EverythingPeople This Week!

Last week, President Biden directed OSHA to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure that their employees are either fully vaccinated or that the unvaccinated employees produce a negative test weekly before coming to work. The ETS will also require these employers to provide paid time off for their employees to get vaccinated or to recover if they are “under the weather post-vaccination.”

Henry Ford came up with the number one management idea of the 20th Century: pay the employees what they are worth.  On January 5, 1914, Henry Ford doubled his workers wages to $5 a day, which brings us back to the early days of ASE’s history as the labor exchange providing workers to Ford Motor Company.  By increasing the wages, it paid not only for the way the work was being done, but also valued the time the worker spent in a monotonous setting.  It also gave the...

Recently Delta Airlines announced that it will charge employees on the company health plan a $200 per month additional charge if they fail to get vaccinated against COVID-19. 

Delta argues that the costs of hospital stays for COVID total, on average, about $40,000-$50,000 per incident thus driving up healthcare costs for all employees.

 

As ASE has written about previously, a vaccine mandate is allowed under law, except in jurisdictions which do not allow it, e.g. Montana. In addition, vaccine mandates in a union environment is still under question as to whether it has to be negotiated.  But employers are not flocking to this mandate.  In a recent ASE survey of 143 Michigan organizations, a majority of those surveyed (74.1%) continue to encourage vaccinations, but not mandate them.  Yet, the Delta variant...

With all who are unemployed and those who are actively looking for a new job while working, jobs are not being filled.  There are a reported 9 million jobs available.  Economists are calling the new paradigm “The Great Job Mismatch.”  What is driving this trend?

As COVID changed our work patterns, there is a growing movement to see whether the 5-day a week work cycle is effective or not.  Longer hours and connectivity and burnout are becoming a staple of the workplace.  Further, there is a question of productivity in the long term when workers are so stretched.  Compressed workweeks are used by many organizations.

More and more employers, including the federal government are considering either vaccine mandates or knowledge of an employee’s vaccination status.  Even President Biden will require vaccinations or knowledge of it for all government employees.  In the news recently, Dak Prescott, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, and Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Green both cited HIPAA as a reason to not disclose.  How should employers respond when employees yell out HIPAA?

On April 27, 2021, President Biden signed an Executive Order (EO 14026), “Increasing the Minimum Wage for Federal Contractors.” The EO would set the hourly minimum wage paid to workers performing work on or in connection with covered federal contracts to $15.00 per hour, beginning January 30, 2022.  In order to do so, implementing regulations would have to be promulgated.

It’s neither the one job for life nor the one specific career path for life that motivates the new workforce.  Today, particularly millennials (aged between 25 and 40 years old) and Gen Z (up to 24 years old), are rejecting the concept of one full-time job and a single boss in favor of something that’s being dubbed polywork, or having multiple jobs at once.

The benefits of remote work, when logistically feasible, are immense.  Employees have more flexibility with their day, and employers have found that employees tend to work longer.  It has forced employers to rethink the future workplace. But there are drawbacks. 

Employees want this and they want that.  The most recent issue is arising from the remote work environment.  For those jobs that can be done anywhere, employees expect their compensation to be the same as where they were initially situated, unless they move to a more expensive location, then they want the bump. 

The European Union (EU) has long had pay equity laws since its founding by the Treaty of Rome in 1957.  A 2006 Directive (Directive 2006/54/EC) on equal treatment of women and men in matters of employment and occupation requires employers to ensure equal pay for equal work or work of equal value between women and men. It was complemented in 2014 by a European Commission Recommendation on pay transparency. As of March 2021, according to the latest Eurostat findings, the gender pay gap in...

Women have borne the brunt of the adverse impact of the pandemic.  It has been estimated that more than three million women have left the workforce.  According to a survey by TopResume, 69% of working mothers plan to remain out of work to care for their children.  Of the mothers who left the workforce during COVID, 70% said they voluntarily left to accommodate their children, and 30% said they were laid off. “The pandemic continues to wreak havoc on people's careers, but...

As we begin to pass by the pandemic and bring back workers to the physical workplace, a host of issues has to be reviewed by HR with the new workplace.  In some cases, employers are having a hybrid approach to working.  In other cases, employers are allowing for 100% remote work.  Finally, other employers are requiring 100% return to the office.  And in today’s world, if the job can be remote, recruitment could be expanded outside the normal recruiting area, possibly...

The Biden administration has released their proposed budget, and there is a big boost of spending for the Department of Labor’s worker protection agencies.  Although the labor market will be tight, and HR focus on talent may overtake any other initiatives, compliance cannot be an afterthought for HR.  Further, recent appointments to the worker protection agencies, including National Labor Relations Board, reinforce the need for HR to ensure proper attention and resources are...