BossFeed Briefing for March 15, 2022. Last Wednesday, members of the US House Judiciary Committee alerted the Justice Department about “potentially criminal conduct” by senior Amazon executives who sought to crush digital competition. Last Thursday, the 2022 WA legislative session came to a close. Last Saturday, the WA mask mandate ended. This Saturday marks 19 years since the United States invaded Iraq. This Sunday is the first day of Spring.
Three things to know this week:
Efraín, a former cook at a sports bar and grill in Seattle, got $72,000 in a wage theft settlement. He was required to work overtime hours, didn’t get any breaks, and was only paid for a flat 40 hours each week—no matter how many additional hours he actually worked.
As gas prices soar, gig workers on apps like DoorDash and Instacart are taking home less money after expenses. Gig companies shift all the expense of driving to workers, which means workers currently carry all the risk of rising prices.
The majority of workers who quit their jobs in 2021 pointed to low pay, lack of opportunities for advancement, and feeling disrespected as primary reasons for leaving, according to a Pew research study. People who quit and found new jobs were also more likely to say their new job has better pay, more work-life balance, and better flexibility.
Two things to ask:
Hard to see the sunny side when it comes to sub-minimum wages? Poached Jobs, an app-based hiring platform for restaurants, is now offering on-demand restaurant shifts to gig workers. Like other gig workers on apps including DoorDash and Instacart, workers on Poached Shifts are also excluded from basic labor protections—but that will change when we pass our PayUp policy in Seattle to require a minimum wage after expenses and other protections.
How much do you think they get paid to argue against pay transparency? The WA state legislature passed a bill this year requiring employers to include hourly pay or salary information in all job postings. Big business lobbyists opposed the bill, claiming it would be “cumbersome” for employers and could lead to “unintended consequences”.
And one thing that's worth a closer look:
Hundreds of thousands of people with long-haul COVID-19 experience symptoms that make them too disabled to work, but must fight insurance companies that claim they’re not disabled enough to qualify for disability benefits, reports Christopher Rowland for The Washington Post. As many as 1.6 million Americans are sick with long COVID—dealing with chronic symptoms like extreme fatigue, heart abnormalities, and cognitive problems—and cannot return to work. Upon applying for disability benefits, though, many people face a maze of obstacles erected by both private and public insurers to deny their claims: requirements they provide proof of a positive COVID test, despite widespread testing shortages; demands for “documentation” of physical impairment, despite doctors diagnosing serious cognitive impairment; and referrals for additional specialized medical tests, despite monthslong backlogs at the facilities where those tests are offered. During prior COVID waves, our social safety net too often failed to ensure workers have economic security—now, those same systems must be overhauled to account for the long-term disability of millions as a result of this pandemic.
Read this far? Consider yourself briefed, boss.
Let us know what you think about this week's look at the world of work, wages, and inequality!