Activision Blizzard employees sign petition denouncing company's 'abhorrent' response to lawsuit

Pressure on Activision Blizzard is mounting as more than 2,000 current and former employees signed a petition slamming what they see as the video game company's "abhorrent and insulting" response to a California lawsuit.

The petition, which was circulated Monday and seen by CNN Business, criticized the company's statements following a lawsuit filed last week by California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which alleged that multiple female employees were subjected to gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and unequal pay. READ MORE

DOL Proposes Rule to Enforce Federal Contractor Wage Increase

Many federal contractors would have to pay workers at least $15 an hour by 2022 under a proposed rule from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) that would implement and enforce a recent executive order.

In April, President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14026, which aims to promote "economy and efficiency in federal procurement by increasing the hourly minimum wage paid by the parties that contract with the federal government to $15.00 for those workers working on or in connection with a federal government contract," according to the White House. READ MORE

It’s Been 12 Years Since Congress Raised The Minimum Wage

Congress will pass an embarrassing milestone on Saturday: a dozen years without so much as a penny increase to the federal minimum wage. 

The wage floor set by the federal government remains just $7.25 per hour, well below a living wage everywhere in the country. A worker earning that pay with a full-time schedule would bring home an annual salary of only $15,000, hardly enough to cover basic living expenses for a single person, let alone a family. READ MORE

Top White House economist says companies need to 'pay a fair wage'

Despite a labor shortage brought about largely by the COVID-19 pandemic, companies can find workers by offering "fair wages," Brian Deese, the top economic adviser to President Joe Biden, told Yahoo Finance on Monday.

Deese, the Director of the National Economic Council, pointed to coronavirus fears and child care obligations amid remote schooling as key reasons why unemployed Americans have stayed on the sidelines. However, employers can overcome these obstacles by providing fair compensation, he added. READ MORE

Companies Plan Higher Salary Increases In 2021

Only 3% of American companies are freezing employee pay, and many plan to raise pay in 2022, according to a new Willis Towers Watson WLTW 0.38% survey.

Companies project average salary increases of 3% for executives, management and professional employees and support staff next year — up 2.7% from 2021.

The largest increases are projected in sectors like high tech, pharmaceuticals, health care, media and finance, oil and gas and retail. READ MORE

America's Worst CEO-to-Worker Pay Ratios

Nothing, it seems, can burst the bubble of America's highest-paid chief executive officers. Last year, even as the economy recorded its worst year for job losses since 1939, CEO pay continued to grow apace. At the same time, worker pay – for those lucky enough to remain employed – lagged even farther behind what the nation's top executives raked in. READ MORE

Maybe ‘clawback’ provisions should include people like cops and prosecutors

Have you owned a stock that declined in value significantly because the CEO or CFO of the company committed a misdeed, financial or otherwise? And then to add insult to injury, the Securities and Exchange Commission imposed a substantial fine on the company. You say to yourself, why penalize the company — and therefore me? Why not go after the CEO’s compensation? READ MORE

Cybersecurity salaries: What 8 top security jobs pay

As organizations emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, hiring is on the rebound—and that is especially true in the information security ranks where demand has outstripped supply for years. Despite the work-from-home push opening opportunities to hire beyond the usual geographical boundaries, many organizations continue to struggle to find these needed workers, which is putting pressure on salary and benefit offerings. READ MORE

Pandemic-Related Changes to Short-Term Incentive Plans Only Temporary

Changes to short-term incentives (STIs) prompted by the global pandemic/economy are largely temporary, and some organizations cite the pandemic as the reason for modifying long-term incentives (LTIs). These findings are captured in the "2021 Incentive Pay Practices Study" of publicly traded, privately held, nonprofit, and government organizations conducted by WorldatWork in partnership with Compensation Advisory Partners (CAP). WorldatWork has been conducting incentive pay surveys since 2007 with CAP (via acquisition of Vivient Consulting). The four-part survey provides a sweeping overview of approaches to incentive pay, including types of STI plans; annual incentive plan (AIP) measures, eligibility, targets, and payout frequency; long-term incentive (LTI) prevalence; incentive plan budgets (actual and estimated); and more. READ MORE

Nick Saban says Crimson Tide QB Bryce Young was offered 'almost seven figures' NIL deal

Alabama redshirt freshman quarterback Bryce Young assumes the reins of the most important position on the field this season for the defending national champions, and his star power has a chance to be considerably lucrative for the former five-star prospect. Speaking at the Texas High School Coaches Association convention on Tuesday, Alabama coach Nick Saban revealed that one of his players has been offered a substantial name, image and likeness deal, though he did not specify the player by name. READ MORE

The biggest job wage boom post-pandemic is blue collar, but will it last for workers?

Companies are in desperate need of workers across the country as the economic reopening collides with a tight labor market, but the boom in manual labor job wage growth pre-dates the pandemic.

Donna Kauffman, co-owner of a landscaping design and construction company in Colleyville, Texas, said a tightened labor market has pushed her starting wage up to $13.75 per hour, compared to lower wages in previous years. READ MORE

How Shareholders Can Have a Say on CEO Pay

A company's board of directors is ultimately responsible for how much a chief executive gets paid. But what can shareholders do if they think a chief executive isn't actually earning his or her salary?

New research from Morningstar explores ways to improve the link between CEO pay and shareholder interests. Morningstar equity analysts Joshua Aguilar and Kristoffer Inton looked at methods to better align CEO pay with the value they create for shareholders and better ways to measure their value creation. READ MORE

What to Expect in an Executive Compensation Audit

Income tax withholding is crucial to the general revenues of our federal government, but it turns out that employers have trouble complying with the rules, according to two payroll tax consultants speaking at the American Payroll Association’s 2021 Virtual Congress on July 15.

More than 70% of all the revenue collected by the federal government comes from income tax withholding, said Ken Fitzgerald, a tax manager at Deloitte Tax LLP. READ MORE

Employee-Shareholders, Reasonable Compensation And Employment Taxes

You may have read last week that Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee announced they had reached a deal on a budget resolution that will enable them to bypass Senate Republicans on the way to enacting most of the “social infrastructure” programs called for under the President’s American Families Plan.[i] Significantly, after the announcement, Senator Manchin, who is not a member of the Committee, indicated he would not stand in the way of the budget resolution, thereby practically assuring its passage and the start of the reconciliation budget process. READ MORE

McDonald's, Uber, Lyft forced to get creative to lure workers amid the labor crunch

A white hot economy has created staffing shortages across an increasingly wide range of sectors— prompting some employers to dangle higher wages and creative bonuses to lure badly needed workers into the fold.

U.S. leisure and hospitality jobs, which sustained the brunt of COVID-19 related losses, have spiked in recent months. Those positions accounted for more than half of May’s employment gains, according to the Labor Department’s monthly report.  READ MORE