quotas

After decades of admirable, if slow, progress toward gender balance in its boardrooms, Norway has taken a giant leap. Last month, the pioneering Nordic state mandated that 40% of seats on the boards of all large and medium-sized companies should go to women within five years. This makes Norway the first country in the world to take such a monumental measure and it means that by next year, 8,000 companies should have hit the target quota, expanding to around 20,000 firms with more than 30 staff…

Actor Bryan Brown has characterised the push to regulate streaming giants as nothing less than a fight for Australian culture.The billions of dollars Australians spend on streaming every year should be put back into telling local stories, he told the National Press Club on Wednesday.“I mean Australian stories, not stories filmed in Australia with American accents – that’s a cultural death,” he said.The federal government has promised to lock in tougher rules for streamers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ with…

Group size and behavioral interventions were investigated for their impact on minority nodes' position (red) in degree rankings over time. Credit: Complexity Science Hub What is the impact of affirmative actions, such as quota systems, on minorities' representation in top ranks of the academic and corporate worlds? Scientists used mathematical models for the first time to quantify how successful quota systems can be for…

You like your vacation days? You like your little paid scraps of freedom, personal leave, and sick time that allow you to indulge in frivolous human needs like going to the doctor, seeing faraway family, or resting when ill? Well then, you better not fall behind at work, because all of it could legally disappear in an instant, according to a new U.S. court ruling. Employers are allowed to dock salaried employees’ paid time off, three 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals judges unanimously decided on Wednesday, in a first of its…

Work on gender balance in video games has been going on for years. There are questions about some of the methods, both from sociologists and from female gamers themselves. An example of this is the recent decision by League of Legends to significantly increase the number of female characters. What game officials themselves have called a step towards equal opportunities for men and women. Speaking to users, Ryan 'Reav3' Mireles, lead gameplay producer of League of Legends at Riot Games, said that according to their…

New York’s State Assembly passed the Warehouse Worker Protection Act (WWPA) on Friday, a bill that would require Amazon and other companies to disclose production quotas to workers, as first reported by CNBC. If New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) signs it into law, it would also prevent employees from having to meet quotas that require them to skip lunch or bathroom breaks. Just like a similar bill passed in California last September, the WWPA states that employers will need to provide each warehouse worker with “a…

The New York State Assembly has passed a bill that aims to limit productivity quotas in warehouses shortly after it was approved by the State Senate. Introduced by New York State Senator Jessica Ramos and Assembly Member Latoya Joyner back in April, the Warehouse Worker Protection Act takes aim at Amazon's labor practices. Ramos and Joyner strengthened the language and expanded upon a similar bill in California that was signed into law back in 2021. As CNBC notes, the legislation will require Amazon and any other company…

A worker sorts out parcels in the outbound dock at Amazon fulfillment center in Eastvale, California on Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021.Watchara Phomicinda | MediaNews Group | The Riverside Press-Enterprise via Getty ImagesNew York state lawmakers on Friday approved a bill targeting Amazon's use of productivity quotas in warehouses, the latest sign that public officials are taking aim at the online retailer's labor practices.The State Assembly passed the bill, called the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, after it was approved…

Tesla has decided to cancel any employee bonuses tied to its quarterly delivery quotas. The automaker is also raising base salaries for sales and delivery employees to compensate for the bonuses going away. However, it looks like it will result in an overall reduction in compensation for most of those Tesla employees. Tesla famously uses a different distribution model than most other automakers by owning stores across the US instead of relying on third-party dealerships. That means that it also controls the…