BossFeed Briefing for May 22, 2017. On Friday, more than 35,000 AT&T workers launched a 3-day national strike for good jobs, which a company spokesperson described as “baffling”. Tomorrow, President Trump is slated to release a 2018 budget proposal which is expected to include drastic cuts to Medicaid and other public programs. And the Governor of Tennessee is set to sign a bill this week which will make community college free in that state.
Three things to know this week:
One Amazon security flaw fixed. In a victory for religious freedom & immigrant rights, security officers at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters have won access to prayer space they can use on their breaks.
McDonald’s and Uber have joined forces to offer delivery from more than 1,000 McDonald’s locations across the country. While they can apparently negotiate a national business partnership across multiple franchisees and tens of thousands of drivers in several states, both companies still claim utter impotence around wages.
94% of low-wage workers in the U.S. don’t have access to paid family leave. Time with family is becoming an elite benefit, magnifying inequality in an especially troubling way.
Two things to ask:
Where to begin? Alex Tizon’s revealing account of Eudocia Tomas Pulido, who for 56 years until her death was enslaved to his family, led the Seattle Times to thoughtfully re-evaluate a previously published obituary of Pulido. Turns out the paper's original less-than-forthcoming source had been Tizon himself.
Does this sound like the future? Ambulances were called to the Tesla factory more than 100 times in the past few years to aid workers experiencing serious medical issues. CEO Elon Musk says it’s hurtful and false to claim he doesn’t care, and that he intentionally put his desk “in the worst place in the factory, the most painful place.”
And one thing that’s worth a closer look:
While purely cosmetic tooth whitening has become a $1 billion industry, 1 in 5 Americans over 65 have no real teeth left, the Washington Post details in an important piece. Even people who do have health benefits often lack dental coverage, and are only able to afford care at touring charity clinics. Compounding the issue, poor dental health can limit career prospects — missing or broken teeth are taken as an indicator of poverty, which all too often gets treated as a moral & cultural failing, which can make a job applicant less likely to be hired.
Read this far?
Consider yourself briefed, boss.
The BossFeed Briefing is our look at the world of work, wages, and inequality.