Labor and employment roundup

7 Comments

  • Re: “Nassau’s labor unions”

    I wouldn’t take this too seriously…Newsday is, and always has been a faithful Democratic party paper (going back at least to the 1960’s when I first read it), and they are trying to unseat the Republican officeholders in Nassau. There is less here than meets the eye.

  • You’re missing a story — the owner of Gothamist and DNAinfo, TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, shut down both sites because their employees joined a union. See, for example, http://fortune.com/2017/11/02/joe-ricketts-shuts-down-dnainfo-gothamist/ (the first link that showed up in my search).

    • Its possible both are true. If the publications aren’t turning a profit, or are barely breaking even with no likelihood of susbtantial future ROI, employees joing a union to collectively bargain for higher wages, increased benefits and/or greater control over their own hours scheduled is the death knell for the business. Better to end it now than to keep throwing good money at a bad investment.

      An online publication can cut costs in raw materials, increase significantly its purchase price (particularly when most of its content is simply amalgamated from other sources), and competes with every sort of online business for click-ad revenue. The only place increased labor costs (likely the single largest cost of that business model) can come from is the (non) existent profits the business isn’t making.

      • “An online publication can cut costs in raw materials, increase significantly its purchase price”

        I seem to me that there is a “not” missing in the above quote.

        • yes, the ‘t turning “can” into “can not” seems to have been clipped – and of course, no edit function. My apologies for the resultant lack of clarity. I missed it when I skimmed the post before submitting.

  • From the article on PDX.

    “At issue are two different visions of PDX: Port officials believe the airport’s mission is to serve passengers and promote the region for tourism and economic development. Labor representatives say the publicly owned facility should focus more on the pay and welfare of airport workers.”

    Shock. A union want to screw the customer to line their own pockets. Sounds like public employees.

  • Off-topic, but aren’t the recent sexual harassment revelations important in the Janus case? Should women (or anyone for that matter) be forced to give money, as a condition of government employment, to an organization that seemed to tolerate harassment?

    And isn’t it a travesty that a condition of state employment is that you have to subsidize sexual harassment liability?