A possible new law leading to a myriad of lawsuits: A potentially groundbreaking bill making its way through the Massachusetts State Legislature aims to broadly ensure psychological safety in the workplace, marking a key development in efforts to combat workplace bullying and potentially stoking momentum for similar bills in other jurisdictions.  A Massachusetts bill that advocates call the Workplace Psychological Safety Act would address forms of workplace mistreatment such as bullying that are not covered by existing protections.  Bill H. 1882, which advocates are calling the Workplace Psychological Safety Act, would help close the gap between anti-bias law and forms of workplace mistreatment, such as bullying, that don't necessarily fall neatly within existing protections, experts said. "As an employee side attorney, I will say that there are a lot of people that I send away for not having viable legal claims who would fall under this law," said Gavi Bogin-Farber of Boston firm Segal Roitman.  Such a broad law, if enacted, would require courts to determine limits of actions that could be brought.  Anything would be fair game.  Source:  Law360 1/24/24

Do you sit too much? New research shows that folks who spent most of their workday sitting were 16% more prone to an early death, compared to folks in non-sitting jobs. The Taiwanese study did offer workers a glimmer of hope, however: Getting up & moving a bit during the workday or adding a bit of leisure-time exercise greatly reduced the risk. The researchers hope that, someday, days spent sitting for work might be looked upon as just another unwanted, unhealthy habit.  "Prolonged occupational sitting is [now] considered normal," the investigators said. The study was published Jan. 19 in the journal, JAMA Network Open. That risk rose with age and was somewhat more pronounced in women (21%) than men (13%), the study found. When looking at deaths from heart disease, Wen's group found that people who mostly sat through their workdays had a 34% higher risk than non-sitters. Risks were roughly similar for men and women. However, small changes at work or home did seem to mitigate all these health risks.  The study found that people whose workdays consisted of a combination of sitting and moving around "did not experience increased risk of all-cause mortality."  Good news – exercise does reduce the risk.  Source: Health Day 1/19/24

Employees want to switch jobs: Millions of workers switched jobs over the past few years, enticed by abundant openings and big pay raises from companies desperate to hire. The market for salaried, white-collar jobs has since cooled, but workers’ itchiness to find new work hasn’t. Roughly 85% of 1,000 U.S. professionals polled in a new LinkedIn survey say they are thinking about changing jobs this year, up from 67% a year earlier. While the market for hourly jobs remains robust, the number of listings for finance, marketing, software development, and other white-collar fields has fallen below pre-pandemic levels, according to data from the jobs site Indeed. On LinkedIn, one job opening is available for every two applicants. A year ago, jobs outnumbered applicants two to one.  The upshot? Plenty of workers feel stuck, and that is helping to fuel job dissatisfaction. Many continue to wrestle with questions of work-life balance and have watched recent pay raises be eclipsed by inflation. Meanwhile, bosses are calling on them to do more with less. The latest Gallup survey research shows that the share of U.S. workers who say they felt engaged in their jobs slipped in the second half of 2023 after a slight rebound in the first half.  Source:  Wall Street Journal 1/24/24

To remain competitive, employers will be updating their leave policies: Most (84%) U.S. employers are planning to make changes to their leave programs in the next two years, according to a new survey by WTW, in an effort to remain competitive and improve attraction and retention. WTW’s 2023 Leave, Disability and Time-off Trends Survey found supporting attraction and retention strategies to be the number one driver for making changes to paid leave, time off or disability programs, cited by almost three-quarters (73%) of employers that have made or plan to make changes to their leave programs. Nearly as many (72%) cited enhancing the employee experience as a top reason. These reasons for making changes are consistent, with just small variations, across all employer sizes, from 100 employees to more than 25,000 or more employees. They also hold across a wide span of industries. Among the changes, employers plan to enhance parental leave, bereavement leave, and caregiver leave. 25% of those that offer bereavement leave intend to increase the value of their current offering, with half of those employers. For caregiving leave, 22% of employers are planning or considering it over the next two years.  Also, more companies are planning to adopt unlimited paid time-off (PTO) programs in the next two years.  Source: CCH 1/25/24

Union membership stagnates:  The union membership rate--the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions--was 10% in 2023, little changed from the previous year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.4 million, also showed little movement over the year. In 1983, the first year for which comparable data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1% and there were 17.7 million union workers.  Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics: 

• The union membership rate of public-sector workers (32.5%) continued to be more than five times higher than the rate of private-sector workers (6.0%).
• The highest unionization rates were among workers in education, training, and library occupations (32.7%) and protective service occupations (31.9%).
• Men continued to have a higher union membership rate (10.5%) than women (9.5%).  table 1.)
• Black workers remained more likely to be union members than White, Asian, or Hispanic workers.

Source:  BLS 1/23/24

Governor Whitmer Releases FY' 25 Budget Recommendation: MMA Reports that Governor Whitmer released her FY ’25 Executive Budget Recommendation before a joint meeting of the Michigan House and Senate Appropriations committees. This annual presentation begins the process for adopting the state’s next budget year that begins on October 1, 2024. An $80.7 billion budget was proposed ($14.3 billion General Fund/General Purpose; $18.9 billion School Aid Fund). Though there are a larger number of business development programs proposed, some of the funding items pertinent to employer needs are:

• $20 million one-time increase for the Going PRO Talent Fund (making a total of $74.8 million available for employer training grants).
• $45 million for additional support to vocational education and career and technical education, including a new pilot program to connect high schoolers with key local industries to support pathways to certifications, credentials, and careers.
• $4 million for global talent and retention to improve the state’s efforts to welcome and integrate international talent.

Source:  MMA