As reported by Yahoo! News, the Seattle Office of Labor Standards (OLS)
has
reached a settlement worth more than $3.3 million with Uber Eats for alleged
violations of the Gig Worker Premium Pay Ordinance. It is
the largest settlement in OLS history under the
ordinance, according to the
city.
The
ordinance requires food delivery companies like Uber Eats to pay their workers
additional compensation called “premium pay” for delivery orders with pick-up
and drop-off points within Seattle city limits.
OLS
alleged that Uber Eats failed to give workers premium pay when workers went to
pick-up locations and the locations were closed, or when customers had canceled
or already picked up their orders. Uber Eats also allegedly failed to give
workers premium pay for delivery orders from certain drugstores in Seattle.
OLS
also alleged that over a 14-day period in 2022, Uber Eats only paid drivers
$0.025 per online order instead of the required $2.50 in premium pay due to a
software glitch.
In
total, Uber Eats has agreed to pay a settlement of $3,333,088.30 to 10,467 gig
workers and $2,560.90 in fines to the city of Seattle.
The
Gig Worker Premium Pay Ordinance will expire with the COVID-19 civil emergency
in Seattle on Oct. 31.
Gig
workers have up to three years from the date of the alleged violation to file a
complaint with OLS or take other legal action.
Bank of America Updates Return-to-Office Plans
Bank
of America Corp. has revealed employees will have to work from the office
depending on their role and functional needs, with some of them needing to be
in office for three days a week, according to a memo seen by
Reuters. Previously, the
company had announced in September it would issue new guidelines.
“We have 210,000 people and there’s literally
210,000 different views of what people want,” chief executive Brian Moynihan said at the time.
“We’ll
have more flexibility than we did, on paper, before.”
Positions
that require in-office locations, including financial center employees, will
continue to be fully based in offices through their full work schedule, the
memo said.
Roles
that “generally need to function inside”
offices will have the option to work from home for a limited number of days
each month, while employees with job profiles supporting a split schedule will
work in the office for a minimum of three days each week, according to the memo.
Capital One Canada to Offer Employees Six Months of Protected Leave
Capital
One Canada recently announced it
will support employee well-being
by providing six months of protected leave to volunteer, travel or take time
with family.
According
to Benefits Canada, the
financial organization launched the program in September after noticing
requests for leaves were coming up without a formal process in place. While
some employees’ requests were in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, many
were just asking for time to travel or volunteer, said
Becca Mintz, Capital One’s vice president
and head of customer acquisitions.
The
company is also using its parental leave policy to build a workplace culture
that models the premise that caregiving, whether for children or elderly
parents, is accepted. Its 26-week parental leave benefit, which includes a 100%
top-up for six weeks, followed by 75% for 20 weeks, is available to all new parents. In
addition, nearly 45% of parental leaves at Capital One were taken
by men this year.
“The
policy recognizes that there are many ways to start a family and that spending
time with your family is part of the experience, as opposed to something you
have to do on your own while sacrificing that working experience,” Mintz
said.
Study: Interest in Remote Work Surges 300%
According
to a jobs study compiled by Semrush, remote
work search queries jumped 300% from July 2021 to July 2022.
The
study showed the most searched
queries related to remote work are “remote jobs” — 260K monthly searches and 234% YoY growth;
“remote jobs near me” — 52.8K
searches and 654% YoY growth; “Amazon remote jobs” — 29.7K searches and 123% YoY growth;
“part-time remote jobs” — 28.3K searches and 308% YoY growth.
Since
autumn 2021, visits to the career pages of tech giants, such as Amazon,
Meta, Google, Netflix and Apple,
have doubled both in the U.S
and around the world. Amazon career pages receive
an average of 7 million monthly
views in the U.S. The next most popular career page is Meta’s,
which earns 1.2 million monthly visitors. During summer 2022, visits to Amazon
have only grown, hitting 18 million in August.
The
top three jobs people are searching for in the U.S
are flight attendant, medical assistant and securities. The jobs with the
biggest search growth year over year were data analyst, project manager and
proofreader jobs. The latter jumped 83%.
On
the decline in popularity are pharmacy technician, administrative assistant,
nanny, firefighter and tutor jobs — all of
which saw greater than 45% decreases in search volume.
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