AFL-CIO State of the Unions Podcast co-host Tim Schlittner talks to Guy Ryder, the director-general of the ILO about the international labor movement, the idea of "decent labor" and the future of work.

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Reposted from AFL-CIO

By Heidi Shierholz and David Cooper

In October, the Trump administration published a proposed rule regarding tips which, if finalized, will cost workers more than $700 million annually. It is yet another example of the Trump administration using the fine print of a proposal to attempt to push through a change that will transfer large amounts of money from workers to their employers. We also find that as employers ask tipped workers to do more non-tipped work as a result of this rule, employment in non-tipped food service occupations will decline by 5.3% and employment in tipped occupations will increase by 12.2%, resulting in 243,000 jobs shifting from being non-tipped to being tipped. Given that back-of-the-house, non-tipped jobs in restaurants are more likely to be held by people of color while tipped occupations are more likely to be held by white workers, this could reduce job opportunities for people of color.

The background: employers are not allowed to pocket workers’ tips—tips must remain with workers. But employers can legally “capture” some of workers’ tips by paying tipped workers less in base wages than their other workers. For example, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, but employers can pay tipped workers a “tipped minimum wage” of $2.13 an hour as long as employees’ base wage and the tips they receive over the course of a week are the equivalent of at least $7.25 per hour. All but seven states have a sub-minimum wage for tipped workers.

In a system like this, the more non-tipped work that is done by tipped workers earning the sub-minimum wage, the more employers benefit. This is best illustrated with a simple example. Say a restaurant has two workers, one doing tipped work and one doing non-tipped work, who both work 40 hours a week. The tipped worker is paid $2.50 an hour in base wages, but gets $10 an hour in tips on average, for a total of $12.50 an hour in total earnings. The non-tipped worker is paid $7.50 an hour. In this scenario, the restaurant pays their workers a total of ($2.50+$7.50)*40 = $400 per week, and the workers take home a total of ($12.50+$7.50)*40 = $800 (with $400 of that coming from tips).

But suppose the restaurant makes both those workers tipped workers, with each doing half tipped work and half non-tipped work. Then the restaurant pays them both $2.50 an hour, and they will each get $5 an hour in tips on average (since now they each spend half their time on non-tipped work) for a total of $7.50 an hour in total earnings. In this scenario, the restaurant pays out a total of ($2.50+$2.50)*40 = $200 per week, and the workers take home a total of ($7.50 + $7.50)*40 = $600. The restaurant’s gain of $200 is the workers’ loss of $200, simply by having tipped workers spend time doing non-tipped work.

Why has the United States become so much more unequal over the last four decades? Any number of factors have been driving our increased inequality. But no single factor may have been more significant than the behavior of the modern American corporation.

Corporations are contributing to inequality on two fronts. On the one hand, they’re systematically depressing incomes for average Americans, via everything from outsourcing to pension cuts. On the other, they’re just as systematically stuffing the pockets of America’s executive class.

These two vile sets of behaviors are relentlessly reinforcing each other. Outrageously huge rewards give corporate executives an incentive to behave outrageously, to squeeze their workers at every opportunity.

So how can we fight these corporate pay outrages? We change the incentive structure. We start giving Corporate America reason to narrow income divides, not stretch them ever wider. New legislation just introduced in Congress does just that.

The legislation — the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act — raises the corporate tax rate on companies that pay their top executives over 50 times more than what they pay their most typical workers. The wider the pay-gap multiple over 50 times, the higher the tax rate.

Not that long ago, no one could have possibly dreamed that this sort of tax penalty would be so necessary. In mid-20th century America, CEOs at major U.S. firms seldom made much more than 30 or 40 times average worker pay. Today, by contrast, the nation’s top CEOs average nearly 300 times more. In 2018, a new Institute for Policy Studies report details, 50 top execs grabbed over 1,000 times more.

The proposed Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act carries some heavyweight sponsors. In the Senate, Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) introduced the legislation November 13, the same day that veteran lawmaker Barbara Lee (D-California) and outspoken first-termer Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) introduced the bill in the House. And, on the Senate side, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) is co-sponsoring the legislation.

Over two dozen national labor, religious, and policy organizations have already endorsed the new Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act. They range from the AFL-CIO and the National Council of Churches to the Coalition on Human Needs and Public Citizen.

From the USW

Workers at Copper Country Mental Health Services in Houghton, Mich., obtained wage increases and pension improvements in their contract ratified earlier this year, but the benefit Local 7798 members were most proud of bargaining was language regarding workplace violence.

The contract committed the employer to appoint a committee, including two members of the local, to draft a workplace violence policy. Work quickly began on the policy, and just last week, the committee drafted and released its first clinical guideline focusing on responding to consumer aggression toward staff.

“We are so excited to have this go into effect,” said Unit Chair Rachelle Rodriguez of Local 7798. “This was a direct result of our last negotiating session.”

The guideline includes the definition of aggression and an outline of procedures, all of which will be reviewed yearly. And though this is just a first step in reducing the incident rates and harm of workplace violence in their workplace, it still is a big one for the local, and it wouldn’t have been possible without a collective bargaining agreement.