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“Today’s proposal is an important next step in the process to receive public input to craft a ‘win-win’ final rule that protects workers while being practical and workable for employers,” Parker said.
The department said that new regulations could provide protection for some 36 million workers nationwide, particularly people of color, who are more likely to work in roles that could expose them to extreme heat.
Heat-related deaths have climbed over the past few years as the globe continues to grapple with more extreme weather conditions, and scientific consensus says climate change brought on by human activity is to blame.
The Labor Department proposal would create a range of new protections based around two separate heat index thresholds.
At the first trigger, when the combined temperature and relative humidity hits 80 degrees, employers would be required to provide drinking water and rest breaks.
Getting the rule finalized will be an uphill battle during a tumultuous election year and amid strong opposition from deep-pocketed lobbying groups.
It's honestly kinda sad that we even need something like this, but there's been so many laws recently that seem to have cruelty towards low wage workers as their primary point.
The separation of the State and Federal governments really wasn't equipped to deal with a death cult taking over.
OSHA standards are written in blood. We never get workplace rules forbidding dangerous practices until multiple people die from it. And I agree, it is sad that it is still this way after centuries of this.
"Did the federal government make a change for the benefit of the people, and might be an inconvenience to business.... never fear there's a judge in Texas to stop it and later when it gets appealed to the supreme court overturned!"
Why do I feel like we are held hostage by judges lately? Aren't they supposed to be unbiased and apolitical. Seems to me they should lose their appointment if they can be shown to have political motivation/ baises
That’s specifically why the complaint was filed in Texas. Saner districts might’ve decided against the plaintiffs, like in California, where they’re unenforceable, IIRC.
How does this even work? How is a District Court judge in another state allowed to stop something before it is heard by a higher court? Do all federal judges have more power than the President?
Any federal judge can impact a federal action. Courts interpret actions (usually laws) from the other branches. A bad ruling will be overturned by an appellate court, which in turn could be overturned by SCOTUS
Wow, the yoga example in the article is exactly why noncompetes are terrible. For those who didn't read... A yoga studio owner didn't like it when former employees opened up their own yoga studio nearby. So she added noncompete clauses to future contracts. In other words, she's too inept to compete on delivering a quality product.
In other words, she's too inept to compete on delivering a quality product.
That's why all non-compete contracts exist, and the same reason they should all be illegal.
If you spend time training someone, and they can turn around and go off on their own, what do you bring to the table? Why should they work for you, giving you the fruits of their labor in exchange for less pay? If you're worried about competition, don't train your competition. Do it better than they do. You aren't entitled to the value of a person's life just because you contributed to their expertise.
It makes some sense that if someone is going to invest time and money into training you to help them, they would not want you to immediately turn around and compete with them. So in that regard I understand it. But they're usually abusive contracts that last way too long, far beyond what is reasonable, and cover many activities outside of direct competition such as stating that you can't even accept another job in the same industry.
A lot of abuses and anti-competitive practices make sense. It makes sense to buy your competitors, and pay off regulators. "Smart business" is almost always an attempt to leverage factors outside of normal competition. You don't win at capitalism by playing fair.
Of course we should. Teaching should be a highly compensated profession, and taxes should pay for every penny. Education pays dividends for society as a whole.
But teachers are not entitled to the production of their students. They should not expect students to be indebted or repay the education.
I actually like noncompetes. Your company has to compensate you full salary and educational courses including travel costs for the time of this noncompete agreement, which is actually quite nice.
Edit: of course that is the rule in Europe. I don’t know about the situation in pro work slavery us.
To be more specific than the other responder, a noncompete does not include training. You could hire a senior staff member who is already experienced and include a noncompete. There is very little regulation. If it was tied to training for a set time, it makes sense. Unfortunately in the US, it usually doesn't.
If it worked that way in the US then that would be sensibly pro-worker while allowing the existing employer to defend their intellectual property and investments in employees.
The reality is I have a 2 year noncompete that simply prevents me from working for competitors within 50 miles of any of my job sites unless I want to open myself up to a lawsuit. If I left today, I'd have to travel way further to get to an acceptable location, but would certainly not be receiving any compensation for that hassle from my previous employer. The elimination of noncompetes would be a huge boon to me and my colleagues, but this sort of court shenanigans is why I said I'd wait to be excited until it actually took effect.
Honestly I think instead of banning non-competes they should just make it a hard requirement that a non-compete must be X percentage(no smaller then 30 or 40%) of your salary per year for the non-compete. Which in my opinion is fair because the entire point of a non-compete because you know information that a competitor could use that would give them a financial advantage so it makes sense that they would have to pay for your silence that you're not going to give that information away. If a company is saying they're not willing to pay that money that means the information you know isn't enough for them to care about so a non-compete shouldn't be in place in the first place
Like I've seen it non-compete clauses for web designers, which I find absolutely fucking ridiculous because there is little nothing that a web developer should be able to learn about a company that would financially harm it by going elsewhere, it's clear in those cases that those complete clauses are exclusively there as a trap to try to make it so their devs don't leave. The arguments those companies use is that there's financial incentive for that compromise. So a "well yeah you can do non-competes but they must be paid" will more or less blow their entire argument out of the water.
Personally I think if something similar like that gets implemented, you'll see a lot of the jobs that currently have a non-compete as part of their onboarding process will magically lose that as a requirement
npr.org
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