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☆ Popeyes shut down a store after teenage workers said they were asked to skip school and do late weeknight shifts
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Jordan Hart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Teenage workers at a Popeyes in Oakland, California filed complaints with the state labor department. One former employee said she had to skip school after being asked to cover a weekday shift. Popeyes shut down the franchisee-operated store and opened an investigation into the claims Thursday. Following the claims, Popeyes closed the store and opened an investigation into the complaints filed with the California labor department. Other fast food chains have also fallen foul of child labor laws in recent months.

☆ Premarket: Turkey's big economic gamble looks set to continue
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Mark Thompson | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

In an exclusive interview with CNN on Thursday, Erdogan promised to continue cutting interest rates to tackle soaring prices if he is re-elected on May 28, my colleague Olesya Dmitracova reports. “Please do follow me in the aftermath of the elections, and you will see that inflation will be going down along with interest rates,” Erdogan told CNN’s Becky Anderson. “I have a thesis that interest rates and inflation, they are directly correlated. As price hikes started to accelerate around the world in late 2021, Erdogan ordered Turkey’s central bank to slash interest rates. The weekly claims attributed to Massachusetts fell by 14,042 on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, representing three-quarters of the decline of 18,605 claims.

☆ Initial jobless claims increase for fourth consecutive week
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Alicia Wallace | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Minneapolis CNN —The number of first-time claims for weekly jobless benefits fell last week to 242,000, down 22,000 from 264,000 the week before, according to data published Thursday by the Department of Labor. Continuing claims, which are filed by people who have received jobless benefits for more than one week, dipped to 1.799 million for the week ended May 6 from a revised 1.807 million the week prior. The outsized influence of Massachusetts’ claims was an anomaly, BofA economists wrote, noting that the state’s total employment accounts for under 3% of overall US employment, and its initial jobless claims are typically under 3% of all weekly US claims. When excluding and recalculating filings in Massachusetts, initial claims have instead moved “sideways,” pointing to limited layoffs, economists Stephen Juneau and Michael Gapen wrote. Weekly jobless claims remain below historical averages: In the decade before the pandemic, weekly claims averaged 311,000.

☆ How top execs get a bigger tax break on retirement savings than the rest of us
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Jeanne Sahadi | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

It’s a very real possibility, thanks to some generous tax-advantaged retirement savings options available to them — but not to rank-and-file employees. At Disney, where median employee pay is $54,256, CFO Christine Mary McCarthy had amassed nearly $44 million in a nonqualified plan. If annuitized, that balance might generate $3 million a month in retirement, IPS estimated. Narrowing the retirement divideMany Americans face critical shortfalls in savings as they near retirement. By contrast, the median 401(k) balance at Vanguard, a major provider of such plans, was just $33,472,” the IPS report notes.

☆ From Kroger to Walmart, these are the top 10 most popular grocery chains in America
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Nicolas Vega | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Indeed, restaurant prices have risen faster than grocery prices over the last year, according to data from the Department of Labor. To rank the grocers, Placer.ai measured the "visit share" each retailer received in April. "Visit share" is the percentage of total visits that a retailer received during a given time frame compared to the other retailers also being analyzed. Kroger, with its more than 1200 locations in 16 states, was the top visited supermarket chain in the country, capturing 9.1% of the visit share in April. These are the 10 most popular supermarket chains in the country.

☆ Dollar General's troubles have snowballed into cluttered aisles and stores forced to close by fire marshals. Employees tell us what went wrong.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Current and former employees who spoke to Insider say clutter at Dollar General stores has gotten worse over the last few years. The clutter is one of the reasons that the Department of Labor labeled Dollar General a "severe violator" in March. In January, a Dollar General clerk was charged with manslaughter after police said he shot and killed an armed robber. Despite the problems on the ground, Dollar General continues to earn positive feedback from analysts on Wall Street. Do you work or shop at a Dollar General store or have a story to share?

☆ Pennsylvania battery maker ordered to pay $22 million in back wages after DOL rules it denied thousands of workers overtime
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A Pennsylvania battery maker was ordered to pay 7,500 workers $22 million in unpaid overtime. The DOL said East Penn Manufacturing Company Inc. didn't pay employees for their time spent preparing to work in hazardous conditions. During its investigation, the DOL found that East Penn employees were only being paid for their contracted 8-hour shifts. In a statement to Insider, a spokesperson for East Penn said the jury also found that East Penn did not act in a knowing or reckless disregard of the law. "East Penn appreciates the time and attention of the jurors over the course of this lengthy andcomplex trial.

☆ Gig work value is too great to rush a US overhaul
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Ben Winck | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Julie Su, the president’s choice for labor secretary, has a history of redefining gig work. And while health insurance and retirement savings are valuable perks, gig workers view flexibility in the same way. Half of surveyed gig workers, meanwhile, make less than a quarter of their income from freelancing. Gig work has also grown alongside traditional employment, not at its expense. With most gig workers happy as they are, a one-size-fits-all rethink threatens pointless harm to a growing corner of the economy.

☆ Amazon Labor Union's vice president faces criminal charges over allegations he choked his girlfriend
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Jack Newsham | Katherine Long | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Police bodycam video shows Derrick Palmer, the vice president of the Amazon Labor Union, admitting to strangling his girlfriend. The second-highest-ranking official in the Amazon Labor Union is facing felony charges over claims that he strangled his girlfriend last year, according to police records and body-cam video obtained by Insider. The charges against Palmer are the latest potentially damaging revelation about the leadership of the Amazon Labor Union, the only union to successfully organize an Amazon facility. Palmer, left, and Amazon Labor Union president Chris Smalls arrive at an Ebony magazine gala in October 2022. Historically, union officers removed under the law have been convicted of fraud, embezzlement, or extortion, Logan said.

☆ Senator Patty Murray says it's impossible to keep the economy growing without affordable, well-paid childcare
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Senator Patty Murray is once again pushing legislation to make childcare affordable and accessible. She told Insider the growth of the US economy relies on workers having access to childcare. Under the Child Care for Working Families Act, families' childcare costs would be capped at 7% of their income, and families that earn under 85% of their state's median would pay nothing at all. "Childcare was a crisis long ago, but it was a silent crisis," Murray told Insider. "Women are in the workforce to provide for their families," Murray said.

☆ 2023 layoff tracker: The latest on which companies have announced job cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Jennifer Korn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +20 min

New York CNN —BuzzFeed, Lyft, Whole Foods and Deloitte all recently announced layoffs affecting thousands of US workers. With 11,000 job cuts announced in November and the 10,000 announced in March, Meta’s headcount will fall to around 66,000 — a total reduction of about 25%. The company announced in January that it was eliminating some 18,000 positions as part of a major cost-cutting bid at the e-commerce giant. IndeedJob listing website Indeed.com announced cuts of approximately 2,200 employees, representing almost 15% of its total workforce, the company said in March. The cuts come after the company announced several rounds of job cuts throughout the pandemic due to falling demand, followed by rapid hiring last year.

☆ U.S. SEC issues guidance on broker and adviser 'care obligations'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( John Mccrank | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The guidance, which is the third in a series of such documents, specifically clarifies brokers' and advisers' so-called "care obligations" under the SEC's long-standing investment adviser fiduciary standard and its Regulation Best Interest rule (Reg BI), passed in 2019. Reg BI is a package of rules requiring brokers to disclose potential conflicts in the fees investors pay and the commissions brokers earn when giving financial advice. The rules also require brokers to raise the standard for giving advice to meet a client's best interest when recommending stocks, mutual funds and other financial products. Consumer groups criticized the Reg BI rule for being too vague in its definition of "best interest" while not addressing all potential conflicts. The guidance under the current Democratic-led SEC, seeks to plug some of these gaps, analysts have said.

☆ A Big Labor Partisan Named Julie Su
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Potomac Watch: Democrats belatedly admit Dianne Feinstein is too old to serve. Images: AP Composite: Mark KellyPresident Biden’s legislative agenda has little chance in the current Congress, but that means he’ll try to govern even more through regulation. It also means his regulatory and Cabinet nominees deserve extra scrutiny, and an example is Julie Su , his choice to run the Department of Labor. Currently the deputy secretary, Ms. Su has a record of putting union interests above those of individual workers or flexible business models that workers like but unions oppose. As labor secretary in California, she drove implementation of the state’s AB5 law, which reclassified independent contractors as employees.

☆ A paper mill in Alabama told authorities a worker died from a heart attack. He actually died after being electrocuted by machinery, the labor department says.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A paper mill in Alabama told OSHA that a worker who was electrocuted actually died from a heart attack. The company's lawyer also asked the coroner's office to change the cause of death to heart attack, OSHA said. The department said that the company – South Coast Paper LLC – had "willfully" violated safety standards, including failing to implement procedures to protect employees performing maintenance on machinery. The plant's manager and the company's general manager, however, told an OSHA certified safety and health officer that the worker had died from electrocution, OSHA wrote. South Coast Paper did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside of regular working hours.

WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) - Meat companies should examine their supply chains for evidence of child labor, the Biden administration said in a letter sent to top meatpacking companies on Wednesday. The letter is part of an effort by several agencies, led by the Department of Labor, to curb the use of illegal child labor across sectors. In February, the Labor Department found that more than 100 children had been illegally employed by Packers Sanitation Services Inc, a company that contracts with meat-packers to clean slaughterhouses. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asked meat and poultry companies in the letter to determine whether illegal child labor is being used in their supply chains and to adopt stronger child labor standards for subcontractors. The Department of Agriculture is exploring enforcement mechanisms that would allow stronger oversight of child labor use in food supply chains and plans to take future steps on the issue, an agency spokesperson said.

☆ Healthcare, college education, and childcare started getting worse decades ago. Now we're all finally feeling it.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

Americans are accruing billions in debt to pay for things like education and healthcare. But that would require shifting the idea of childcare, education, and healthcare and thinking of them as public goods — not businesses. That ultimately meant millions in funding for public childcare. "If the US health system was a country, it would be about the fourth-largest country in the world," Cooper said. There's much less government involvement in the US healthcare system than in other countries, Cooper said.

☆ Blocked emergency exits and 'dangerous' fire hazards: Dollar General again found in violation of federal workplace safety standards
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Gabrielle Fonrouge | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The exterior of a Dollar General convenience store is seen on March 16, 2023 in Austin, Texas. Dollar General has again been found in violation of federal workplace safety regulations for "willfully exposing" staff to fire hazards at a Pennsylvania store, the Department of Labor said Friday. "Dollar General Corp. has a substantial history of the same violations and hazards found at stores all around the U.S. Just last week, OSHA said Dollar General was in settlement talks with federal regulators after the retailer was labeled a "severe violator" of workplace safety rules. In fiscal 2022, which ended Feb. 3, Dollar General reported $37.84 billion in sales and a net income of $2.41 billion.

☆ The Fed could easily drive Black unemployment much higher than the overall jobless rate
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Krystal Hur | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

However, the jobless rate isn’t expected to be that low for long. While that’s a small improvement from the central bank’s previous 4.6% jobless rate estimate, economists say it’s possible the unemployment rate could rise above the Fed’s expectations. It can be difficult to slow an unemployment spiralEconomists say it’s hard to guess the trajectory of the unemployment rate this year, noting it could very well exceed the Fed’s estimate. As such, the Fed’s tightening efforts could easily drive the Black unemployment rate much higher than the overall jobless rate, said William Spriggs, an economics professor at Howard University and chief economist to the AFL-CIO. The Black unemployment rate will easily get to 9% in that scenario.”One other likely consequence of growing unemployment is slowing wage growth, Bivens said.

☆ Senators ask 27 CEOs to make sure their companies comply with child labor laws
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Laura Strickler | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

The company entered into an agreement with the agency pledging compliance with child labor laws and consented to third-party oversight. This is the second Senate inquiry citing NBC News reporting on child labor. JBS has zero tolerance for child labor, discrimination or unsafe working conditions for anyone working in our facilities. In a local newspaper editorial, Hearthside CEO Darlene Nicosia wrote the revelation of child labor was "a shock and major disappointment to us." Hearthside is in the midst of a 60-day independent review of child labor practices by an outside law firm, according to a spokesperson.

☆ A 15-year-old suffered hot oil burns while using a deep fryer at a McDonald's restaurant in Tennessee, the Labor Department says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A 15-year-old McDonald's worker suffered hot oil burns while using a deep fryer, the DOL said. The DOL assessed a $3,258 civil penalty to the franchisee that operates the restaurant. The restaurant in Morristown, north-east Tennessee, had illegally allowed the minor to remove french fries from a hot oil deep fryer manually, the DOL said. The DOL assessed a $3,258 civil penalty for Faris Enterprises, the franchisee that operates the restaurant. The DOL assessed nearly $4.4 million in civil money penalties in 2022 related to violations of child labor laws.

☆ The Labor Department is suing a healthcare staffing agency, saying it made some workers sign contracts forcing them to repay part of their wages if they quit within 3 years
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A company told workers they'd have to pay high fees if they quit within three years, the Labor Department said. In a lawsuit against the agency, the DOL said one nurse was asked to pay $24,000 in future profits. Lawyers for the agency, ACS, said the DOL's suit is "unsupported by either the facts or the law." The DOL likened employees' wages to a loan that they may have to repay to the company alongside interest and fees. "To be clear, ACS has never demanded – and no nurse has ever repaid – their earned wages to ACS. "

The bill, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, follows a similar Democrat-led effort proposed this month in the Senate. The Department of Labor has also taken steps to increase enforcement of child labor violations and called on Congress to boost penalties. The Labor Department has seen a nearly 70% increase in child labor violations since 2018, including in hazardous occupations, with 835 companies found to have violated child labor laws in the last fiscal year. Under current federal law, the maximum civil monetary penalty for a child labor violation is $15,138 per child. In February, 33 Democratic lawmakers led by Michigan Congressman Dan Kildee signed a letter to the Labor Secretary urging immediate action to rid Hyundai's supply chain of child labor.

☆ Dollar General in settlement talks over workplace safety violations, federal agency says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Natasha Piñon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The exterior of a Dollar General convenience store is seen on March 16, 2023 in Austin, Texas. Dollar General is in settlement talks with federal regulators after the discount retailer was labeled a "severe violator" of workplace safety rules, according to a spokesperson for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Dollar General did not comment directly on the settlement talks. A Dollar General spokesperson told CNBC "we regularly review and refine our safety programs, and reinforce them through training, ongoing communication, recognition and accountability." Since 2017, OSHA inspected over 270 Dollar General stores, finding more than 100 workplace safety violations.

☆ Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus Supplier Paid California Workers $1.58
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The Department of Labor randomly investigated 50 clothing companies in Southern California. It found that more than 80% were breaking one or more provisions of federal labor law. One garment maker was paying workers just $1.58 an hour. In what the department described as a "particularly egregious case," one garment manufacturer — making clothes for brands including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Stitch Fix, and Von Maur, per investigators — was found to be paying some workers an hourly rate of just $1.58. It shows, she argued, "that strong federal action is needed to change the abusive pay rates in the American garment manufacturing industry."

☆ A church fired a worker who raised concerns after finding rats and spiders in the kitchen of its childcare center, the Labor Department said
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A Texas church fired a worker who spoke to health authorities about pests in its daycare center, per OSHA. The worker said he'd spotted rats, roaches, and spiders in the facility's kitchen and cafeteria. OSHA ordered New Mount Zion Baptist Church to rehire him and pay him $31,000 in back wages and damages. The next day, the worker was told he was being terminated based on a vote by the church's board, per OSHA. In a preliminary order, OSHA told the church to reinstate the worker and pay him more than $11,000 in back wages and $20,000 in damages.

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