For Retail Workers, Time Is Money

For Retail Workers, Time Is Money

In late November, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a Retail Workers’ Bill of Rights — the first law of its kind in the nation. The focus of the new law might surprise you. A bill of rights for workers is probably about wages, right? Think again....
An Overdue Fix to Overtime

An Overdue Fix to Overtime

There are a lot of ways that businesses are squeezing worker pay. Here’s a big one. On the one hand, millions of Americans are stuck in low-paying part-time jobs that don’t offer them enough hours. On the other, millions more are now routinely forced to work...
Show Up on Thanksgiving or Get Fired

Show Up on Thanksgiving or Get Fired

Most Americans — from the Obama family in the White House to my little family in Texas — will get a much-deserved break from work on Thanksgiving Day. But millions of others won’t. Understandably, firefighters, police, and hospital workers will stay on the job....
Silicon Valley Shakedown

Silicon Valley Shakedown

The demigods of Silicon Valley like to present themselves as miracle workers, able to create electronic wonders (and wondrous profits) from nothing but their vaunted imaginations and entrepreneurial prowess. Well, yes. But there’s another part to that program: their...
Your Server Isn’t on the Menu

Your Server Isn’t on the Menu

At a popular sit-down restaurant in Independence, Missouri, Allison waits tables for $3.60 an hour — the going rate for servers at her restaurant. Advocates of raising the federal hourly tipped minimum wage of $2.13 up to the standard minimum wage — currently pegged...