For years now, app companies have been coming under threat from regulatory scrutiny and class action lawsuits for employee misclassification.
The Trump administration has come right out of the gates with a clear message that the White House is open for business, especially if you’re a tech executive hailing from Silicon Valley. This coziness with industry sets up a clash, however, with the droves of working-class voters who delivered the GOP their first popular-vote presidential victory in 20 years and don’t exactly share all the same interests as the Big Tech C-suite.
Nowhere is this tension more apparent than on a host of ongoing labor issues dividing the GOP.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), one of the rare Republicans not entirely hostile to labor, is circulating a bill drafted with help from the Teamsters to strengthen labor law by forcing employers to actually come to the bargaining table with newly formed unions. It’s a loophole currently denying many unions first contracts.
But at the same time, the new Republican chair of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), is pursuing legislation to undermine existing labor law for the rapidly growing gig economy.
Last week, Cassidy unveiled his priorities for the committee this Congress, the top one being a bill to expand “portable benefits” for independent contractors that can be accessed by workers across employers rather than being tied to one job.
All this...
Housing Department clarifies online comments about interim housing units In response to netizens' comments on a social media platform about victims of the fire incident in Wang Fuk Court in Tai Po...