A bill in the Maryland Legislature would create a pilot program to study the impact of a four-day workweek.
The pilot program would create a tax incentive for qualifying companies to move employees from a 40-hour week to 32 with no reduction in pay or benefits.
The current bill would open the program to businesses with a minimum of 30 employees, although some discussion in committee hearings proposed to lower that to five employees.
The bill includes a provision for the state Department of Labor to help companies realize productivity gains.
Del. Vaughn Stewart – D-Montgomery County – introduced the bill in the House and pointed to older views of the relationship between workers and their productivity.
“You even had folks like Richard Nixon in the ’50s, predicting that we would be very soon moving to a four-day workweek,” said Stewart. “And really, if you look back at that time, the original American dream – it really was about the idea that American workers would have rising productivity over time, and that therefore we could have rising and increasing leisure time.”
The British nonprofit 4 Day Week Global recently published results of a six-month trial of 61 companies involving over 3,000 employees – and 92% of firms said they will continue the four-day workweek.
When asked to comment on the story, the Maryland Chamber of Commerce replied it’s “not taking a position on the four-day work-week legislation.”
Stewart said among his colleagues, this bill has garnered more interest from the public than any other. He said the governor has not taken a position on the bill yet, but he is optimistic.
“Gov. [Wes] Moore has made public service such a staple of the early days of his administration,” said Stewart. “I really think this bill is not only compatible, but a nice fit for that idea.”
If enacted, the four-day workweek pilot would last for a period of five years. The bill is currently in committee with versions of the bill in both the Maryland House and Senate.
By Herbert White for the Charlotte Post, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for North Carolina News Service reporting for the Charlotte Post-Public News Service Collaboration.
The hospitality industry quickly became hostile in Duane Hoskins’ estimation.
Over eight months as a shuttle driver at Cambria Suites and Hotel in Morrisville, Hoskins said he witnessed first-hand mistreatment by management, including unwarranted firings, low pay, racist language and unsafe conditions including flooding due to a broken water pipe that closed the hotel for three days because of health hazards.
It was time to respond.
“It’s the majority of the staff, and we’re all in agreement of the unfair treatment, unfair wages going on at Cambria Suites,” he said. “Also, it’s not a healthy work environment.”
Cambria Suites’ workers – members of the Union of Southern Service Workers – walked off the job on Feb. 20. A contingent of hotel workers and their union colleagues rallied at the Cambria property near Raleigh-Durham International Airport, chanting “Cambria, you’re no good! Treat your workers like you should!”
Strikes like the one at Cambria are taking place more regularly in the South as a combination of post-covid economics and worker activism are bringing more people to unions. Black workers are taking a more pronounced role in organizing and leadership as they confront generations of inequity that left them lagging many of the white peers.
At last year’s launch of the region-specific USSW, founding members outlined demands they’ll make of service employers across the South, which include:
• Participation in making decisions about working conditions, corporate accountability for worker treatment and respect their right to organize without retaliation
• Fair pay and an end to wage theft
• Equal treatment, including pay equity for all workers, protection from discrimination and harassment
• Healthcare benefits, sick leave and safe workplace protections and equipment
• Fair and consistent scheduling, including the ability to work full time hours with safe staffing levels, and regular weekly schedules.
‘I needed to speak up’
USSW’s demands are in line with the Cambria workers’ priorities.
“We’re paid minimum wage, and our checks come up short,” Hoskins said. “I had a couple of people telling me that they are getting less money this week than they did on the previous check and their checks keep going down. One guy [went] from getting like $1,200 to $1,000 a week because he’s full time and working overtime to now … getting about $800, and they didn’t want to pay his (personal time off) when he came back. He only got a $200 check and honestly, that’s absurd.
“When I looked at my pay history, the amounts had been declining, not my hours. I thought that to be a situation that I needed to speak up.” Worker awareness and willingness to push for change is good, said MaryBe McMillan, president of the North Carolina AFL-CIO, which represents 100,000 members in industries ranging from delivery truck drivers to professional athletes.
“Among workers generally right now, we see a lot more interest in organizing,” she said. “After the pandemic, working people are tired of being taken for granted after they risked their own health and safety to make sure that everybody had the food, the medication, the products that we needed during the pandemic. Certainly, a lot of the organizing that we see in the South is being led by workers of color, particularly women of color and younger workers, especially in the service sector.”
Fight for $15 and respect
Service workers nationally have engaged through the Fight for $15 and a Union movement over the last decade, which has resulted in higher pay and improved workplace conditions. But gains have been slower in the South, where major corporations continue to pay low wages and retaliate against workers who make demands, while piling up record profits.
More than 40% of the country is on a path to a $15 an hour minimum wage, but most southern states maintain the federal $7.25 minimum. Preemptive laws make it almost impossible for Southern municipalities to raise pay for workers, continuing a racist legacy that has defined the workplace for generations.
For example, when Birmingham, Ala., city council passed a $10.10 hourly minimum wage in 2016, white Alabama lawmakers blocked the increase, leaving workers in the majority-Black city stuck at $7.25.
The Cambria workers also walked out to protest the firing of colleagues without explanation. On Valentine’s Day, two employees were called into the office and fired at the same time, with no reason given. Their colleagues allege a workplace where verbal abuse by management is commonplace, including calling Black men “boy.”
“When they fired us, they fired the only two black women with power in the hotel. I’m speaking out because of the unfair treatment of Cambria,” said Bobbie Fuller, a former housekeeping manager at Cambria and one of the fired workers. “I took my job very seriously, and I care about my coworkers. We took care of each other, we ate together. The housekeepers cried when we walked out the door.”
Cambria’s workforce situation is a sample of an issue U.S. hotels face. According to a survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association, 79% of hotels face staffing shortages, which is forcing them to lure potential hires with incentives to fill job vacancies.
Seventy-one percent of respondents said they are increasing wages, 64% are offering flexible hours, and 33% are expanding benefits. The most critical staffing need is housekeeping, with 43% ranking it as their top hiring need.
“Recruiting enough workers continues to be the top challenge for many hoteliers, and this is leading to historic career opportunities for hotel employees,” AHLA President and CEO Chip Rogers said in a statement. “AHLA and the AHLA Foundation are working tirelessly to grow the industry’s talent pipeline and retain workers through innovative events like National Hotel Employee Day and compelling ad campaigns like ‘A Place to Stay,’ but there is still more to be done.”
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, hotel employment is down by more than 250,000 jobs compared to February 2020 when the hospitality industry started to shut down due to the pandemic. Nearly 100,000 industry jobs are open nationally, AHLA reports and as of December, the national average for hotel wages topped $23 an hour – the highest ever.
The pandemic gave American workers a sense of their importance to the economy, and by extension breathed new life into the southern labor movement, McMillan said. With national unemployment at a record-low 3.4%, the post-pandemic dynamic between workers and management is likely to continue.
“I think the tight labor market works to workers’ advantage in terms of the leverage that they have to demand better pay and better benefits,” she said. “The wages have not kept pace with inflation and certainly the minimum wage has not been raised in over a decade, so a lot of these wage increases are long overdue. And given the rising costs and inflation, even with rising wages, working people are still struggling to make ends meet.”
Breaking stereotypes
American history and culture, with few exceptions, paint a picture of labor organizers as white men willing to go toe-to-toe with corporate power through strikes that at times turn violent. Although unions are responsible for many of the advances that benefit U.S. workers in law and practice, there’s a perception of that unions are obsolete or rabble-rousers that drag down the economy.
In an America still dealing with the upheavals of a pandemic and racial reckoning, a new generation of labor advocates are advancing. Naomi Harris of Columbia, S.C., a USSW co-founder, is 21 and knew little about the history of Black organizers. It didn’t stop her from calling the service industry to account.
“I didn’t really know too much about it because I thought unions [were] something that you just heard about. You’d never really see them. Nobody talks about them, so I just thought it was like little old folk selling something from back in the day that stayed back in the day. The one thing I really love about this union is that we don’t see color. We’re an anti-racial union.”
That multidimensional membership and leadership model, McMillan asserts, is where future labor movements will draw strength.
“I think that the younger generation is less willing to settle for the wages and lack of respect and poor benefits,” she said. “But when I think about the Fight for $15 movement, you really see multi-generations in that movement from older women who have been working in fast food for their whole careers standing alongside younger workers who don’t like the fact that employers are discriminating against the LGBT community [or] are trying to tell folks they can’t wear certain things in the workplace.
“I think there’s all kinds of different reasons that workers come to the movement and to this place where they’ve had enough.”
Like Hoskins, the Cambria shuttle driver, who says his colleagues will continue with their demands until a deal is struck.
“I’m thankful for the union and the support that they have given us thus far,” he said. “They’ve been really strong. They’ve encouraged us to a point where we’re not really worried. We feel as though the union has our back 100% so that it doesn’t appear that it’s just in house issue. It’s an issue with all service workers.”
Herbert White wrote this article for the Charlotte Post.
City of Richmond employees have filed to vote on their first union contract, and while they are still in the early stages of establishing a union in Virginia’s capital city, it has been a long road to get to this point.
A law passed in 2020 finally allowed public employees to be eligible for collective-bargaining rights. For the city of Richmond, a 2022 collective bargaining ordinance let employees begin establishing a union.
David Broder, president of Service Employees International Union Virginia 512, said the city council was eager to collaborate and listen to workers, so they could develop a fair collective bargaining ordinance. As employees prepare to head to the bargaining table, he detailed what they are seeking from their first union contract.
“Workers are seeking a fair wage that will allow them to live in the city. Workers are seeking affordable health care. Workers are seeking paid-leave benefits that will allow them to take care of themselves and their loved ones as they take care of the city,” Broder outlined.
According to a report from the Commonwealth Institute, one in 12 full-time employees cannot afford to support themselves on their city salary.
The report also found high turnover rates are not limited to a single agency in the city. In comparing data from 2016 and 2020, the median turnover rate was a little over 11%, costing the city more than $6.7 million per year.
Broder thinks one of the biggest challenges will be getting enough people to join the union. Although polls show there is an overwhelming amount of support for unions, the winding road to developing one can be a deterrent.
Given the commitment of City of Richmond workers, he feels the union will come through and be inclusive of all workers’ needs.
“Workers have been working very hard, through the ordinance debate and beyond,” Broder pointed out. “Workers will continue to do that. They’ll be surveying their co-workers talking about what issues are most critical to them. They’ve been doing that for well over a year and will continue to do that.”
Richmond employees are not alone in working to form a union. Employees from other cities such as Alexandria, Newport News and Virginia Beach are either working to form a union or already have one in place.
This week, a Minnesota Senate committee will consider a plan supporters said would make it easier for workers at small businesses to have retirement savings plans.
The bill follows concerns about a growing savings gap. The Minnesota Secure Choice Retirement Act would offer an automatic payroll deduction, with the collected retirement funds managed by a state board. Workers would have the option to be enrolled, and no employer contributions would be needed.
Cathy McLeer, state director of AARP Minnesota, which supports the proposal, said it would help those without a nest egg take control of their financial outlook as they age.
“We know that there’ve been declines and employer-sponsored pensions,” McLeer pointed out. “We know that a lack of savings really impacts a person’s ability to achieve that secure retirement.”
AARP said nearly one-third of Minnesota workers do not have access to a retirement plan through their job. And more than 42% of Minnesota retirees rely on Social Security for half their income.
The proposal has been floated before. It is unclear how far it might go this session. Opposition in other states has centered around the impact on private-sector plan providers.
Bill supporters say this also can make small businesses more competitive, eliminating the costs to set up a retirement plan for staff.
Erik Forsberg, president and CEO of Overlord Hospitality, which operates a handful of restaurants in the Twin Cities, said it might result in not having to put so much time and energy into recruiting and retaining workers.
“Hiring and training and going through all that is expensive, in any industry,” Forsberg observed. “When you get into our industry, and there’s so much turnover, it can really add up.”
Forsberg added many people can make a career in the hospitality sector, but have to weigh a lot of outside factors. He thinks putting retirement savings on their radar would be a huge plus.
“They have to focus on things like transportation and child care, but when it comes to actually planning for your future, that’s not usually a part of their conversation,” Forsberg explained.
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