BossFeed Briefing for March 22, 2022. Last Tuesday, the U.S. Senate approved a bill to make daylight savings time permanent, in what has been described as a struggle between morning people and night people. Last Wednesday, Starbucks announced Howard Schultz will return to the company as interim CEO. Last Thursday was both Purim and St. Patrick’s Day. Tomorrow is the 12th anniversary of President Obama signing the Affordable Care Act into law. This Thursday marks two years since Governor Inslee issued a stay-at-home order in response to COVID-19.
Three things to know this week:
WA state investigators fined Amazon $60,000 for willfully putting workers at risk of serious injury at its Kent warehouse. Amazon hauled in $33.4 billion in profits in 2021 alone, enough to cover 556,666 fines of that amount.
Workers are speaking out to demand that the state stop trying to take back millions of dollars in unemployment benefits. The threatening collections letters—which the state calls “overpayment notices”—often demand people repay many thousands of dollars in benefits they’ve already used to pay the bills when they were out of work.
The U.S. House passed a bill banning discrimination against locks, braids, afros, and other Black hairstyles. Back in 2020, the WA state legislature passed a similar law prohibiting racial discrimination based on hairstyle.
Two things to ask:
How bleak is too bleak? Amazon is rolling out Amazon Experiences—a new service that lets users remotely steer around another human being wearing a livestream camera and microphone. Amazon tells customers that “your host can hear you but can’t see you."
Who counts as part of the “public”? Kitsap County announced it will start banning people who are homeless from camping in public parks. The director of Kitsap County Human Services says the new plan will “allow the county to issue a trespassing charge to those who fail to leave” come April.
And one thing that's worth a closer look:
With many companies bringing remote workers back to the office, Emily Laber-Warren makes the case against rigid 9-to-5 schedules, arguing for greater schedule flexibility to improve employee health, productivity, and overall well-being. Laber-Warren notes that allowing workers greater control over when and how they work has many benefits: it supports people balancing caregiving responsibilities; it helps people manage medical conditions and make it to appointments; and it fosters more restful sleep. Overall, it’s a compelling argument—but also one totally rooted in the experiences of wealthy office-based professional workers. While it’s true that many jobs, especially low-wage jobs, require workers to be onsite during shifts, all workers need control over their time and schedule: How can we ensure that greater workplace flexibility doesn’t become even more of a luxury reserved for wealthy workers than it already is?
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!