Facebook’s parent company will make employees do their own laundry
Meta, parent company of Facebook, told employees Friday that it was cutting back or eliminating free services such as laundry and dry cleaning and was pushing back the dinner bell for a free meal to 6:30 p.m. from 6 p.m., according to seven company employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The new dinner time is an inconvenience because the last of the company’s shuttles that take employees to and from their homes typically leaves the office at 6 p.m. It will also make it more difficult for workers to stock up on hefty to-go boxes of food.
Discovery’s shareholders approve WarnerMedia merger
Discovery’s shareholders approved its merger with WarnerMedia Friday, setting the stage for the companies to combine in a matter of weeks. The approval marks “the completion of one of the few remaining closing conditions for the merger,” Discovery said in a statement. The merger cleared a regulatory hurdle in February, making possible Friday’s shareholder vote, which had been widely expected to pass. John Malone, billionaire chair of Liberty Media, and the Newhouse family, which owns Condé Nast, control more than 40% of the vote among Discovery shareholders and gave the merger their blessing nearly a year ago.
Inflation surged as the war in Ukraine started, raising stakes for US
Prices climbed at the fastest pace in decades in the month leading up to the war in Ukraine, underlining the high stakes facing the United States as the conflict promises to drive costs higher. The consumer price index rose by 7.9% through February, the fastest pace of annual inflation in 40 years. Rising food and rent costs contributed to the increase, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said, as did a nascent surge in gas prices that will become more pronounced in the March inflation report. The surge in gas prices came in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine late last month.
Spirit-Frontier merger could hurt airline competition, legislators say
A group of progressive lawmakers wants federal officials to scrutinize the proposed merger of Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines over concerns that the combination could prove anti-competitive and hurt customers and workers. The lawmakers — including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York — warn that the merger could drive up ticket prices, worsen customer service and reduce worker leverage. They laid out those misgivings in a letter on Wednesday to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, the top antitrust official in the Justice Department.
United Airlines workers with vaccine exemptions can return to their regular jobs
United Airlines, one of the first major businesses to mandate vaccination against the coronavirus, will allow workers granted religious or medical exemptions from receiving a shot to return to their jobs at the end of this month. About 2,200 United employees received exemptions last year. They were placed on unpaid leave or were moved to roles that did not involve in-person contact with customers. Those employees can return to their normal positions March 28. “We expect COVID case counts, hospitalizations and deaths to continue to decline nationally over the next few weeks and, accordingly, we plan to welcome back those employees,” said Kirk Limacher, United’s vice president for human resources.
Employers still scrambling to fill vacancies, new report shows
Job openings in the United States and the number of workers quitting their jobs remained near record highs in January, an indicator of demand for labor and of worker leverage. The data, released by the Labor Department on Wednesday, was another sign of an economy that wobbled yet remained sturdy when faced with the omicron wave of the coronavirus. Job openings dipped to 11.3 million, down from a record in December, but were still up about 61% from February 2020. Some 4.3 million people left their jobs voluntarily in January, edging down compared with the 4.5 million who quit in November.
By wire sources
