As the Senate begins confirmation hearings for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, the administration’s embattled travel ban is top of mind. Twice, federal judges struck down portions of its latest version. Now, the Justice Department is appealing. Will the fight go all the way to the Supreme Court as the president has vowed? Quite possibly.
Meanwhile, another case that could weaken the rights of American workers has (relatively) quietly made its way onto the Court’s fall docket.
The case, Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris (which is combined with two other cases), questions whether businesses can prohibit their employees from taking collective, legal action over workplace issues, such as unpaid wages and discrimination. A ruling in favor of the defendant, “potentially guts many of the core protections that most workers in this country think they have,” says Paul Schiff Berman, professor of law at George Washington University.
Here’s the situation: Big corporations, as well as startups, have increasingly asked new-hires to sign employment contracts containing waivers that forfeit the employees’ rights to pursue class-action lawsuits against their employers. Instead, individual employees are required to use arbitration to settle disputes.
Class-action lawsuits are typically more costly in terms of legal fees and time, compared to out-of-court settlements, which can be more appealing to both companies and employees.
“If an employer engages in unlawful activity that affects its workforce broadly, those claims are often too small to be brought by one person,” says Anne B. Shaver, an attorney with Lieff Cabraser Heimann and Bernstein, a firm that’s represented workers in landmark class-action lawsuits against numerous top Silicon Valley companies.
During the Obama administration, the National Labor Relations Board consistently ruled that these class-action waivers in employees’ contracts were invalid. But conflicting rulings in three circuit courts have pushed the issue up to the Supreme Court.
To be clear, this lawsuit does not pertain to most members of the ever-growing gig economy. Uber drivers, Airbnb hosts and the like operate as freelancers, not traditional employees.
How would the Supreme Court rule with Gorsuch on the bench? In the past, it backed arbitration. With a fifth conservative judge whose judicial philosophy is similar to the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s, businesses may prevail again.
Homepage photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.
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Tag: Business
3 Smart, Forward-Thinking Strategies to House the Homeless
Solutions to SF’s Homeless Problem Starts with Supportive Housing, San Francisco Chronicle
Ten years ago, the City by the Bay set out to end chronic homelessness by placing people in units where they have access to therapists, job assistance and rehab services. The strategy has proven successful, but to put roofs over the heads of the most deep-rooted street people, can San Francisco take the next step and expand the program?
Could This Silicon Valley Algorithm Pick Which Homeless People Get Housing? Mother Jones
In the tech capital of the world, those without homes live on the same streets that house companies worth billions of dollars. Inspired by nearby geniuses and their computing, Santa Clara County created the Silicon Valley Triage Tool, an algorithm that uses data to identify which of the area’s homeless should be housed the fastest.
Why Businesses Don’t Need to Be Helpless About Homelessness, Inc.
Can business owners create a customer-friendly shopping environment and be sensitive to area residents without homes? Brian Kolb, a principal at Paramount Contractors & Developers, says yes, believing that these six moves by private enterprises can help the homeless get the assistance they so desperately need.
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What Do Standout Innovative States Have in Common?
Innovation districts have become the norm in cities across the country, but creation of these areas do not always equate to success. Previous research has shown just because a city supports entrepreneurial efforts or is in close proximity to a research university doesn’t mean it will produce more innovation.
But one business school professor is measuring the best indicators of innovation by looking at the effectiveness of research and development (R&D) investment of all public firms in all 50 states using a measure called research quotient (RQ). Washington University business professor Anne Marie Knott’s method measures the effectiveness of a company’s R&D compared to the competition to see what changes affect the bottom line and a company’s market value.
Knott found that California and Minnesota are leading the way when it comes to innovation. California notches a RQ score of 103.5, with the highest number of publicly-traded firms doing R&D (435), while Minnesota earned an above average score of 101.5 and also had a big portion of companies doing R&D (38).
So what makes these states so successful? Both welcome a wide range of industries and no single type of work comprises more than 15 percent of companies in either state. It’s certainly not features, as California’s sunny climate is a far stretch from Minnesota’s freezing temperatures. Both states are also vastly different in culture and each located in very different parts of the United States.
According to Knott, California and Minnesota share one institutional component: how they approach non-compete agreements. Both states restrict the enforcement of a non-compete, thus creating an environment that enables more people to pursue entrepreneurial ventures without having to leave the state.
As research has shown, states that de-emphasize non-competes result in more innovation as employees have more freedom to start new business ventures in the same industry, which creates an innovation cluster around a successful larger innovator. Comparatively, states that enforce non-compete contracts may retain some employees in the long-term, but the entrepreneurs who are going to leave regardless will end up leaving the state, ultimately hurting the overall production of innovation.
So while California and Minnesota’s friendliness may look like it hinders business production, it’s one of the biggest reasons these states are leading the way in entrepreneurship.
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3D Printing Can Lift People Out of Poverty
With a little help from 3D printing, Madhu Viswanathan, a professor at the University of Illinois in Champaign, is teaching a new kind of innovation that could help disadvantaged students unleash their creativity and succeed in launching a business.
How does he do it? By combining the technology with marketplace literacy (one’s understanding of their place in a commercial trading system), Viswanathan is helping students visualize a product and actually print a prototype that could provide real insight into commercial development.
Viswanathan, who has taught business to some of the world’s poorest communities in places like India and Tanzania, and his colleagues have imported their international strategy to help America’s poor with business basics.
Ron Duncan, a teacher involved in the extension program, says that 3D printing has unlocked a new door to business opportunity for disadvantaged students in this country.
“The fact that it was prototyped in India and Africa means there are more opportunities in those places. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people here who are analogues,” Duncan tells Fast Company. “These crippling elements that stop people from unleashing their creativity are present here as they are in any third-world country.”
Duncan uses four phases in his class: He asks students about what they value (a computer, a necklace, etc.), what and where they buy things, if they can view those places from a retailer’s standpoint and finally, what product they would like to create. While these are fundamental questions in Business 101, Duncan says that it’s important to see commercial relationships from all angles before focusing on product prototyping.
His students have created everything from a personalized license plate holder to a seat-belt clip that lets you release yourself in an emergency. Duncan has taught about 250 students, but is aiming to expand the international-turned-local strategy.
“It’s a human nature kind of thing. When people have a lot of economic stress, their capacity to think is greatly hindered. That’s the same in a lot of places. This project addresses that,” Duncan adds.
MORE: Two Keys to the Future: 3-D Printing and Employed Veterans
How Vacation Incentives May Be the Best Spark for Creative Thinking
It’s no secret that unconventional company policies are a good way to retain employees and increase workplace productivity. From Google to Facebook, Silicon Valley’s tech industry has illuminated the benefits of good employee benefits.
Which is why thinkPARALLAX, a creative agency with 11 employees in California, recently launched a program to award its staff with a $1,500 travel budget to take a trip anywhere in the world.
The caveats? Each employee must choose a location they’ve never been to, travel between September and December and blog about the experience. So far the firm’s website features tales about trips to New Zealand, Peru, Holland and Germany.
“Rather than send employees to conferences or a local museum, we thought, what if our whole team is ‘forced’ to travel to a place they’ve never been, to immerse themselves in a new culture and gather inspiration?” the founders write on their website.
In fact, around 40 percent of Americans do not take their allotted paid vacation time, while 41 percent do not intend to use their paid time off (PTO) even though it’s included in their compensation, according to a survey from the U.S. Travel Association and GfK. Returning after vacation to piles of work or concern over leaving projects unfinished leads Americans to forego their vacation time, and most continue to work even when they’re on vacation: A recent TripAdvisor survey found that over the past year, 77 percent of Americans worked while they were on away.
“When you don’t put a timeline behind things, people tend not to do them,” says Jonathan Hanwit, a co-founder at thinkPARALLAX. “It also forces everybody to realize that they can pick up the slack and creates a more cohesive work environment.”
The creative agency is one of many companies joining the creative benefits band wagon. Airbnb employees receive a $2,000 travel credit to use on Airbnb while TED gives employees a compulsory summer vacation. More recently, Richard Branson’s Virgin Group announced unlimited vacation for the company’s staff in London, New York and Geneva. Netflix also offers unlimited holiday. Other examples include Patagonia, which offers flexible hours for its employees to surf and take advantage of the day’s best waves, as well as Evernote, which gives its employees a $1,000 bonus to take a whole week off.
MORE: This Organization is Sending Business Students on Road Trips for Change
When Communication Barriers Prevented Coworkers from Talking, Goodwill Provided Language Lessons for All
Back in 2006, when Rafael Toquinto, Jr. started working at a warehouse in Denver where Goodwill Industries sorts unsold clothing and household goods for recycling, his coworkers wouldn’t even say hello to him.
The snub wasn’t on purpose. His fellow employees simply didn’t know how to greet him in a way he’d understand.
Why? Because Toquinto, Jr. is deaf.
But now, he and the 16 other deaf Goodwill employees can enjoy some water cooler chatter with their coworkers — thanks to a free class the nonprofit is offering all employees.
Nicki Cantin, a recycling operations assistant who oversees the warehouse where Toquinto works as a certified forklift driver, said that managers were worried that if there was an emergency, they wouldn’t be able to alert deaf employees about it. “We’re supposed to be working as a team, but we couldn’t even talk to each other,” Cantin told Thad Moore of the Denver Post.
For the past two months, warehouse workers have met twice a week for an American Sign Language class taught by Cathy Noble-Hornsby, deaf services program manager for Goodwill Industries of Denver. Toquinto and other hearing-impaired employees work together with their coworkers, helping to teach them sign language and correcting their hand positions. They also demonstrate a sign when a coworkers finger spells what they want to say.
“We’re not outsiders anymore,” Toquinto told Moore.
Toquinto even makes sure his coworkers practice. When they interact with him on the job and lapse into writing what they want to say to him on paper, “I’ll go, ‘OK, enough writing now,'” Toquinto said. “Now come into my world.”
Toquinto trained a new deaf coworker, Josue Candelaria-Facio, on the ins and outs of the warehouse, such as where everything goes — something that Toquinto struggled to learn in the days before all the coworkers could communicate. “I really feel kind of proud that they’re willing to learn my language,” Candelaria-Facio told Moore. “It’s really nice — even on that basic level — to be able to communicate.”
MORE: How 3D Printing Can Teach Blind Kids to Read
Many Politicians Are Dragging Their Feet on Immigration Reform. But This CEO Says It’s Time
Last week several news organizations including the Washington Post and Politico reported that many Washington insiders feel any hope for immigration reform in the near future is “dead,” following the defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in his primary race. But those outside the Beltway aren’t so pessimistic. In a recent speech at the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Greg Brown, the CEO and Chairman of Motorola Solutions, said, “Why is the timing not right for this? I find that unacceptable.”
According to Anna Marie Kukec of the Daily Herald, Brown plans to continue to advocate for immigration reform and rally other business leaders to do so, until it’s revived. According to Brown, it just makes good business sense at a time when the economy remains “fragile.”
Brown said that American businesses cannot find workers with the skills they need, due to limited visas available for high-skilled workers. He believes that hiring such international workers does not take jobs from Americans—on the contrary, it creates jobs for them.
“Immigrant workers are job generators themselves,” he said. “They have a job multiplier effect. So if our goal is to grow a dynamic environment for businesses to be created, grow and thrive, we ought to care about this as a state.”
Motorola Solutions runs programs to encourage American kids to become engineers, working with the Chicago Public Library Foundation, the Museum of Science and Industry, school districts and other organizations. “It’s about preparing the workforce for the jobs that will keep America competitive and enable kids to succeed in the 21st century,” Brown said. “But, unfortunately, it takes 18 years to make an engineer, and the crisis for talent is now.”
MORE: Can An Influx of Immigrants Bolster Michigan’s Economy?
Can a Reverse Boot Camp Help Veterans Find Jobs?
When veterans return from serving their country, it can be hard for them to figure out how to switch gears and transition into a new career.
Genesis10, a St. Paul-based technology and business consulting firm, is doing its part to help veterans go “from deployed to employed,” according to a motto on its website. Part of the process involves what they call a “reverse boot camp,” which helps former service members understand how a business mindset differs from the military one. One specific part of the training? Teaching soldiers “corporate speak,” which is different than how they talked in the military.
Katie Garske, a Genesis10 communications and social media manager told Elizabeth Millard of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal — which named the firm one of its Eureka! Award winners for innovative businesses in the Twin Cities — that lots of programs try to help vets find jobs, but “while well-intentioned, many of these efforts fail to make a significant impact on veteran unemployment, because each approach only partially addresses the issues that contribute to the overall problem.”
After finding there was a persistent demand for IT employees, Genesis10 hired Marine Corps veteran and reserve member Nick Swaggert in 2013 to run its veterans program. The company begins by evaluating prospective veteran employees to find out what their aptitudes and interests are. When it determines a vet would be a good fit for the IT or business sectors, Genesis10 welcomes him or her into its reverse boot camp, so they learn what the firm’s clients are looking for in an employee.
On Genesis10’s website, one veteran writes about his five-month frustrating search for a job that ended when he met a recruiter from Genesis10 looking for veterans with experience in GIS (aka Geographical Information Systems), a military specialization.
“Much of the messaging surrounding veteran unemployment has been ‘do it because it’s patriotic,'” Garske told Millard. “But veterans are not pity hires. Our clients are hiring them because it is a smart business decision.”
MORE: Does Military Jargon Prevent Vets from Landing Jobs?
Inside the $100,000 Deal to Skip College and Start a Company Instead
Imagine that you’re a senior in high school and a man approaches to you with this proposition: He’ll give you $100,000 and mentorship to start a company. The only catch? You can’t go to college.
Do you take him up on it?
Well, for the past four years that’s exactly what Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, has offered high school students across the country.
Out of this year’s 550 applicants, only 20 were chosen this year to become a part of the Thiel Fellows Foundation. Of that group, one quarter are women — a better percentage than last year when only four of the 22 participants were female.
This is a unique opportunity for students, especially considering the growing wealth gap between those with high school degrees and college graduates. Interestingly, despite the lack of higher education, past fellows have contributed to the economy by creating over 182 jobs and adding $87 million in economic action. In the first year of the foundation, five fellows returned to school but since then, Thiel has a perfect record.
Undoubtedly, being a Thiel Fellow becomes more appealing when once you start looking at the success of former program participants. For instance, Dan Friedman is now the co-founder of a company called Thinkful which works with mid-career professionals who want to switch to technical careers. Another, Laura Deming, is now a venture capitalist focusing on anti-aging projects. And Paul Gu is the co-founder of Upstart, a financial company.
This year’s applicants are just as impressive. This year, many proposals focused around bitcoin, machine learning, and hardware, but also include creating a tool kit to help investigative journalists, using technology to improve the hospital-patient relationship, curing cancer, and conducting research on streamlining satellite development. To meet this year’s fellows, click here.
With college becoming an expensive option, Thiel’s offer is a tempting alternative. The opportunity he gives these students is a once in a lifetime chance and is challenging both the role and the importance of higher education. The question is, then, would you apply?
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Could Making Salaries Public End the Gender Pay Gap?
Journalism circles are abuzz with speculation about why the first woman to take arguably the most prominent role in the industry was, by all accounts, fired with little fanfare last Wednesday for her two-and-a-half years of service.
One of the possible reasons provided for this unexpected dismissal: Jill Abramson may have asked too many questions about pay parity. But one writer has a possible solution to this troubling situation facing females — more salary transparency.
The oft-studied gender pay gap has become a touchstone in the modern workplace. As more women graduate college and demand job parity, they want (and deserve) equal pay, too. It’s not just a philosophical debate, but one that impacts families, poverty rates, and a host of socio-economic issues.
More: Ask the Experts: The Pay Gap Explained
Experts have suggested that flexible work schedules and pay scales that depend on output — not hours logged at a desk — could rewrite the pay equity debate. Publicizing salaries also has the potential to change salary inequalities. As the Quartz column notes, staying mum on salary information helps employers, not employees. “Making pay more transparent won’t close the gap on its own, but it puts a burden on companies to at least explain any disparity, and begin to resolve them,” writer Max Nisen notes.
Some firms have started posting salary information on the web. And the salaries of most government employees are public record. The Gray Lady may not be that agile, nor so inclined. But as the fallout from a story that turned a glass ceiling into a glass cliff continues, perhaps it’s time to revisit our assumptions about who knows what when it comes to salary equality.