Another case of racial discrimination came forward when a Black woman employed at ‘Pret A Manger’ – an international chain of sandwich shops – sued the company for racial bias and hostile work environment under New York City Law. According to the filed complaint, Shaquana Battle alleged she was subjected to daily use of a racial slur by her manager as well as co-workers at the New York City store. Post her complained to the corporate office, Battle alleged that she was given reduced hours, passed over for promotions, and was assigned menial tasks.
Wall Street banks – the leading US banks like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Bank of America – are in no rush to call their employees back to work. That’s what the message being shared by these major money center banks with large trading operations. The banks have reported earnings this week. JPMorgan said about 80% of its employees were still working from home. Similarly banks like Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Bank of New York revealed that about 85%, 90%, and 85% respectively of their staff was working from home. Health concerns were the major reasons for work from home.
According to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals that was held on Thursday, it was stated that creditors who had obtained and served a valid order to garnish the wages of a federal employee could keep garnishing those wages even if the employee moved to a new or another state.
Amazon – the retail giant – is in the controversy again – with a warehouse worker accusing the company of retaliating against her for speaking out about its labor practices. Hibaq Mohamed, who worked at Amazon’s Shakopee, Minnesota had accused Amazon of retaliating against her when she spoke out about its labor practices. According to the internal resources, Mohamed was written up in early July for violating the organization’s time off task policies that tracks a worker’s productivity resulting in either warnings or firings.
According to a press release shared by the organization Chipotle on Wednesday, it was revealed Chipotle plans to hire up to 10,000 new employees during the coming few months. This recruitment would be on top of the earlier recruited 8,000 employees at the chain since May. The recruitment announcement also coincided with the opening of Chipotle’s 100th Chipotlane restaurant in the US.
According to a letter, the important US House Democrats are also backing the push made by airline unions for a fresh round of government bailouts to keep workers employed. There have been reports of tens of thousands possible layoffs this fall. The last bill, which Congress had approved in March was for $32 billion for the aviation industry to keep workers on payroll through 30 Sept, 2020.
Facebook chief diversity officer Maxine Williams in a recent interview to one of the business news channel revealed the plans of the social media. According to Williams, Facebook would now factor its executives action points for diversity and inclusion within their organizations for their bi-annual performances reviews. Williams also said that the organization had begun factoring in these diversity reports in the second half of 2019.
In an interesting twist of events, a Rite Aid worker who had filed a lawsuit against company citing ageist statements made by the district manager were not severe enough to prevail on a claim of age discrimination. The late Michael Kheibari had sued the nationwide drugstore chain for age, national origin discrimination and retaliation, in violation federal and state law. The district court ruled against Kheibari stating his claims were not severe enough to support an age bias claim.
According to an internal announcement by Jobvite – software and recruiting firm – procured the AI and data science at Predictive Partner. The announcement was made on 13 July, 2020. According to the announcement AI is a basic tool for talent acquisition professionals. Morgan Llewellyn – CEO Predictive Partner – would serve as Jobvite’s chief data scientist and would lead a team by using AI through predictive analytics, data science, automation, machine learning, and NLP.
As coronavirus continues to sap traveling demands, the airlines are forced to offer buyouts to their employees in order to cut costs. In a recent development related to coronavirus crisis, American Airlines had warned its about 25,000 front-line employees nearly 29% of the employees that they could face job losses this fall. American Airlines is the latest airline to prepare its employees for job cuts as COVID cases increases and dashing hopes for a quick rebound in travel demand.
Minority- and women-owned business enterprises (MWBEs) face lots of challenges, however, the major challenge they face is an easy access to Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans especially during the global pandemic. The issue was a major topic of discussion during a US House of Representatives virtual hearing 9 July, 2020. The historical challenges MWBEs face include the obvious ones – lack of access to capital and systemic racism, which forced them to close shops during the deadly pandemic.
In another incident Ryder and MXD Group have asked a federal judge to sign off on a $5 million settlement. The move was aimed to resolve misclassification claims brought against the companies. It was revealed that the class action involved more than 300 ‘Motor Carriers’ who contracted directly with the organizations and more than 600 ‘non-carriers’ that were authorized to assist the Motor Carriers but were not in direct contract with the companies.
Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc are in trouble again, as Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against the two companies for allegedly misclassifying their drivers as independent contractors instead of employees who are entitled to extensive benefits. The lawsuit was filed in Suffolk Superior Court and claimed Uber and Lyft violated state minimum wage, hour, and sick time laws.
According to economists, the unemployment claim amid COVID-19 crisis was high yet much-needed. However, it should phase out gradually instead of just cutting it off. While the government’s expansion of unemployment benefits to encompass more out-of-work workers, helped millions of Americans who lost their jobs during the crisis, the additional benefits expires on 31 July, 2020. The lawmakers are wondering how to move forward considering the situation. While ‘back-to-work’ bonuses for those who find a job have been proposed, economists feel that it won’t be able to replace the boost of $600 in unemployment benefits.
In a recent announcement made by the organization Yelp, it was revealed Yelp planned to bring most of its 1,100 furloughed employees and would also restore employee pay and work hours beginning 10 August, 2020. In the announcement, the company also stated it plans to extend the closure of workplaces well into 2021. A move resulting in the laying off of 63 more employees.
Delta Air Lines would be able to avoid involuntary furloughs in the fall, as its more than 15,000 employees showed their interest for early buyout packages. The move came in the wake of other US airlines sounding the alarm on jobs. Delta Air Lines – one of the large US airlines – had been encouraging employees to leave voluntary before the government ban on forced job cuts expires on 30 Sept, 2020. Delta Air Lines had given its employees a deadline of 13 July, 2020 to accept early departure or early retirement packages.
In a recent development, employer was sued by one of its employee one Bryan Kelly for his informal requests for FMLA leave. According to the lawsuit filed by Kelly, it was revealed that he had informally and verbally notified his managers of his wife’s second pregnancy and that he intended to take FMLA leave about eight months later. But he had ‘never once’ formally applied for leave in the six months between notifying his managers and his termination.
According to a lawsuit filed by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), it was claimed executives at a New York Mitsubishi dealership did not do anything to prevent the sexual harassment of women employees by a general manager. EEOC in a lawsuit alleged the vice president of human resources witnessed and encouraged the harassment the repeated sexual harassment of female employees.
Continuing with the wave of executive departures, which initiated in December, Google’s chief compliance officer for more than a decade, Andy Hinton resigned and left the organization in March, 2020. According to Hinton’s interview with CNBC, he revealed he had departed from the company in late March to join a startup called #NotMe as their advisor. He refuted the claims that mounting controversies at Google were the reason for his departure.
In an internal memo, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., revealed its plans to slash about 4,000 jobs in the UK and also suspend stock buybacks as demand declined in its international business amid COVID-19 crisis during the chain’s latest quarter. The pharmacy chain revealed on Thursday that the global pandemic had sliced out about $700 million to $750 million in sales for its quarter ended 31 May, 2020. The biggest impact was felt on its global retail-pharmacy business.
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