covered 40,000 members, narrowly averting a historic strike.

    The union then turned its attention to winning the same contract terms for works at other hotel-casinos in Las Vegas.

    Since early January, the union had settled negotiations with most of those properties, including Circus Circus, Sahara Las Vegas, the Strat, Circa Resort and the El Cortez.

    But after hitting a snag in negotiations with some of the remaining casinos, the union announced last week that it would go on strike if tentative contracts weren’t in place by 5 a.m. Monday for downtown casino workers at properties that hadn’t reached agreements.

    The NFL’s 58th championship game is expected to bring some 330,000 people to Las Vegas this week, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

    The Culinary Union is the largest in Nevada with about 60,000 members statewide. It negotiates on behalf of its members for five-year contracts.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Strong hiring in most industries has far outpaced high-profile layoffs

    Strong hiring in most industries has far outpaced high-profile layoffs

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — Blockbuster job growth in the past several months has coincided with high-profile layoff announcements by a number of large companies.

    So, how are both occurring at the same time? It’s not as contradictory as it might seem. Recent job cuts have been concentrated mainly in just a few sectors: technology, finance and media.

    Relative to the U.S. labor force of 160 million people, layoffs so far have been dwarfed by consistently vigorous hiring — a monthly average of 248,000 jobs added over the past six months. The unemployment rate is still just 3.7%, barely above a 50-year low.

    It turns out that many of the companies that are now shedding jobs had over-hired during the pandemic, when they thought the trends that emerged then — especially a surge in online shopping — would continue apace. As the economy has normalized, many of these companies have discovered that they no longer need so many employees and have responded with layoffs.

    In January, American businesses and other employers added a blistering 353,000 jobs — the biggest monthly haul in a year. The government also revised up its estimate of job gains in November and December by a combined 126,000. The data provided compelling evidence that most companies, large and small, are confident enough in the economy to keep hiring.

    Several of the companies that have announced layoffs are among the most well-known household names: Google, Amazon, eBay, UPS, Spotify and Facebook’s parent Meta. Not that they’ve been the only ones. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a leading outplacement firm, reported this week that businesses announced 82,000 layoffs in January, the second-most for any January since 2009.

    Here are some reasons why these seemingly disparate trends are coinciding:

    In most industries, businesses have kept adding workers over the past three months. Manufacturers, for example, added 56,000 in November, December and January combined. Restaurants, hotels and entertainment companies gained nearly 60,000 over that time. Health care providers — hospitals, doctors’ offices, and dentists — added a whopping 300,000.

    They’re not all low-paying jobs, either: A sector that the government calls professional and business services, a sprawling category that includes accountants, engineers, lawyers and their support staff — has 120,000 more jobs than it did in October. Federal, state and local governments, which regained their pre-pandemic levels of employment in September, also added nearly 120,000 jobs over that period.

    The job cuts, by contrast, have been more concentrated. The Labor Department doesn’t track technology jobs specifically, but Friday’s jobs report pointed to signs of the industry’s struggles: The unemployment rate for workers in what the government calls the “information” sector, which includes media and tech workers, jumped to 5.5% in January from 3.9% a year ago. That’s nearly 2 percentage points above the national jobless rate.

    More confusing is why companies would cut workers if the economy is growing and consumers keep spending. Last week, the government estimated that the economy expanded at a healthy 3.3% annual pace in the October-December quarter after robust growth of 4.9% the previous quarter.

    Companies tend to shed jobs for all sorts of reasons, sometimes to reflect changes in their business strategy or to maintain or boost their profit margins. Many high-tech companies that went on hiring binges in 2022, as the economy accelerated out of the pandemic recession, miscalculated the longer-term demand for their products and services.

    In its survey of job cuts, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said the leading reason companies cited last month for laying off workers was “restructuring.” A year earlier, it was “economic conditions,” economists at Renaissance Macro noted, meaning that companies had previously worried more about the state of the economy.

    Todd McKinnon, CEO of the software company Okta, said in a message announcing that the company would cut about 400 jobs that it entered 2023 “with a growth plan based on the demand we experienced in the prior year.”

    “This led us to over-hire for the macroeconomic reality we’re in today,” he wrote.

    High-profile job cuts typically involve many layoffs that aren’t implemented immediately. For example, UPS, the delivery and logistics provider, announced earlier this week that it would cut 12,000 jobs this year. But it said those reductions will take place over months. So they weren’t included in the January jobs data that was released Friday because the layoffs hadn’t yet taken place.

    This doesn’t necessarily mean that the government’s jobs figures will worsen over time as reductions by UPS and others are implemented. Jobs cuts are deeply distressing and disruptive for people who suffer them. But layoffs even of UPS’ magnitude don’t really move the needle in the vast U.S. economy. Each month, roughly 5 million people leave their jobs or are laid off, government data shows, while more than 5 million are hired.

    A raft of other data confirm that overall, the job market is fundamentally healthy. The number of people seeking unemployment benefits, long seen as a measure of layoffs, remains at a very low level. And non-government data, including hiring tracked by the payroll provider ADP, shows that private-sector companies keep adding workers.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Where the jobs are: Strong hiring in most industries has far outpaced high-profile layoffs

    Where the jobs are: Strong hiring in most industries has far outpaced high-profile layoffs

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — Blockbuster job growth in the past several months has coincided with high-profile layoff announcements by a number of large companies.

    So, how are both occurring at the same time? It’s not as contradictory as it might seem. Recent job cuts have been concentrated mainly in just a few sectors: technology, finance and media.

    Relative to the U.S. labor force of 160 million people, layoffs so far have been dwarfed by consistently vigorous hiring — a monthly average of 248,000 jobs added over the past six months. The unemployment rate is still just 3.7%, barely above a 50-year low.

    It turns out that many of the companies that are now shedding jobs had over-hired during the pandemic, when they thought the trends that emerged then — especially a surge in online shopping — would continue apace. As the economy has normalized, many of these companies have discovered that they no longer need so many employees and have responded with layoffs.

    In January, American businesses and other employers added a blistering 353,000 jobs — the biggest monthly haul in a year. The government also revised up its estimate of job gains in November and December by a combined 126,000. The data provided compelling evidence that most companies, large and small, are confident enough in the economy to keep hiring.

    Several of the companies that have announced layoffs are among the most well-known household names: Google, Amazon, eBay, UPS, Spotify and Facebook’s parent Meta. Not that they’ve been the only ones. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a leading outplacement firm, reported this week that businesses announced 82,000 layoffs in January, the second-most for any January since 2009.

    Here are some reasons why these seemingly disparate trends are coinciding:

    In most industries, businesses have kept adding workers over the past three months. Manufacturers, for example, added 56,000 in November, December and January combined. Restaurants, hotels and entertainment companies gained nearly 60,000 over that time. Health care providers — hospitals, doctors’ offices, and dentists — added a whopping 300,000.

    They’re not all low-paying jobs, either: A sector that the government calls professional and business services, a sprawling category that includes accountants, engineers, lawyers and their support staff — has 120,000 more jobs than it did in October. Federal, state and local governments, which regained their pre-pandemic levels of employment in September, also added nearly 120,000 jobs over that period.

    The job cuts, by contrast, have been more concentrated. The Labor Department doesn’t track technology jobs specifically, but Friday’s jobs report pointed to signs of the industry’s struggles: The unemployment rate for workers in what the government calls the “information” sector, which includes media and tech workers, jumped to 5.5% in January from 3.9% a year ago. That’s nearly 2 percentage points above the national jobless rate.

    More confusing is why companies would cut workers if the economy is growing and consumers keep spending. Last week, the government estimated that the economy expanded at a healthy 3.3% annual pace in the October-December quarter after robust growth of 4.9% the previous quarter.

    Companies tend to shed jobs for all sorts of reasons, sometimes to reflect changes in their business strategy or to maintain or boost their profit margins. Many high-tech companies that went on hiring binges in 2022, as the economy accelerated out of the pandemic recession, miscalculated the longer-term demand for their products and services.

    In its survey of job cuts, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said the leading reason companies cited last month for laying off workers was “restructuring.” A year earlier, it was “economic conditions,” economists at Renaissance Macro noted, meaning that companies had previously worried more about the state of the economy.

    Todd McKinnon, CEO of the software company Okta, said in a message announcing that the company would cut about 400 jobs that it entered 2023 “with a growth plan based on the demand we experienced in the prior year.”

    “This led us to over-hire for the macroeconomic reality we’re in today,” he wrote.

    High-profile job cuts typically involve many layoffs that aren’t implemented immediately. For example, UPS, the delivery and logistics provider, announced earlier this week that it would cut 12,000 jobs this year. But it said those reductions will take place over months. So they weren’t included in the January jobs data that was released Friday because the layoffs hadn’t yet taken place.

    This doesn’t necessarily mean that the government’s jobs figures will worsen over time as reductions by UPS and others are implemented. Jobs cuts are deeply distressing and disruptive for people who suffer them. But layoffs even of UPS’ magnitude don’t really move the needle in the vast U.S. economy. Each month, roughly 5 million people leave their jobs or are laid off, government data shows, while more than 5 million are hired.

    A raft of other data confirm that overall, the job market is fundamentally healthy. The number of people seeking unemployment benefits, long seen as a measure of layoffs, remains at a very low level. And non-government data, including hiring tracked by the payroll provider ADP, shows that private-sector companies keep adding workers.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Trump says Powell is being ‘political’ with interest rates

    Trump says Powell is being ‘political’ with interest rates

    [ad_1]

    Former President Donald Trump on Friday criticized Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and said he’s playing politics with interest-rate policy.

    “It looks to me like he’s trying to lower interest rates for the sake of maybe getting people elected,” Trump said, in an interview on the Fox Business Network.

    “I think he’s political,” added Trump, the likely 2024 Republican nominee for president.

    Asked if he would reappoint Powell to a third four-year term, Trump replied “no.”

    Trump said he has a couple of choices in mind to replace Powell, but wouldn’t say who.

    Trump said he thinks lowering interest rates would lead to massive inflation. The conflict in the Middle East is likely to lead to “big inflation” from a spike in oil prices, he added.

    “Trump said he thinks lowering interest rates would lead to massive inflation. The conflict in the Middle East is likely to lead to “big inflation” from a spike in oil prices, he added.”

    Powell “is not going to be able to do anything,” Trump said.

    On Wednesday, Powell said he wasn’t giving a potential third term any thought. Powell’s current term expires in early 2026.

    Speculation on a third term “is not something I’m focused on,” Powell said.

    “We’re focused on doing our jobs. This year is going to be a highly consequential year for the Fed and monetary policy. We’re, all of us, very buckled down, focused on doing our jobs,” Powell said.

    Analysts say that the Fed will be criticized by both parties in the election year.

    On Sunday, Powell will appear on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” and will likely face more questions about the election.

    Earlier this week, top Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee urged the Fed to cut rates quickly, saying they were too high and hurting the housing market.

    “Keeping interest rates high will be detrimental to American workers and their families and do little to bring down prices or promote moderate economic growth,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, and the chairman of the Banking Committee, in a letter to Powell prior to Wednesday’s Fed meeting.

    At the meeting on Wednesday, the Fed kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged in a range of 5.25%-5.5%.

    Asked about the letter from the Democrats on Wednesday, Powell said Congress has given the Fed the job of stable prices. High inflation hurts people at the lower end of the income spectrum, he added.

    “It’s what society has asked us to do is to get inflation down. The tools we use to do it are interest rates,” he said.

    The Fed has penciled in three rate cuts for 2024. Powell said that a cut at the Fed’s next meeting in March was unlikely. He said the Fed wants to see more good inflation reports so it can have greater confidence that inflation is coming down to the 2% target.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • PolitiFact – Is Gov. Evers right that Wisconsin’s unemployment rate hit an all-time low last year?

    PolitiFact – Is Gov. Evers right that Wisconsin’s unemployment rate hit an all-time low last year?

    [ad_1]

    In his annual State of the State address, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers boasted of record low unemployment rates in Wisconsin last year.

    “In April last year, our state unemployment rate hit a record-low of 2.4%,” Evers said during his Jan. 23 address. “Last year, Wisconsin had an all-time lowest number of unemployed workers ever in modern history.” 

    Often, when rating these sorts of claims, speakers credit themselves with making the difference, and that lowers the rating, since there are many things that drive the economy at the state, national and worldwide level. In this case, Evers stated it generally as a fact, so we will evaluate it with that in mind.

    Evers is correct that last year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wisconsin had a 2.4% unemployment rate for April and May.

    But, was there ever a time in history when it was even lower?

    Let’s do some digging.

    Wisconsin’s unemployment data

    BLS has available data on Wisconsin’s labor force dating back to January 1976.

    Following a record-high unemployment rate of 14.1% at the start of the pandemic in April 2020, Wisconsin has been on a steady decline in the percentage of the labor force without a job.

    The state hit its lowest unemployment rate of 2.4% in April 2023.

    April’s record low beat Wisconsin’s previous lowest unemployment rate of 2.5% from just the month prior. And before the pandemic, Wisconsin’s lowest unemployment rate on record was 2.9% in March 2020. 

    Wisconsin’s low ranking undercut the national unemployment figures which were 3.4% for April.

    Since then, the state’s unemployment has gone slightly up and now stands at 3.3%.

    Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development’s Communications Director John Dipko confirmed with PolitiFact that 2.4% is the lowest unemployment rate for Wisconsin on record.

    Unemployment rates are one of the most common figures economists use to capture the health of the labor market. 

    The rate measures the proportion of workers in the labor force who do not currently have a job but are actively looking for work. People who have not looked for work in the past four weeks are not included. 

    In a DWD report from April, Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek attributed some of the low unemployment to the increase in jobs across the state following the pandemic.

    The report stated Wisconsin added 51,500 total nonfarm jobs from April 2022 to April 2023, totaling a record-high 3,003,600 jobs across the state.

    Our ruling

    Evers said Wisconsin had the “lowest number of unemployed workers ever in modern history” of 2.4% last April.

    According to available BLS data dating to 1976, Evers is correct that 2.4% is the lowest unemployment rate Wisconsin has had.

    We rate Evers’ claim True.

     



    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Think the news industry was struggling already? The dawn of 2024 is offering few good tidings

    Think the news industry was struggling already? The dawn of 2024 is offering few good tidings

    [ad_1]

    NEW YORK — On Friday, the National Press Club is offering solace — and a free meal — by giving recently laid-off journalists tacos in recognition of a brutal stretch that seems to offer bad news daily for an already struggling industry.

    For anyone who works in the news media, the list is intimidating — and unremitting.

    The news website The Messenger folded on Wednesday after being in operation since only last May, abruptly putting some 300 journalists out of work. The Los Angeles Times laid off more than 100 journalists in recent weeks, Business Insider and Time magazine announced staff cuts, Sports Illustrated is struggling to survive, the Washington Post is completing buyouts to more than 200 staffers. The Post reported Thursday that The Wall Street Journal was laying off roughly 20 people in its Washington bureau; there was no immediate comment from a Journal representative. Pitchfork announced it was no longer a freestanding music site, after digital publications BuzzFeed News and Jezebel disappeared last year.

    And journalists at the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, New York Daily News and the Conde Nast magazine company have all conducted walkouts to protest how management was dealing with business problems.

    Seeing all the damage is what led to the Washington-based National Press Club to open its weekly Taco Night to laid-off colleagues and offer a one-month free membership to people who need a networking opportunity.

    “It’s very important when people have lost their jobs to know that they have some support behind them,” said Didier Saugy, the club’s executive director.

    The news business has been in a free fall for the past two decades, starting when much of its advertising moved online to opportunistic tech companies. Advertising is still a huge part of the problem, although there are more complex reasons and circumstances unique to individual outlets that also play a part.

    The situation is dire at larger, more national organizations and in smaller communities. A Northwestern University study released in November estimated the United States has lost one-third of its newspapers and two-thirds of its newspaper journalism jobs since 2005.

    The nation loses 2.5 newspapers per week — a pace that is accelerating, the study found. Through the end of November, the employment firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas estimated 2,681 journalism jobs were lost in 2023, and that tally has increased by hundreds since.

    One industry observer, Jeff Jarvis, wondered on his Buzzmachine website this week: “Is it time to give up on old news?”

    “There’s an inevitability to what is happening,” Jarvis, author of “The Gutenberg Parenthesis: The Age of Print and its Lessons for the Age of the Internet,” said in an interview. “Publications have been trying to preserve their old ways and their old models, and it is time for them to realize that it’s not working and now it’s too late.”

    While there have been some successes in news outlets shifting their business to paid digital subscriptions — most spectacularly at The New York Times — failures are much more numerous. Even The Washington Post, whose subscriptions boomed during the Trump administration, has seen a falloff, leading its management to acknowledge that it was too optimistic in expansion plans and needed to cut costs.

    Optimism created by billionaire owners at the Post, with Jeff Bezos, and Los Angeles Times, with Patrick Soon-Shiong, has faded as it became apparent they didn’t have magic fixes. With COVID and the Hollywood strike constricting the advertising market, the Los Angeles Times estimated it was losing between $30 million and $40 million a year.

    Philanthropy has offered a boost to some news organizations, including The Associated Press. The MacArthur Foundation and Knight Foundation last year pledged $500 million to seed solutions in the news industry, but such efforts can’t match the scale of the problem, Jarvis said.

    “The industry,” he said, “leaps from false messiah to false messiah.”

    Tech companies are also backing away from news, said Aileen Gallagher, a Syracuse University journalism professor. Through its AI-powered search generative experience, Google is much less frequently directing users to individual news sites, she said.

    Publishers have also complained of losing significant business with Facebook much less frequently featuring news articles that bring people to news sites. Twitter, now X, was once like a second home to journalists, but that’s become much less the case since Elon Musk’s purchase of the site.

    “What the news companies may have finally woken up to is that nothing good will come from accepting the scraps that social platforms and search platforms will give the news business,” Gallagher said.

    The 2020 election proved a boon for many news outlets, but there are questions about whether the public will have as much interest in following political news this year.

    Some of the troubled outlets also have unique issues that contributed to their problems. Sports Illustrated sent layoff notices to employees after the company that publishes its content lost its license to do so. The Messenger’s failure angered observers because its business plan — a centrist website that tried to appeal to many instead of a tightly-defined audience — was an uphill battle to start.

    “It was business malpractice and human cruelty at an epic scale,” Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Axios and Politico, told the Puck newsletter. “Anyone who knew anything about the economics of media knew it would die quickly, spectacularly and sadly.”

    That sadness is apparent in messages left on social media by laid-off journalists from The Messenger and elsewhere.

    “I was laid off from my political writing job back in August and haven’t been able to find another one since,” wrote Tara Dublin, author of “The Sound of Settling: A Rock and Roll Love Story,” on X. “I am terrified about the future of journalism and how anyone is going to be able to trust any news source.”

    Steve Reilly, an investigative reporter at The Messenger who saw his job disappear this week, wrote: “If you’ve been affected by recent journalism layoffs at the Messenger or elsewhere, please know that it is not your fault. It has nothing to do with you or your work.”

    Jarvis, who also teaches journalism, said he doesn’t pretend to know the answers. He said there needs to be an attitude change from searching for a way to monetize content to seeing journalism as a service to the community.

    “We need journalists in society, and we will find a way to fill that need,” he said. “I’m optimistic in the long run. But in the short run, it’s going to be ugly.”

    ___

    David Bauder covers media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder



    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    [ad_1]

    An increasing number of people advocate being open about salaries as a way to fix pay iniquities and encourage employees to ask for more compensation, but there are many cultural and professional taboos around the practice. The Onion looks at the pros and cons of salary transparency.

    Artificial Intelligence Explains Why Humans Have Nothing To Worry About As Their Extermination Will Be Swift And Relatively Painless

    PRO

    Image for article titled Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    Sharing logic behind compensation makes it easier for employees to understand why they’re worth less

    CON

    Image for article titled Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    Employees might not respect CEO if they knew he only makes $20 million a year

    PRO

    Image for article titled Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    Dicking around all day now a form of wage protest

    CON

    Image for article titled Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    Jack still going to eat more than his fair share of donuts every Friday

    PRO

    Image for article titled Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    Always nice to have another thing to be cripplingly insecure about

    CON

    Image for article titled Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    One less sexy little secret

    PRO

    Image for article titled Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    Interns will find out who’s gaining the most experience

    CON

    Image for article titled Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    Rude to discuss how much you make in mixed company

    PRO

    Image for article titled Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    Helps employees determine which side of angry mob to be on

    CON

    Image for article titled Pros And Cons Of Salary Transparency

    If handled incorrectly pay transparency could result in workers getting fairly compensated

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Online news site The Messenger shuts down after less than a year

    Online news site The Messenger shuts down after less than a year

    [ad_1]

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Messenger, an ambitious online news site that billed itself as a nonpartisan digital outlet and spent some $50 million ratcheting up its business effort, abruptly shut down Wednesday after only eight months in operation.

    Founder Jimmy Finkelstein sent an email to stunned employees announcing the immediate shutdown, with some 300 journalists and other workers being let go, according to the The New York Times, which first reported the news.

    In his email, Finkelstein said he hadn’t shared the news with employees earlier because he had been trying desperately to raise enough funds to become profitable “literally until earlier today.”

    “We exhausted every option available,” Finkelstein wrote, saying he was “personally devastated.”

    The Messenger website carried only its name and an email address Wednesday night.

    Finkelstein noted in his email that “economic headwinds have left many media companies fighting for survival.”

    Indeed, The Messenger’s collapse follows large-scale layoffs by once-powerful and influential outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, which cut its newsroom staff by 20% last week, as well as Sports Illustrated and Business Insider. Planned cuts also have sparked walkouts by employees at other venues, including the New York Daily News and Forbes magazine.

    The Messenger was launched last May and spent heavily — some would say excessively, given the current media climate — in hopes of becoming a media heavyweight.

    The company hired experienced journalists from major organizations, including The Associated Press, entered into multimillion-dollar office leases in New York, Washington D.C. and Florida, and ambitiously aimed to draw enough web traffic to reach a monthly audience of 100 million readers.

    At its best, the outlet garnered only a quarter of that figure. It never turned a profit, and it burned through its cash as its ad revenues slumped.

    Critics said Finkelstein was relying on an outdated business model that relied on social media distribution and searches to attract eyeballs.

    BuzzFeed News, a Pulitzer Prize-winning online news outlet, was a previous victim. CEO Jonah Peretti announced last April that the outlet was shutting down after failing to turn a profit, saying that he’d been slow to accept that “the big platforms wouldn’t provide the distribution or financial support required to support premium, free journalism purpose-built for social media.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Tropicana Las Vegas, Sin City landmark since 1957, to be demolished for MLB baseball

    Tropicana Las Vegas, Sin City landmark since 1957, to be demolished for MLB baseball

    [ad_1]

    LAS VEGAS — When the Tropicana Las Vegas opened in 1957, Nevada’s lieutenant governor unlocked the door to what would become a Sin City landmark for more than a half-century. Then he threw away the key.

    “This was to signify that the Tropicana would always stay open,” said historian Michael Green.

    Six decades later, the storied hotel-casino that once had ties to the mob and was nicknamed the “Tiffany of the Strip,” is set to shut its doors for good to make room for a $1.5 billion Major League Baseball stadium that will be home to the relocating Oakland Athletics.

    Tropicana owner Bally’s Corp. made the announcement Monday, saying the closure on April 2 — days before the 67th anniversary of the resort’s opening — marks the beginning of preparations for demolition.

    The ballpark is a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Bally’s president, George Papanier, said in a statement.

    “Bally’s looks forward to the development of a new resort and ballpark that … will become a new landmark, paying homage to the iconic history and global appeal of Las Vegas and its nearly 50 million visitors a year,” the company said in a news release.

    The population of Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, had just surpassed 100,000 when the Tropicana opened on a Las Vegas Strip not yet lined with the megaresorts it’s known for today, Green said. The Flamingo had been open for a decade. The high-rise Stardust debuted the following year, costing $8.5 million.

    Known then for its opulence, Green said, the Tropicana had mosaic tiles and mahogany panels throughout. There was a towering tulip-shaped fountain near the entrance. Each hotel room had a balcony.

    Behind the scenes of the casino’s opening, the Tropicana had ties to the mob, largely through reputed mobster Frank Costello, according to Green, who also serves on the board of directors of The Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas.

    Weeks after the grand opening, Costello was shot in the head in New York. He survived, but police had found in his coat pocket a piece of paper with the Tropicana’s exact earnings figure. According to a post on The Mob Museum’s website looking back on the Tropicana’s history, the note also mentioned “money to be skimmed” for Costello’s associates.

    In the 1970s, federal authorities investigating mobsters in Kansas City charged more than a dozen mob operatives with conspiring to skim nearly $2 million in gambling revenue from Las Vegas casinos, including the Tropicana. Charges connected to the Tropicana alone resulted in five convictions.

    But the famed hotel-casino also enjoyed many years of mob-free success, Green said, and expanded in later years to include two hotel towers. In 1959, it debuted its long-running topless show “Folies Bergere,” which was featured in the 1964 Elvis Presley film “Viva Las Vegas.” Magicians Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn got their start in the show.

    A-list stars including Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong and Gladys Knight have performed at the Tropicana, and in 1998, daredevil showman Robbie Knievel made a record-breaking motorcycle jump outside the hotel, soaring to 231 feet (70 meters) over a row of limousines.

    Today, the site at the south end of the Las Vegas Strip intersects with a major thoroughfare named for the Tropicana. It is surrounded by towering megaresorts: the MGM Grand, Excalibur, New York-New York, Luxor and Mandalay Bay. Nearby are the homes of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders, who left Oakland in 2020, and the city’s first major league professional team, the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights.

    Bally’s says it will no longer accept hotel bookings after April 2 and will relocate any customers who have existing reservations past the closing date.

    The ballpark planned for the land beneath the Tropicana is backed by $380 million in public funding. All 30 MLB owners in November gave their approval for the A’s to move to Las Vegas. The stadium is expected to open in 2028.

    Bally’s announcement came shortly after the Tropicana and the Culinary Workers Union, which represents about 500 workers there, reached an agreement for a new five-year contract.

    Ted Pappageorge, the union’s secretary-treasurer, said he hopes the severance package secured in the latest contract will ease what he expects to be a difficult transition for the Tropicana’s largely senior workforce, many of whom, he said, have worked at the hotel-casino for decades. Under the new contract, the employees will receive severance pay of $2,000 for each year of work.

    “In Las Vegas, hotels are bought and sold on a regular basis,” Pappageorge said. “These new projects are welcome, but workers can’t be discarded like an old shoe.”

    Rhode Island-based Bally’s had purchased the Tropicana in 2021 for $308 million.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • US job openings rose in December, pointing to a still-durable labor market

    US job openings rose in December, pointing to a still-durable labor market

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — America’s employers posted 9 million job openings in December, an increase from November and another sign that the U.S. job market remains resilient despite the headwind of higher interest rates.

    The number of openings was up from November’s 8.9 million, which itself was revised up in Tuesday’s report from the government. Job openings have gradually but steadily declined since peaking at a record 12 million in March 2022. But they remain at historically high levels: Before 2021, monthly openings had never topped 8 million.

    Still, in a cautionary sign, layoffs rose in December. And the number of Americans quitting their jobs — a sign of relative confidence in their ability to find a better position — dipped to the lowest level since January 2021.

    The U.S. economy and job market have remained surprisingly durable despite sharply higher interest rates, which have led to higher borrowing rates for consumers and businesses. The Federal Reserve’s policymakers raised their benchmark interest rate 11 times between March 2022 and July 2023, bringing it to a 23-year high of around 5.4%.

    The Fed wants to see the job market cool from the red-hot levels of 2021 and 2022, thereby reducing pressure on businesses to raise pay to attract and keep staff — and to pass on those costs to customers through higher prices.

    Higher rates have contributed to a slowdown in hiring, though the pace of job growth remains relatively healthy: U.S. employers added 2.7 million jobs last year, down from 4.8 million in 2022 and a record 7.3 million in 2021. When the government issues the January employment report on Friday, it is expected to show that employers added a solid 177,000 jobs, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet.

    The job market is cooling in a mostly painless way — through fewer openings. Despite a wave of high-profile layoffs, the number of job cuts across the economy remains relatively low.

    The unemployment rate has come in below 4% for 23 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s. And the number of people applying for unemployment benefits — a proxy for layoffs — has remained unusually low.

    At the same time, while inflation has sharply slowed after peaking in mid-2022, it remains above the central bank’s 2% target.

    The Fed has signaled that it expects to reverse course and cut rates three times this year, though it’s set to leave rates unchanged after its latest policy meeting ends Wednesday. Financial markets have been anticipating the first rate cut as early as March, though continued strength in the job market might make the Fed’s policymakers wary of acting before mid-year.

    “These data — which show demand for workers remains robust — do not support imminent rate cuts,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “They support a cautious approach going forward, so that policymakers can be sure that inflation” will reach their 2% target.

    [ad_2]

    Source link