Paid Time Off MattersA (slow) progress report

Apple buses attacked in Silicon Valley: symbols of protests against gentrification?

Article in The Guardian by Olivia Solon.

This is not the first time that the corporate buses that ship workers from the city to Silicon Valley have been targeted. In 2013 a window was smashed on a Google bus in Oakland, across the San Francisco Bay. The following year, protesters blocked buses and brandished banners to express their discontent over the privatisation of the Bay Area’s transport system.

The buses have become symbols of gentrification and the perception that the tech sector is responsible for pushing up housing prices in the city, making it unaffordable for those without six-figure salaries.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

MLK DAY 2018

Read or reread the Letter from a Birmingham jail? and this opinion in The Guardian. Top it off with Bernie Sanders. Take good care. Let us remember Microsoft offers a paid vacation day to its direct employees for MLK day (only since 2016) but does not, as far as we know, require the same for its contractors employees. Maybe 2o18 would be a good time to review the implementation of the 'at least 15 days of paid time off' policy, ask with a survey how it's beneficiaries feel about it and how it could be improved upon? Just saying... it could be a good use of part of the new corporate tax breaks?

Walmart offers 10 weeks of paid parental leave

PL+US just emailed us: Over 500,000 Walmart employees just got a massive increase in their paid parental leave!New birthing parents now get 10 weeks at full pay, and non-birthing parents get 6 weeks at full-pay, if they’re full-time workers. 

This is the biggest single expansion of paid parental leave that's ever occurred in the private sector -- and it’s raised the bar for all companies in the U.S.

This is great news but considering the base pay is now at $11 per hour it remains not too costly for Walmart that announced at the same time they were going to lay off thousands of workers employed in 63 Sam's Club stores they are to close.