- “NLRB: Unions have a right to know employees home phone numbers. If firms don’t have them, they must obtain them.” [@JamesBSherk summarizing Sean Higgins/Washington Examiner on Danbury Hospital case]
- Subpoenas get NLRB into redaction fight with McDonald’s [Sean Higgins/Examiner; more on joint-employer battle from International Franchise Association via Connor Wolf, Daily Caller]
- George Leef reviews Daniel DiSalvo’s book on public sector unionism, Government Against Itself [Forbes]
- “Seattle May Soon Force Uber And Lyft Drivers To Unionize” [Connor Wolf/Caller]
- Your periodic reminder that the “add union organizing to protected classes under civil rights law” formula is one of the worst ideas ever [Jon Hyman, Wolf/Caller on Workplace Action for a Growing Economy (WAGE) Act sponsored by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.)]
- Sen. Orrin Hatch: my proposed Employee Rights Act would “allow workers a greater role in how their union represents them” [Washington Times, background at Washington Examiner]
- Philadelphia union extortion and violence episode is a reminder it’s past time to revisit 1973 SCOTUS case of U.S. v. Enmons which tended to give a green light to such things [Mark Mix, Washington Times]
Posts Tagged ‘taxis and ridesharing’
Wage and hour roundup
- “No unpaid internship in the for-profit sector ever has or ever will satisfy these [USDOL] rules” [Bryan Caplan]
- Obama wage/hour czar David Weil doubles as a key ideologist of the kill-outsourcing crowd [Weekly Standard, related earlier on NLRB move against franchise and subcontract economy]
- “A $15-hour minimum wage could harm America’s poorest workers” [Harry Holzer, Brookings] Alderman Antonio French, a key Ferguson protest figure, opposes minimum wage hike in St. Louis [Washington Post “WonkBlog”]
- “Andrew Cuomo’s leftward lurch: Calling for a $15-an-hour minimum wage is his latest out-of-character move” [Bill Hammond, NY Daily News] Since minimum wage hike, mini-recession has hit employment in Los Angeles hotel sector [Ozimek]
- Court ruling: Yelp reviewers volunteer their reviews and are not entitled to be paid for them [Courthouse News]
- 400 Uber drivers: don’t let them take away our independent contractor status [Daniel Fisher, Forbes] Mandated benefits and the “Happy Meal Fallacy” [Tabarrok]
- “Bill Would Make Maryland Employers Set Work Schedules Earlier” [WAMU on Del. David Moon’s “Fair Work Week Act”; related on national “Schedules That Work” Democratic legislation, Connor Wolf/Daily Caller]
New York “Annoyance Lawyer” sues Uber
New York attorney Todd C. Bank “sued Uber Technologies Inc. over its robocall campaign attacking New York Mayor Bill de Blasio over his proposal to limit the number of drivers.” Mr. Bank bills himself as the “Annoyance Lawyer.” Isn’t that term generic by now? [Bloomberg]
August 5 roundup
- Makes perfect sense: to make transportation more accessible to its residents, Montgomery County, Maryland orders 20 taxi companies to close down [Washington Post]
- “New ‘Gainful Employment’ Rule Spells Trouble For For-Profit Law Schools (And Would For 50 Non-Profit Law Schools)” [Caron, TaxProf]
- “To comply with a twisted interpretation of TCPA, Twitter would have to stop providing certain services altogether.” [Harold Furchtgott-Roth] “New FCC Rules Could Make Polling More Expensive, Less Accurate” [HuffPost Pollster]
- To draft the unpassable bill: Scott Shackford on the politics and bad policy behind the omnibus LGBT Equality Act [Reason] “So How Can Anyone Be Opposed to Non-Discrimination Laws?” [Coyote] More: Establishment liberalism reluctant to admit it’s changed its thinking on religious accommodation, but that’s what’s happened [Ramesh Ponnuru/Bloomberg View]
- Update: “Court rejects claim over goat goring in Olympic National Park” [AP, earlier here and here]
- “I would receive 100 other identical stories [from asylum seekers] with only the names changed.” [The Australian, 2013]
- “Some protested that DNA testing amounted to a violation of canine privacy because dogs were not capable of consent.” [New York Times on Brooklyn condo dispute via @orinkerr]
July 22 roundup
- Can Uber survive California law? [Brian Doherty on ruling by state administrative law judge over shortcomings in accessibility; Kristian Stout/Truth on the Market on employee classification and compensation class action] The California Labor Commission’s worker-classification ruling has already killed cleaning-services startup Homejoy [Re/Code via @andrewmgrossman] Plus: Uber communicates satirically with its NYC customers in its battle with Mayor Bill de Blasio [Issie Lapowsky, Wired; related, Josh Greenman; and a new study of Los Angeles users finds Uber X twice as fast and half as expensive as taxis (Mark Kleiman)]
- Needed: RFRA for the prepared-foods aisle? “The Trans-Fat Ban Deals A Blow To Kosher Keepers” [Bethany Mandel, Federalist] Consumption of trans fats has already dropped by 85 percent, and “government doesn’t always know best” [me, Arizona PBS]
- “The U.S. Attorney’s Office might has well have a macro that generates gag orders” [Ken at Popehat on Reason subpoena, earlier here, etc.]
- SCOTUS struck down Ohio’s law banning false campaign speech, Massachusetts’s should fall next [Ilya Shapiro and Gabriel Latner, Cato]
- Roger Pilon on church, gays, and “simple idea that people are free to associate or not as they wish” [now un-gated, Cato/WSJ; related, Ilya Shapiro/Washington Times] More on EEOC’s ENDA-by-fiat attempt [Kent Hoover/Business Journals, Nicandro Iannacci, National Constitution Center/Yahoo (thanks for quoting in both cases); Laura Maechtlen and Sam Schwartz-Fenwick, Seyfarth Shaw; and a Washington Blade interview with EEOC member Chai Feldblum, who supported the ruling]
- More reactions to HUD’s ambitious local-neighborhood-diversity scheme, “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” [Hans Bader, Michael Barone, earlier]
- “Star Of Viral Catcalling Video Is Reportedly Suing For Compensation” [Emma Whitford, Gothamist]
July 8 roundup
- You could see this coming: ACLU says its support for RFRA religious accommodation laws no longer applies in discrimination law context [David Bernstein]
- Root causes of violence: California anti-videogame, anti-gun pol Leland Yee cops a racketeering plea after spectacular arms-smuggling sting [Shackford/Reason, plea agreement via Popehat, earlier]
- FDA’s trans fat ban will have litigation implications [Glenn Lammi, WLF] And we mentioned the palm-oil angle earlier: “Why Environmentalists Are Afraid of the FDA’s Attack on Trans Fats” [Jason Plautz, National Journal]
- An economic liberty decision: “Texas Supreme Court overturns licensing requirements for eyebrow threaders” [Houston Chronicle, Carrie Sheffield/Opportunity Lives, Eugene Volokh, David Bernstein on Don Willett concurrence rebuking Lochner-phobia]
- In trial-lawyer-sourced screed against class action reform, reporter David Lazarus seems to imagine bone break cases are currently sued as class actions [L.A. Times]
- NYC taxi commission: OK, we don’t actually need to pre-clear every update of ride-sharing app software [Kristian Stout/Truth on the Market, earlier]
- And thanks for Overlawyered mention: “Are happier lawyers, cheaper legal fees on the horizon?” [Glenn Reynolds, USA Today]
French taxi drivers vs. Uber: the musical version
French taxi men attack Uber drivers, set cars ablaze, so France arrests (you guessed it) Uber executives. And someone needed to do a musical version, so I stepped up at Cato, to a familiar tune from Les Miz, with “Do You Hear the Drivers Honk?”
California regulators: Uber driver is employee
And there goes the Uber business model, if the ruling is upheld and extends to other drivers. Coyote predicts that if subject to the burdens now heaped on employers, ride-sharing services will have a hard time of it.
Or, to put it differently: yes, the authorities are prepared to kill any and all innovations that threaten their New Deal fantasy of perfect control. More: Matthew Feeney, Cato; Megan McArdle (“‘Employee’ Label Would End Uber as We Know It”); Timothy Lee [slightly edited Wednesday to reflect clarification in news reports]
Oregon insurance bill would hamstring Uber, Lyft
Almost as if it were meant that way [Geoffrey Manne, Oregonian]
NYC taxi commission: we want to preclear ride apps
The Taxi and Limousine Commission of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s New York City administration plans to introduce rules that would fine anyone offering to city residents a taxi smartphone app or update that the commission had not preapproved. Web guys: you’re kidding, right? “We are gravely concerned by the unprecedented decision to subject software available around the world to pre-release review by a city agency” that is itself without expertise in software design, according to the letter, which is signed by Facebook, Google, Twitter, eBay and many other familiar names. [Fox NY, Internet Association letter of distress]