Labor and employment roundup

  • Welcome news: Labor Secretary Alex Acosta urges states to fix occupational licensing [Eric Boehm, Reason] Fresh thinking on the antitrust angle in a bill from Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) [Ilya Shapiro, Cato] “Occupational licensing should not be used to keep honest Americans out of work” [Clark Neily, The Hill] Video of Heritage panel on the subject with Maureen Ohlhausen of the FTC, Alex Tabarrok, Paul Larkin, and Dexter Price [Marginal Revolution]
  • “The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has allowed an employee to pursue a disability discrimination claim based on the use of medical marijuana.” [Jon Hyman]
  • That’s how we’ll solve difficult issues of statutory interpretation. We’ll call names [Richard Thompson Ford, Take Care, on expansion of Title VII interpretation to sexual orientation, earlier here, here, etc.] More: Scott Greenfield;
  • If not for wise lawmakers like those in California, who would look out for our privacy? [Steven Greenhut on proposal to give unions private workers’ phone numbers and addresses]
  • D.C. politicians are one big reason residents east of Anacostia River have poor grocery options [Diana Furchtgott-Roth; minimum wage]
  • Uniform, predictable test needed for who is an “employee” and “employer” [Glenn Lammi, WLF, first and second posts]

4 Comments

  • “D.C. politicians are one big reason residents east of Anacostia River have poor grocery options”

    So the Manhattan Institute is advocating that the government should subsidize the wages of grocery store workers in poor areas of DC? Because at $8.25/hour, you can work 50 hours/week, never take a day off all year, and you’ll qualify for food stamps in DC.

  • They are going to subsidize them either way, I would rather subsidize the difference of $8.25 per hour to $15.00 than from $0.00 to $15.00. Remember, the true minimum wage is $0.00

  • Min wage for walmart is $10/hour. Depending on state law, that goes up for night differential. It also goes up for what they call “metro markets”. Apparently they still make a profit. Note, profit is not evil, it is simply what is required for a business to stay in business and be there next year and maybe the year after to continue providing product. I realize that this site gets that, however some of the visitors may not.

  • Post at arstechnica in regards to the Scotus case to be heard 10/2/2017. Engineer whose blog post caused a storm at Uber has filed a Supreme Court brief
    She’s all about the class action, arbitration not so much.