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RUN FOR THE MONEY: Baseball’s scheduled mid-February start for spring training could be pushed back because of an ongoing labor dispute between player and owners. Although the two sides returned to the bargaining table Jan. 13, no agreement was expected and none appears forthcoming. Above, New York Mets Ronny Mauricio bats during a spring training game against the Houston Astros on April 27, 2021 in Palm Beach, Fla.
The traditional mid-February start of spring training is in jeopardy. Efforts to end a labor impasse between the baseball players union and Major League Baseball started up again after a six-week pause, but an hour-long bargaining session Jan. 13 yielded little, The Associated Press reported.
The talks centered on economic issues, with MLB forwarding proposals to push discussions along and end a lockout that began Dec. 2. Among baseball management’s proposals was one to keep arbitration for players with at least three years of MLB experience but less than six, the AP reported. Another would get rid of draft-pick compensation for players lost through free agency. Baseball also proposed expanding the designated hitter to the National League.
With the scheduled start of spring training just a few weeks away, a deal to succeed the five-year collective-bargaining agreement that expired last year would have to be reached within about two weeks for the preseason to begin as planned, given travel time and the added burden of meeting coronavirus protocols. Opening Day is scheduled for March 31.
The long-term health effects of coronavirus may be contributing to the nationwide labor shortage, according to a study from the Brookings Institute.
The report estimated that 1.6 million Americans were out of the workforce or had reduced hours because of long COVID. These “long-haulers” experienced debilitating, chronic symptoms for weeks and months after being infected with the virus. About 31 million Americans have experienced or are currently experiencing COVID symptoms such as fatigue and cognitive impairment for an average of three months, studies have shown.
A study of long-haul patients by The Lancet found that 23 percent of those who participated were not working because of long-COVID. A second British study found that 28 percent had stopped working. The Lancet also found that 46 percent of long-haulers reduced their work hours instead of leaving the workforce altogether.
The Brookings Institute projected that 1.1 million full-time workers experiencing long-haul COVID symptoms were not working, while another half a million people were working reduced hours. It estimated that long COVID could be responsible for 15 percent of the nation’s 10.6 million unfulfilled jobs.
The lack of data on long COVID has made it difficult to determine its effect on the labor market, the report acknowledged. The authors called for improved research so that those with long COVID can access disability benefits or request accommodations.
With the Federal minimum wage stuck at $7.25 an hour since 2009, it's fallen to states and local governments to increase pay.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank, 30 states and Washington D.C. have boosted their minimum-wage since 2014 while 40 localities have adopted minimum wages above their state’s minimum wage. The minimum wage is indexed for inflation in 18 states, including New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C.
Since the pandemic, the national One Fair Wage campaign has been gaining traction to end the two-tiered wage system that continues to exist in restaurants, salons, casinos and other businesses that employ tipped workers.
“Remarkably, the federal tipped minimum wage has been stuck at $2.13 since 1991—a 23-year stretch, over which time inflation has lowered the purchasing power of the federal tipped minimum wage to its lowest point ever,” according to EPI.
In May, eight Senate Democrats joined their Republican colleagues to reject President Biden’s bid to attach a $15 minimum wage to his COVID Relief legislation.
An administrative judge ruled earlier this month that the company must turn over hundreds of internal documents in connection with a National Labor Relations Board case looking into Google’s layoff of several workers involved in a unionizing effort, CNN Business reported.
The employees claim they were first surveilled and then subsequently fired for sounding off on some of the tech company’s contracts with the government, which they considered controversial, and for organizing. Google said it fired the workers for violating company policies.
The judge who reviewed the documents, Paul Bogas, concluded that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company had unjustifiably asserted the documents were subject to attorney-client privilege, CNN reported.
The workers filed an unfair-labor-practice action with the NLRB in 2019. The board in 2020 filed its own action on behalf of the workers, claiming in part that Google had wrongfully targeted employees who were organizing.
Some of the 200 documents are connected to a company campaign, called “Project Vivian,” designed to deter employees from unionizing, CNN Business said. Another suggested that a company lawyer enlist a “respected voice” to write an op-ed that would discourage employees at tech companies such as Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Google from unionizing.
In a win for the nation’s largest Federal-workers union, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission postponed its return-to-work mandate after the American Federation of Government Employees Council 216, the National Council of EEOC Locals, filed an Unfair Labor Practices against the agency for failing to bargain on a telework provision amid the Omicron surge.
In their December filings, the Council alleged it was “blindsided” when the agency announced during an employee town hall that employees would be expected to return to their offices this month.
“We are very happy that employees can continue to work safely from home for now, especially given the transmissibility of the omicron variant,” said Council 216 President Rachel Shonfield. “Our union has been fighting for EEOC to get this right since the agency’s original reentry announcement in November.”
According to the union, the agency “unilaterally” ended the “maximum telework posture under which employees have successfully performed their work during the COVID-19 pandemic and has no plans to expand the telework program that was in place prior to the pandemic.”
None of the changes were negotiated with the union. A call and email to the U.S. EEOC was not returned by press time.
While the union welcomed the pause in reentry plans, AFGE and the EEOC still need to negotiate a plan for the return to in-person work. More than 70 percent of workers said they would like to telework four days a week or full time, with another 15 percent wanting three days a week. An overwhelming majority of EEOC employees responding to an AFGE survey said their productivity either increased or stayed the same while teleworking during the pandemic.
Montefiore Medical Center Children’s Hospital lacked adequate safeguards against workplace violence in its pediatric emergency department, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health and Administration determined.
OSHA cited the Bronx facility for one serious violation—for failing to “furnish a place of employment free from recognized hazards that were likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees.”
The agency noted one particular incident that took place last June, in which Registered Nurses, Certified Nurse Aides and Security Officers were assaulted by psychiatric patients while performing their duties. The attack resulted in staff injuries including broken bones and neck, back and shoulder injuries.
OSHA found that Montefiore’s workplace-violence program did not provide effective administrative controls or employee training to protect workers. The proposed penalty was $13,653.
“This employer ignored repeated episodes of physical assault that put their employees at risk,” said OSHA Area Director Robert T. Garvey in Tarrytown, New York. “Employers can and must reduce workplace violence hazards by implementing and maintaining an effective workplace violence prevention program, which is an essential safeguard for these essential workers.”
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