Episode 143: Kill More Hogs, Hurt More Workers; Your Server’s Higher Wage Won’t Hurt
Episode 143: Working on in a hog processing plant is one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet—and it’s about to get a whole lot worse, evoking “The Jungle” of the early 20th Century. In a classic profits-over-people move, a new regulation is about to hit which would eliminate any speed restrictions on how fast hog carcasses come hurtling down the assembly line. As it is about to become law—more than a year after I first talked about the topic in a May 2018 episode—I bring back Debbie Berkowitz, director of the worker safety and health program at the National Employment Law Project, to dig into the attack against these workers. Then, you knew it along—hiking the minimum wage does not usher in an apocalypse for businesses, despite the whining and moaning of the CEO class. The opposite is true. With the latest state minimum wage hike at the end of 2018 to $15 an hour in New York State in the books, I talk with Yannet Lathrop, policy analyst with NELP, about a new study she co-authored that looks at the New York City restaurant industry and debunks, yet again, the rhetoric about minimum wage hikes hurting business. -- Jonathan Tasini Follow me on Twitter @jonathantasini Sign up for The Working Life Podcast at: www.workinglife.org Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.tasini.3
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