DOL to investigate Waffle House for deducting meals from paychecks
A union organizing Waffle House workers has filed a petition to the Department for Labor, requesting it investigates the chain’s policy of deducting mandatory meals from employee’s paychecks. The policy sees Waffle House take at least $3 from each employees’ pay for eating meals whether they choose to do so or not. The Union of Southern Service Workers (USSW), claims many workers neither have the time nor the desire to eat off the Waffle House menu every day, and also claim that even when they do, the meals are being sold to staff at retail price. According to Yahoo! News, It is legal for employers to deduct the cost of employee meals, but they must be provided “at cost” and not at a profit to the company. A charge of $3 would be below the Waffle House menu price, but high if the meal isn’t eaten. The union has asked the Labor Department’s wage and hour division to determine the “actual cost” of the meal and whether Waffle House is overcharging employees. Cindy Smith, a server at a Waffle House in Conyers, Georgia, told HuffPost she usually doesn’t eat the meal she’s charged for. She typically works 30 to 40 hours a week and sees $12 to $15 taken out of her pay for the food, according to the union’s petition. “Why am I paying for food I’m not eating?” asked Smith, 50, who publicly protested the policy in the fall. “Waffle House gets enough money out of us.” Smith said workers must pay full price if they want to take the meal to go, a policy listed in a portion of a Waffle House manual obtained by the union. She also said workers are charged extra for “premium” meats like steaks and pork chops.
Apple agrees to first store’s union terms
Technology giant, Apple, has reportedly entered into its first agreement with a stateside employee union. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (IAM CORE), said it had reached a tentative three-year deal between Cook & Co and the roughly 85 employees the union represents at Apple’s store in Towson, Maryland. The revised three-year contract between Apple and its Towson store workers includes scheduling improvements designed to protect work-life balance, average raises of 10% over the life of the contract, increased starting pay for 80 percent of job classifications, limits on the use of contract employees, a severance clause, and a more transparent disciplinary process. All existing benefits for Towson employees have been maintained in the fresh contract, which also includes an agreement with Apple to bargain with the union on future changes. Apple retail employees in Towson voted to organize with IAM CORE in June 2022. IAM CORE and Apple began negotiations in early 2023 for a collective bargaining contract, though made little progress, leading to Towson employees voting to authorize a strike in May this year. “The true partnership between the IAM, IAM CORE, and Apple workers has led us to this historic moment,” IAM eastern territory general vice president David Sullivan said: “We’re extremely proud to be the first union to take on this fight for Apple workers.”
Walmart to pay $75,000 for failing to accommodate employee’s nerve pain
A Walmart store, which denied intermittent leave to an employee suffering nerve pain in her hand and wrist, must now pay a fine of $75,000 to settle a disability discrimination lawsuit brought by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The employee applied for intermittent leave as a reasonable accommodation, but the accommodation was denied. Walmart told the employee she could not return to work unless she provided a full medical release saying she could work without restrictions. Frustrated by Walmart’s continued refusal to allow her to return to work, the employee made an internal complaint to the company’s global ethics office. Walmart fired her nine days later. Such alleged conduct violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which protects individuals with disabilities from workplace discrimination and prohibits companies from requiring that employees with disabilities have no medical restrictions before returning to work and from retaliating against employees who complain about discrimination. Commenting on the ruling, Melinda Dugas, EEOC Charlotte District Regional Attorney said: “Employer policies requiring employees to show that they are 100% healed, or can otherwise work without restriction, before returning from medical leave violate public policy and run afoul of the ADA.” She added: “The statute prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for seeking a reasonable accommodation. Such conduct has a chilling effect on the willingness of other employees to report unlawful conduct.”
Poll claims RTO mandates are ‘meant to make some workers quit’
Research by BambooHR has found that one in four (25%) of VP and C-suite executives and one in five (18%) of HR professionals secretly admit that they hope for some voluntary turnover during an return to office (RTO) mandate. Moreover, the research also found that 37% of managers, directors, and executives believe their organization enacted layoffs in the last year because fewer employees than expected quit during their RTO. Using RTO as a layoff tool is bad for business because “companies are losing talent and morale among their employees,” according to a spokesperson from BambooHR. They added: “Nearly half (45%), of the employees who have experienced RTO report significant talent loss within their organizations — talent that was highly valued and wished to be retained. Employers should consider these factors before implementing a return to office policy.” More than half (52%) of workers would be willing to take a 20% pay cut in order to achieve their desired quality of life, according to a recent study by Ford.
NLRB drops joint employer ruling…for now
Two months after a US federal judge blocked a rule that would have ensured franchisees are liable for the same labor terms as franchisors, the National Labor Relations Board has dropped its appeal of the ruling. But while it is dropping out of contesting the decision right now, it has left the door open to contest it still in the future. In withdrawing its appeal, the DOL said it would like the opportunity to further consider the issues identified in the district court’s opinion in the first instance,” and added that it still stands behind the legality of the broadened joint employer rule. The joint employer standard has gone through multiple revisions throughout three presidential administrations. In 2015, during the Obama administration, the Browning-Ferris Industries decision set the standard for holding employers like franchisors legally liable for upholding labor standards and regulations, even if the parent company only had “reserved and indirect control” over the employees. In 2017, that rule was overturned during the Trump administration, and in 2020, the joint employer rule was replaced by a new one that did not hold franchisors responsible for franchisees’ adherence to labor rules and regulations.
Supreme Court could be faced with deciding employer abortion coverage
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York, is preparing to file a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court – which, if accepted, will mean the Supreme Court will have to decide whether religious organizations have a right to deny staff coverage for services – such as abortions – if they are contrary to their religious beliefs. Currently, religious entities that employ people outside of the religion are mandated to offer the abortion coverage as part of employee healthcare provisions, and that First Amendment rights did not allow religious organizations to refuse health insurance coverage of abortions. Test cases have since confirmed contested this – such as in June 2022, when the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York ruled that the abortion insurance mandate did not violate the First Amendment. However, in the summer of 2022, the Supreme Court released a ruling that overturned Roe – the nearly 50-year-old decision that protected a pregnant woman’s constitutional right to choose to have an abortion. The case due to be put to the Supreme still has to be accepted, but it is widely thought the Court may conclude that a state ‘is’ within its rights to set insurance requirements even if past decisions have clearly carried pro-life opinions.
Nearly two-thirds of US workers wish they’d started saving for retirement earlier
Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Americans say they wish they’d started saving for their retirement earlier, according to new research by Voya Financial Inc. The poll of more than 1,000 US workers found that half said they started saving for retirement between the ages of 18-34, with Gen Z saying they started saving around the age of 20 (with millennials starting at 24). But despite even this, most said they wished they’d started earlier, with more than half (54%) also saying everyday living expenses (54%) and health-care costs (49%) are having a “severe” or “major” impact on their ability to save for retirement. In addition to wishing they’d saved sooner, more than three-quarters of Gen-Zers (76%) and nearly the proportion of millennials (73%) “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they need help understanding how much to save for retirement. Commenting on the research, Tom Armstrong, Voya’s VP of customer insights and analytics said: “Tools for building emergency savings remain important focus areas for employers.”