Legislative Alert: 2013 National Defense Authorization Bill

[Excerpt] On behalf of the AFL-CIO, I write in opposition to provisions changing nuclear weapons worker health and safety programs that are included in the Ltouse Armed Services Committee\u27s 2013 National Defense Authorization bill. These changes would seriously weaken worker safety & health protections at Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons complexes

On-Demand Employment, Worker Misclassification, and Labor Standards

[Excerpt] On-demand platform work, like other forms of contingent and temporary employment, destabilizes industries, undermines worker protections and living standards, and significantly contributes to wealth and income inequality

Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States

Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distorting production choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiring below efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affect productivity. These theoretical predictions have rarely been tested. We use the adoption of wrongful-discharge protections by U.S. state courts over the last three decades to evaluate the link between dismissal costs and productivity. Drawing on establishment-level data from the Annual Survey of Manufacturers and the Longitudinal Business Database, our estimates suggest that wrongful-discharge protections reduce employment flows and firm entry rates. Moreover, analysis of plant-level data provides evidence of capital deepening and a decline in total factor productivity following the introduction of wrongful-discharge protections. This last result is potentially quite important, suggesting that mandated employment protections reduce productive efficiency as theory would suggest. However, our analysis also presents some puzzles including, most significantly, evidence of strong employment growth following adoption of dismissal protections. In light of these puzzles, we read our findings as suggestive but tentative.

Do Employment Protections Reduce Productivity? Evidence from U.S. States

Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distorting production choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiring below efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affect productivity. These theoretical predictions have rarely been tested. We use the adoption of wrongful-discharge protections by U.S. state courts over the last three decades to evaluate the link between dismissal costs and productivity. Drawing on establishment-level data from the Annual Survey of Manufacturers and the Longitudinal Business Database, our estimates suggest that wrongful-discharge protections reduce employment flows and firm entry rates. Moreover, analysis of plant-level data provides evidence of capital deepening and a decline in total factor productivity following the introduction of wrongful-discharge protections. This last result is potentially quite important, suggesting that mandated employment protections reduce productive efficiency as theory would suggest. However, our analysis also presents some puzzles including, most significantly, evidence of strong employment growth following adoption of dismissal protections. In light of these puzzles, we read our findings as suggestive but tentative.Dismissal Costs, Employment Fluctuations, Entry and Exit, Labor Productivity, TFP, Entrepreneurship.

Protecting domestic worker rights in Bangladesh: could a cross-class alliance work?

There are almost two million domestic workers in Bangladesh. The informal nature of their employment, limited legal protections and heterogeneous nature of the workers puts them in a vulnerable position and makes collective bargaining difficult. In light of this, Tasmiah T. Rahman argues efforts to protect worker rights could be more effectively facilitated by a cross-class alliance between the employer and worker, supported by local CSOs/NGOs

International Labor Migration: A Responsible Role for Business

Outlines trends in labor migration in international supply chains and proposes an action plan for businesses to raise awareness and engage with suppliers to protect foreign workers' rights. Includes a case study of the Philippine government's policies

Home Is Where the Work Is: Inside New York's Domestic Work Industry

New York City is a leading force in the global economy, but it couldn't be without the 200,000 domestic workers who sustain the city's families and homes. Domestic workers enable New Yorkers to work and have leisure time knowing that their children, elderly, and homes are taken care of. Domestic workers also enable their employers to meet the demanding hours required for the smooth functioning and productivity of the professional sectors. Domestic work forms the invisible backbone of New York City's economy.This groundbreaking report shines a spotlight on the hidden workforce of domestic workers who keep the city's economic engine running every day. It delivers legal, historical, anecdotal, and unprecedented survey-based information. The data are the result of the first ever industry-wide analysis of domestic workers by domestic workers, based on 547 worker surveys, 14 worker testimonies and interviews with 7 employers. An overview of exclusionary labor laws illustrates the explicit legislative discrimination against domestic workers, while an economic history of domestic work in the U.S. and analysis of present day global pressures that impact the industry illustrate structural dynamics that foster worker abuse

U-Pick – Are Agritourism Workers Exempt From the Wage and Hour Protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act?

Pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA” or “the Act”), employer must pay workers at least the minimum wage and overtime pay for all hours worked in excess of forty hours in a standard workweek, unless the worker fits within one of the law’s exemptions. The FLSA contains a complete exemption for agricultural workers from the overtime pay provision and a partial exemption from the minimum wage provision. The exemptions from the minimum wage and overtime pay are not the only exemptions in the FLSA for agriculture, but they are the focus of this Article and are referred to herein as “FLSA’s agricultural exemptions.” Although the complete exemption has been modified in the years since the passage of the FLSA, farm workers still do not enjoy the full wage and hour protections of the FLSA

Gendered work and migration regimes

This chapter examines the relationship between the gendering of domestic work – its construction as ‘women's work’ – and the treatment within migration regimes of people who do such work. Research on paid domestic workers to date has highlighted that there are many examples of migrant domestic workers being subject to more stringent, limiting or invasive visa regulations than other migrant workers (see, e.g. Constable, 2003; Mundlak & Shamir, 2008; Pratt, 2004; Yeoh & Huang, 1999a, 1999b). Additionally, domestic workers can be excluded from employment protections, such as those that ensure minimum wages or maximum working hours for other groups (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 2001; Mundlak & Shamir, 2008; Pratt, 2004)

A Third Class of Worker: The Dependent Contractor

The following research paper is intended to address the worker classification issue that has intensified due to the rise of the gig economy. After reviewing the current literature on the subject, it will be made clear that a change must be made to the binary classification system that is used in the United States, and to the methods used to categorize workers within the system. This paper proposes the addition of a ‘dependent contractor’ category, which would be a subcategory of employee, and would fall between independent contractor and employee in terms of what benefits they would be entitled to. In addition, a modified version of The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) test would be the only test used to classify workers. This would effectively limit the confusion that presently exists due to the use of multiple classification tests. Prior to any of these systematic changes being made, it is also proposed that a ‘safe harbor’ period be implemented to allow organizations the opportunity to prepare for any burden that they may face due to the changes that are eventually made, and for some dependent contractor benefits to naturally emerge