gig economy

Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 16:26:59 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

At the Intercept, Avi Asher-Schapiro reports on a new insurance plan that Uber is offering its drivers that could help them recoup wages and cover medical expenses if they’re injured on the job. Asher-Schapiro notes that while some have described the Uber insurance plan — which workers buy by setting aside 3.75 cents per mile — as a form of workers’ compensation, it hardly fits the bill. In fact, in documents obtained by the Intercept, Uber explicitly states that the insurance plan isn’t workers’ comp. He writes:

Compared to traditional workers’ compensation insurance, Uber’s policy represents a major step down in terms of quality, said Michael Gruber, president of the Workers’ Injury Law & Advocacy Group, a non-profit group of attorneys and others focused on occupational claims. For example, in Massachusetts, New York and California, workers’ compensation can pay out two-thirds of salary when a worker is too injured to return to work—while the Uber policy maxes out at half of a driver’s average weekly earnings. Uber’s policy also appears to allow the insurer to deny coverage at their own doctors discretion. Another key feature of traditional workers’ compensation is that an appointed State Board adjudicates disputes that may arise. Those boards are often comprised of both labor and business representatives. Uber’s policy appears to require drivers to submit to a binding arbitration proceeding, explicitly renounce their right to appear before a workers’ comp board, and give up their right to sue or join a class-action lawsuit.

Some advocates believe the insurance offering is just another attempt by Uber to sidestep the question of whether their drivers deserve the benefits that come with being classified as employees, rather than as independent contractors. Asher-Schapiro writes:

In 2015, shortly after Uber launched operations in Alaska, Rhonda Gerharz, the chief investigator for Alaska’s Workers’ Compensation Board, initiated an investigation into the company. She thought that the company was possibly misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors, allowing it to avoid buying expensive workers’ compensation insurance in violation of Alaska law.

“Misclassification is a big deal,” she explained. “If these workers get hurt and the company doesn’t have insurance, the public ends up picking up the bill in the form of benefits like food stamps and low-income housing assistance.”

She began to dig into the exact relationship between drivers and the company. “I look at things like: does the business have the right to hire or fire someone, who’s exercising control of the manner of means to accomplish the task, and who provides the tools for the job,” she told The Intercept.

At first blush, Uber appeared to Gerharz to be operating like a traditional employer, and therefore skirting workers’ compensation laws. But before she could finish her investigation, Uber pulled out of the state entirely.

Read the whole story at the Intercept.

In other news:

NPR: Howard Berkes reports that NPR’s ongoing investigation into black lung disease among coal miners has identified an additional 1,000 cases in Appalachia. That new number means that NPR has identified nearly 2,000 cases of progressive massive fibrosis, which is the most serious stage of black lung, in the Appalachia region since 2010. In comparison, federal health officials have reported just 99 cases nationwide within the same time period, Berkes reports, though officials are working to gain a more accurate picture of the disease’s impact and prevalence. Scott Laney, an epidemiologist with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said in the article that evidence suggests “we are in the midst of an epidemic of black lung disease in central Appalachia.” Berkes writes: “Laney said the mining industry's compliance record has been high for at least a decade. There wouldn't be as much advanced black lung disease now, he suggested, if the compliance rates accurately reflected actual exposure to the coal and silica dust that cause advanced disease.”

News & Observer: Madison Iszler reports on the children who work North Carolina’s agricultural fields, starting her story with Jacqueline Castillo, who was just 7 years old when she started picking tobacco. Castillo said she felt sick nearly every day, often suffering the headaches, nausea and dizziness that happens when nicotine is absorbed through a person’s skin. Federal law allows kids 12 and older to work in the agricultural sector with a parent’s permission, while kids younger than 12 can do nonhazardous work on a farm if their parent is also employed there or gives permission. Iszler reports that even though some companies have changed their policies on child workers, “advocacy groups and farmworkers say few changes have trickled down and underage children are still working.” She notes: “Many children work in agriculture to help their parents financially and some parents can’t afford child care. Only 55 percent of youth farmworkers in the U.S. graduate from high school, according to Human Rights Watch.”

Seattle Times: Rachel La Corte reports that Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill earlier this month guaranteeing residents paid family leave. Beginning in 2020, the new law gives eligible workers 12 weeks of paid time off for the birth or adoption of a child or for a serious medical problem, or 16 weeks for a combination of both. Both employees and employers contribute to the new paid leave system, and employees must work at least 820 hours before they can take advantage of the benefit. La Corte writes: “Sara Reilly, who co-owns Three Magnets Brewing Company and Darby’s Cafe in Olympia, spoke at a rally on the Capitol steps before the signing, and said that she and her husband have wanted to offer paid and family medical leave for their employees, but previously were unable to cover the costs alone. ‘This is an extremely inexpensive way to give our employees a benefit when they so desperately need it,’ she said.”

Huffington Post: Dave Jamieson reports on the efforts of state legislators to overturn local measures that improve wages and working conditions. The story begins in Missouri, where state Republicans passed a measure invalidating a local ordinance passed in St. Louis that raised the minimum wage. The new Missouri law states that no locality can enact a minimum wage that’s higher than the state minimum of $7.70 per hour. Jamieson cites a report from the National League of Cities that found that 24 states now block local minimum wage hikes and 17 states block local paid leave measures. Jamieson writes: “Dennis Shaw, who works at the St. Louis grocery chain Schnucks, received a $1.70 raise due to the St. Louis ordinance. The pay bump translated into an extra $30 or so each week after taxes ― a welcome addition that has helped him pay rent on his one-bedroom apartment downtown and avoid bank overdraft fees. He said that legislators in the state Capitol don’t understand what it’s like for someone trying to survive on the minimum wage in the city.”

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years. Follow me on Twitter — @kkrisberg.

kkrisberg Tue, 07/11/2017 - 12:26

Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Wed, 14 Jun 2017 10:17:29 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

At the Guardian, Krithika Varagur interviewed workers inside the Indonesian factory that manufactures clothing for Ivanka Trump’s fashion line, finding poverty wages, anti-union intimidation and unreasonably high production targets. The story includes interviews with more than a dozen workers, who asked that details about their identities be changed to avoid being fired. Varagur writes:

Alia is nothing if not industrious. She has worked in factories on and off since leaving her provincial high school, through the birth of two children, leading up to her current job making clothes for brands including Ivanka Trump at the PT Buma Apparel Industry factory in Subang, West Java.

Throughout her marriage to her husband, Ahmad, one or both of them has always worked. And yet, says Alia, the couple can never think about clearing their debts. Instead, what she has to show for years of work at PT Buma is two rooms in a dusty boarding house, rented for $30 a month and decorated with dozens of photos of their children because the couple can’t dream of having enough money to have them at home. The children live, instead, with their grandmother, hours away by motorcycle, and see their parents just one weekend a month, when they can afford the gasoline.

Alia makes the legal minimum wage for her job in her province: 2.3 million rupiah, or about $173 a month – but that legal minimum is among the lowest in Indonesia as a whole, and as much as 40% lower than in Chinese factories, another labour source for the Ivanka Trump brand.

PT Buma, a Korean-owned garment company started in Indonesia in 1999, is one of the suppliers of G-III Apparel Group, the wholesale manufacturer for prominent fashion brands including Trump’s clothing.

Many Buma workers know who Ivanka Trump is. Alia noticed her labels popping up on the clothes about a year ago.

Read the full story at the Guardian.

In other news:

Denver Post: Ethan Millman reports that Colorado’s newly adopted Uninsured Employer Act will creates a fund for injured workers whose employers lack insurance. Under the law, the state will still be able to fine employers who don’t have proper workers’ comp insurance, however the fines will now go toward injured employees. A spokesman for the state’s department of labor said: “Essentially in the past, if a worker was to be injured, the worker was left in a very precarious position. If an employer didn’t have insurance, a number of problems would come up for the employee. Unpaid medical bills and other complications arose. With the signing of this bill, employees can get what is needed even if the employer doesn’t have it.”

BuzzFeed News: Cora Lewis reports that the Trump administration is withdrawing Obama-era labor guidance that defined parent companies as “joint employers” alongside their franchisees, making them liable for unfair working conditions at franchise locations. Also being withdrawn is guidance that said gig economy workers should be considered employees of the corporations they work for, as opposed to independent contractors. Lewis reports: “While there are few immediate consequences of the change, it will almost certainly affect the outcome of cases now before the National Labor Relations Board, which concern whether parent companies like McDonald's are responsible for labor conditions at franchise locations, and what rights and benefits companies like Uber owe their drivers.”

Huffington Post: Emily Peck reports that Walmart’s sick leave policy is especially difficult for women, who typically serve as the main caregivers for their families. Walmart workers accrue points every time they have to miss a scheduled shift — accrue a certain number of points and a worker can be fired. A company spokesman said points aren’t mandatory if an employee has a good reason for missing work, but a new report from the legal advocacy group A Better Balance found that the giant retailer “regularly punishes people for taking time off because of a disability or serious illness.” According to the Better Balance report, Walmart has a policy of not keeping or even looking at a worker’s doctor’s note. Peck reports: “Employees say the system effectively scares them from taking sick time and adds stress to already stressful situations. Women, who are often responsible for children at home, are in a particularly tight spot. You can’t always plan in advance for when your child gets an ear infection or needs to be picked up early from school.”

CNBC: Ester Bloom reports that no full-time minimum wage worker in the U.S. can afford a two-bedroom apartment in any state. Reporting on research from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Bloom reported that workers in a number of states would have to make between $20 and $35 an hour to afford such housing. In fact, an American worker earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 would have to work more than 94 hours a week to afford a two-bedroom rental. At the same time, federal housing assistance funds have been declining. Bloom writes: “Some business owners argue that raising the minimum wage will lead to higher prices for consumers, and some economists argue that it could depress job growth or even end up eliminating positions as it leads to more automation. A comprehensive 2016 study from the National Employment Law Project, however, found that the economists' fears aren't justified.”

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years. Follow me on Twitter — @kkrisberg.

kkrisberg Wed, 06/14/2017 - 06:17

Occupational Health News Roundup

kkrisberg — Tue, 30 May 2017 19:46:49 +0000

Occupational Health News Roundup

At Eater, Elizabeth Grossman reports that Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation that would protect undocumented agricultural workers from deportation and provide them and their families with a path to long-term residence and citizenship.

The bill proposes that farmworkers who can prove at least 100 days of agricultural work in the last two years could apply for a “blue card” that grants temporary residency and the ability to work. Farmworkers with a blue card and who work for 100 days a year for five years or 150 days a year for three years would then be eligible for a green card or permanent legal resident status. The spouses and children of blue-card holders would also be eligible for the program. Grossman writes that the proposal has the support of both workers and employers. She writes:

Undocumented farmworkers are the backbone of the United States’ agriculture industry, a situation that has long posed numerous challenges for these workers, their families, and employers. But the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies and aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) action — which has detained farm workers in New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere — has created a climate of fear among workers. And that’s already resulting in labor shortages that are prompting some growers to curtail harvest plans.

On call with reporters, Monterey Mushrooms president and owner Shah Kazemi confirmed the labor situation. “We’re currently short hundreds of workers,” he said. “We have been forced to cut back our production because people are not showing up to work out of fear. “If we don’t have a way to fix our broken immigration system, I don’t think agriculture can survive in this country,” said Kazemi.

Continue reading at Eater.

In other news:

Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin, Emma Brown and Darryl Fears report that the Trump administration is planning to gut the U.S. Department of Labor division that ensures federal contractors abide by nondiscrimination laws as “part of wider efforts to rein in government programs that promote civil rights.” In particular, the plan would fold the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs into the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), even though the two units have very different roles. The reporters writes: “Unlike the EEOC, which investigates complaints it receives, the compliance office audits contractors in a more systematic fashion and verifies that they ‘take affirmative action’ to promote equal opportunity among their employees. Patricia A. Shiu, who led the compliance office from 2009 to 2016, said the audits are crucial because most workers don’t know they have grounds to file a complaint. ‘Most people do not know why they don’t get hired. Most people do not know why they do not get paid the same as somebody else,’ she said.”

Denver Post: In the wake of an oil tank explosion that killed one worker and injured three others, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper says he will “take any necessary action to ensure this doesn’t happen again.” John Ingold reports that state oil and gas regulators have asked oil company Anadarko to conduct a “root cause” analysis of the explosion — a request that state regulators rarely make. OSHA says it’s investigating the explosion. Anadarko already faces lawsuits related to a different explosion earlier this year. That explosion was the result of gas seeping from a cut underground flowline, killing two people and seriously injuring another. Ingold writes: “At least 51 other workers have died in the state’s oil and gas fields since 2003, a Denver Post investigation last year found. When those deaths occur, an interlocking set of laws and regulations often keep companies from facing severe penalties, the Post found.”

BuzzFeed News: Caroline O’Donovan reports that Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., has introduced the first piece of federal legislation addressing the lack of benefits for on-demand workers. More specifically, the bill would create a $20 million fund that organizations could use to build portable benefits programs — benefits that independent contractors could ideally bring with them from gig to gig. The article notes that some states have proposed similar legislation. For example, Washington state lawmakers are considering a bill that would require on-demand employers contribute a certain percentage of profits toward a benefits fund. O’Donovan writes: “Warner, who estimates that currently a third of the US workforce falls outside traditional employment and predicts that figure will increase to 50% by 2020, said his goal is to get people to break out of the ‘mindset that...the only way you got benefits was if you're a full-time, permanent employee.’”

Charlotte Observer: In some good news for workers, Joe Marusak reports that North Carolina’s Unicon Inc. has paid nearly $600,000 in back wages and an equal amount in damages to more than 800 workers who round up and transport chickens to poultry processors. The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division had previously found the company violated federal overtime and record-keeping rules, automatically deducting pay for lunch breaks that workers didn’t actually take and failing to pay workers for the prep and cleanup involved in rounding up chickens. Marusak reported that Mark Watson, a regional administrator with the Wage and Hour Division, said: “This agreement goes a long way to ensure that Unicon’s workers are made whole by providing the wages they earned. It also levels the playing field for other employers in this industry.”

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years. Follow me on Twitter — @kkrisberg.

kkrisberg Tue, 05/30/2017 - 15:46