The labor market is still red-hot — and it’s helping union organizers
A red-hot labor market that has afforded workers more bargaining power with employers is fueling a string of recent union victories at high-profile U.S. companies. Workers have voted to unionize for the first time in recent weeks at Trader Joe’s and Chipotle. Unions have also made significant inroads at Amazon, Starbucks, Apple and REI, employers that have long resisted unionization. Behind these small, but notable, victories is renewed popular support among Americans for the labor movement: Seventy-one percent of Americans approve of unions, matching a 53-year high, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday. Continue reading at The Washington Post. (Calla Kessler)
Employees want remote work — but they’re worried about proximity bias
Hybrid workers believe colleagues who work full-time at the office are treated better. About 66.2% of hybrid workers say a “proximity bias” exists that favors colleagues who are together at the office, according to a survey of 1,118 enterprise workers by video collaboration firm Prezi Inc. Even as workers strongly favor some combination of in-office and remote work and the flexibility it brings, those same workers believe their in-office colleagues are more likely to be treated better. That tension over proximity bias is building as companies once again push workers to come back to the office, and data shows the “return to the office” has largely plateaued. Continue reading at Puget Sound Business Journal. (Aleutie)
Seattle’s jail has an ‘astronomical’ suicide rate. Little is changing.
Suicides are the leading cause of deaths in jail here and nationwide, but the number of suicides at the Seattle jail — one of two adult jails run by King County — is extreme, experts say. The rate of suicides at Seattle’s jail since August 2021 has far exceeded national averages from before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the most recent data available. Between 2000-2019, local jails across the country averaged an annual suicide rate of 49 for every 100,000 people in jail. “It’s astronomical,” said Frances Abderhalden, an expert on jail suicides and an assistant professor of criminal justice at California State University, Los Angeles. Continue reading at The Seattle Times. (Jennifer Buchanan)
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The labor market is still red-hot — and it’s helping union organizers
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