BossFeed Briefing for April 29, 2019. Last Tuesday, 21 people were arrested for successfully hacking and stealing 100 vehicles from Car2Go. Last Wednesday, Facebook stock jumped after the company announced it was expecting to pay $3 billion - $5 billion in fines for privacy violations. Last Thursday the state legislature finally passed a bill requiring hospitals to provide rest & meal breaks. Last Friday, KHQ News reported that State Representative Matt Shea was part of a creepy-AF racist group chat called “The White Movement”. And this Wednesday is May Day.
Three things to know this week:
The owners of a Kent-based electronic-waste recycling facility have been sentenced to jail for failing to actually recycle several million pounds of electronic waste. Instead they simply shipped hazardous materials to Hong Kong where the items were smashed, causing some toxins to be inhaled by the people working there and other toxins to be released into the environment.
Amazon uses a warehouse management system which generates written warnings and termination paperwork “without human intervention”. Workers do not self check-out though; a person is still used to deliver the news.
Starbucks has agreed to install needle-disposal boxes in numerous locations across the country. The company finally took the step after a petition about the issue was signed by more than 5,000 baristas, the initiator of the petition themself experienced a needle stick, and OSHA began investigating.
Two things to ask:
Did she at least list it on AirBnB? Oprah purchased an $8.3 million, 43-acre estate on Orcas Island last year, but she has yet to visit. About half the population of San Juan County earns less than $50,000 a year.
Will they have lots of fun? Vancouver-area Republican Congressmember Jaime Herrera Beutler is holding a June fundraiser featuring New Kids on the Block. Step one on this path was Donnie Wahlberg endorsing Marcio Rubio for President in 2016.
And one thing that's worth a closer look:
There’s not a single black person among the 36 people who do executive-level creative work at CBS-TV, former employee Whitney Davis points out in her must-read Variety op-ed Why CBS Has a White Problem. As Davis details, over her decade-plus career at the network, she experienced co-workers who couldn’t be bothered to distinguish her from other black women in the same office, a senior producer intent on touching her hair and telling inappropriate jokes, and more (and even worse). Even the most blatant incidents of workplace discrimination were met with advice to deal with it by developing “thicker sin.” While this kind of experience is all too common in all too many workplaces, it’s especially bracing to reckon with just how broken is the workplace culture of a workplace that helps make our culture.
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Consider yourself briefed, boss.
Let us know what you think about this week's look at the world of work, wages, and inequality!