In case folks didn’t know about Politico’s new labor beat.

[Omaha Steve]

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http://www.politico.com/morningshift/1014/morningshift15571.html
By Brian Mahoney

With Timothy Noah and Mike Elk

BACK TO WORK, SUPREMES!: Are Amazon.com warehouse workers on the clock while queuing for a mandatory anti-theft security check? The Supreme Court hears arguments tomorrow.

The high court will also this term get a shot at reining in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission-where Justice Clarence Thomas was once chairman. EEOC's litigation powers "would be completely frustrated" by an adverse ruling, says Marcia McComick of St. Louis University School of Law. Brian Mahoney has a guided tour of the coming workplace docket for Pro subscribers: http://politico.pro/1vLGU0B

DRIVING THE DAY - BIDEN IN L.A. TO PUSH MINIMUM WAGE HIKE: The veep meets with Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti and business leaders for a roundtable on the minimum wage. It begins at 10:15 a.m. at the L.A. Baking Company. (Morning Shift will have a slice of that raspberry mousse cake, thanks.) The forum comes one month after Garcetti announced a proposal to raise LA's $9-per-hour minimum wage to $13.25 by 2017.

GOOD MORNING and welcome to the inaugural edition of Morning Shift, POLITICO Pro's daily tip sheet on labor and workplace policy. POLITICO Pro will begin publishing its Labor & Employmen vertical on Oct. 28. We'll be your first and best stop for news about how government interacts with the workforce at the federal, state, and local level. We take tips - er, no, put away that twenty, sir, we don't mean cash. We mean emails that lead us to great stories. Send 'em to [e-mail]

Who are we? Editor Timothy Noah has worked more than three decades in Washington as reporter, editor and author (of The Great Divergence, which Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman called "as fair and comprehensive a summary as we are likely to get of what economists have learned about our growing inequality&quot . A onetime regulatory reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Noah was more recently a columnist at Slate, the New Republic, and MSNBC.com.

Rounding out the team are Mike Elk, a former reporter for In These Times (he propelled last winter's failed UAW organizing drive in Chattanooga onto the nation's front pages), and your Morning Shifter, Brian Mahoney, who previously reported on the federal courts for Law360. A fourth reporter will join us next week, provided we can extract her from the federal witness protection program. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter: @politicomahoney, @mikeelk, @ timothynoah1, @ProMorningShift and @POLITICOPro

** A message from The International Franchise Association. The franchising industry includes more than 770,000 establishments and employ 8.5 million workers in the United States. Learn how the franchise business model works and the positive impact franchising has on America's economy by visiting www.franchisefacts.org. **

CWA PREZ PONDERS POST-UNION LIFE: Larry Cohen, president of the 700,000-strong Communications Workers of America, called Morning Shift last night to discuss what he'll do after his term ends next summer. Cohen announced last month that he would not run for re-election at the CWA, which recently persuaded 14,5000 American Airlines passenger service agents to unionize in Texas, Florida and North Carolina.

Cohen said he'll spend his post-union career trying to build a broad-based grassroots coalition for progressive policies on issue like climate change, immigration and trade. 'It's not a labor movement per se that's going to bring change in the U.S.,' he told Morning Shift. '...I don't have a belief that labor by itself can achieve that.'

DISABILITY GROUPS FIGHT UNIONS ON OVERTIME REGS - Home health care workers convene today in St. Louis to urge the Obama Administration not to delay implementation of new regulations that would make them eligible for overtime pay. Disability groups want to shift the start date back, fearing that it would lead to a cut in services. One group - ADAPT-accuses the SEIU of welshing on a previous pledge that "compensation shall not infringe upon ... adequate financing."

Mike Elk has the details: http://politico.pro/1s71sRh

TENSIONS ON THE LEFT?- Last night MSNBC's Chris Hayes and United Mine Workers president Cecil E. Roberts debated the Obama administration's proposal to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Hayes told Roberts bluntly that "50 years from now no one should have a job mining coal, in the world. That would by my ideal situation."

Roberts' counter: "You know and I know that's not going to happen because let's talk about reality ... do you really believe that in your lifetime that you're going to see the day that China stops using coal or even cuts back?' Watch the full debate here: http://goo.gl/X706qz

MINIMUM WAGE RISE IN GOOGLE'S BACKYARD The city council of Mountain View, Calif., home to Google and LinkedIn, votes Oct. 9 on whether to raise the city's minimum wage to $10.15 per hour, or perhaps $10.30. (The state minimum, currently $9, will rise to $10 in 2016.) The Mountain View Voice reports 'no organized opposition in sight,' making passage likely.

The proposal is modeled on a minimum-wage ordinance passed last year in San Jose, occasioning no discernible rise there in the unemployment rate (which continued to fall). Both proposals link future increases to the cost of living.

Criticism of Mountain View's proposed wage hike on the city's Web site tends to be not that $10.10 is too high, but rather than it's not high enough, with many suggesting $15 instead. But even that wouldn't make it affordable for most low-wage workers to live in Mountain View, where Trulia puts the median home sale at $975,000.

PERDUE PUSHES BACK AFTER POLITICO'S OUTSOURCING REPORT: Georgia GOP Senate Candidate David Perdue defended his business record to reporters on Monday, three days after POLITICO reported on a 2005 deposition in which he said he 'spent most of my career' outsourcing. "Defend it? I'm proud of it," Perdue said outside a restaurant in Buckhead, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "This is a part of American business, part of any business. Outsourcing is the procurement of products and services to help your business run. People do that all day."

Perdue added: "I think the issue that people get confused about is the loss of jobs. This is because of bad government policies: tax policy, regulation, even compliance requirements. It puts us at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the world. Even today, right now this administration has policies going on that are decimating industries today." Read the full report here: http://goo.gl/u24een

PHILLY TEACHERS' UNION CONTRACT NIXED: In a highly controversial decision yesterday, the Philadelphia School Reform Commission cancelled the city's teachers' union contract and will move to impose health care cuts. The changes are expected to save the district $54 million this year. More here: http://goo.gl/rN01os

Labor experts say the cuts could set a dangerous precedent for public retirees. David Gregory, Dorothy Day Professor of Law & Executive Director of the Center for Labor and Employment Law at St. Johns University Law School, tells Morning Shift: 'If these assaults can get traction from the courts, then much of what public sector workers have come to count on for their retirement is out the window.'

LAYOFF WATCH I: HEWLETT-PACKARD CUTTING 5,000 MORE JOBS AFTER SPLIT: The New York Times (itself getting ready to shed 100 newsroom jobs) reports that HP's announced split into two companies will lead to 5,000 job losses through retirement and layoffs. That's on top of 50,000 job eliminations previously announced by HP CEO Meg Whitman: http://goo.gl/Ns9glq

INVESTORS ARE HAPPY, AT LEAST: HP Stock ended the day up 4.7 percent.

LAYOFF WATCH II: TURNER BROADCASTING TO SHED 10 PERCENT OF ITS WORKFORCE: POLITICO'S Dylan Byers reports that the parent company of CNN, TBS, TNT and several other channels, plans to cut its total workforce by 10 percent in the weeks ahead, eliminating nearly 1,500 positions. More here http://goo.gl/d00tP2

COFFEE BREAK:

Seventy-two percent of registered voters in Wisconsin support raising the state's $7.25 minimum wage--three percentage points less than in June, according to the Milwaukee Business Journal: http://goo.gl/BO9Vn3

Labor groups and casinos have spent more than $1.8 million to defeat a ballot measure to outlaw Las Vegas-style casino gambling in Massachusetts, the AP reports: http://goo.gl/C7TuhL

More than a year before their current contract expires, Air Canada's pilots' union reached a tentative 10-year labor deal with the airline, the Financial Post reports: http://goo.gl/9EKIV5.

... But Lufthansa pilots plan a two-day walkout on cargo flights out of Germany to protest a raised retirement age, the Wall Street Journal says: http://on.wsj.com/1s7dXMH

THAT ENDS OUR FIRST SHIFT. LET'S BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!

** The International Franchise Association. IFA is the world's largest and oldest organization representing franchising. America's 770,000 franchise businesses employ one out of every eight private sector workers in the United States. For more information about how the franchise business model works, visit www.franchisefacts.org. **


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