BossFeed Briefing for May 16, 2022. The Friday before last, DoorDash started running a pop-up ad in their app which suggested the company pays workers $2.27/hour. Last Wednesday marked 128 years since Pullman railcar workers kicked off a nationwide strike, which ultimately involved 250,000+ workers and limited railway traffic in 27 states. Today is the 43rd anniversary of the death of labor leader A. Philip Randolph, who organized and led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Tomorrow is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. Friday is National Be A Millionaire Day, which this website says celebrates the idea of being rich, urging aspiring millionaires to “start a savings account”.
Three things to know this week:
Gig workers wrote an open letter to the Seattle City Council, outlining how our PayUp policy will advance equity for workers of color. Gig company lobbyists have claimed that it’s somehow equitable to continue paying subminimum wages to workers of color, disabled workers, and immigrant workers.
Starbucks executives say they’re “deeply concerned” after Starbucks Workers United union organizers met with President Biden at the White House. That same week, Starbucks announced it would expand benefits for workers, but only for those at non-unionized stores.
Median home prices in King County have reached nearly $1 million. Prices in Seattle rose by 16% over the last year, and by 24% in Southeast King County, which includes Renton, Kent, and Auburn.
Two things to ask:
Shall we do the math? 22 major corporations spent $800 million last year on stock buybacks to enrich shareholders—and just $27 million on higher wages for workers. Lowe's spent $36,000 per worker on the stock buybacks, money that could have more than doubled the median hourly wage for Lowe’s workers.
Anyone buying that explanation? Amazon fired six senior managers at its warehouse in Staten Island, where workers recently formed the first Amazon workers’ union in the country. A company spokesperson said the firings were all just part of Amazon’s effort to “continually improve…our team.”
And one thing that's worth a closer look:
It’s been a year since the Biden administration promised to support an intellectual property rights waiver on COVID vaccine technology, a move intended to expand global access to vaccines—but since then, the United States has failed to use its power at the World Trade Organization to deliver on that promise, says public health expert Tian Johnson of the African Alliance in an interview for In These Times. Johnson says that dozens of manufacturers across Asia, Latin America, and Africa are ready and able to mass produce vaccines, but Pfizer and Moderna refuse to share their vaccine recipes, citing intellectual property concerns, which is why getting the WTO waiver remains important as ever. Just 21.3% of people on the entire African continent have gotten at least one vaccine dose, compared to 79% in the U.S. Johnson argues that ending the pandemic is impossible until global vaccine justice is prioritized: “If you have the answer to reducing death and hospitalization…and you are refusing to share that with us, that tells us you are not on the side of humanity.”
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!