Changes are coming to Michigan’s minimum wage and sick time requirements after a major ruling from the state’s highest court.

The Biden administration is proposing a new rule that would make 3.6 million more U.S. workers eligible for overtime pay, reviving an Obama-era policy effort that was ultimately scuttled in court.

The union organizing Starbucks workers says a strike timed to Pride month closed 21 stores over the weekend, including the company’s flagship Reserve Roastery in Seattle.

Workers from the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) found a damaged trailer and its contents in the median of southbound I-75 near MM 286.

A lawsuit has been filed against a Michigan farm for human trafficking and violating the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act.

Yes, the Detroit Lions may have missed the playoffs, but you would never know it inside the practice facility Monday as the mood was cheerful and light.

There is a new push to slow Michigan’s minimum wage hike for tipped workers after a bill was introduced on Tuesday.

Employees are demonstrating outside three Starbucks locations in Ann Arbor on Thursday.

On Monday afternoon, Starbucks workers at the 5655 E. Pickard location found out they had won their union election.

The Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office has signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division.

Stellantis is gearing up to lay off workers at its stamping plant in Sterling Heights, United Auto Workers officials said Tuesday.

Starbucks employees in Ann Arbor are the latest to join a national effort to unionize.

When it comes to planning for retirement, experts are saying that women should plan to save more money than men do.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration has stopped recommending that masks be worn inside schools and other public places to curb COVID-19, pointing to a drop in cases and hospitalizations.

Champion Foods is looking to hire more than 50 team members at their New Boston, Mich. plant.

Roughly 25,000 employees across all three U-M campuses will receive the one-time payment.

The Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office announced the establishment of a new Economic Justice Unit.

A law in Portugal prohibits a boss from contacting an employer outside of their regular work hours.

Vietnamese workers helping construct the first Chinese car tire factory in Europe say they're shivering in barracks without heat, going hungry and stuck in a plainland in Serbia because their passports have been taken by their Chinese employer.

Some local medical employees are in a battle to be paid and now Help Me Hank is coming to the rescue.

Are you quitting your job? Are you thinking about quitting your job?

Many employees throughout the United States who started working remotely during the pandemic want to keep it that way. Here is a look at how employers are responding.

Here’s our coverage of the situation from the past few weeks in Metro Detroit.

Work has halted at all of the Kellogg Company’s U.S. cereal plants as roughly 1,400 workers went on strike.

A team of researchers at the University of Michigan plans to develop a lightweight exoskeleton that could be a game changer for people with mobility disabilities.

The positions being filled involve helping with pizza production.

President Joe Biden is calling on all governors to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for teachers and members of school staffs.

President Joe Biden on Thursday is announcing sweeping new federal vaccine requirements affecting as many as 100 million Americans in an all-out effort to increase COVID-19 vaccinations and curb the surging delta variant that is killing thousands each week and jeopardizing the nation’s economic recovery.

“If we thought that people were going to be rushing to jobs because they saw their benefits about to expire, today’s jobs release numbers were not in accord with that,” Hershbein said.

House Bill 4471 is opposed by seven major business and health groups.

House Bill 4471 is opposed by seven major business and health groups.

With the current shortage in labor, businesses are trying to bring workers in with wages that start at $15-17 per hour, with added bonuses and perks.

Local businesses have been waiting to flip their signs back to “Open.” But now that they can, there is a big problem. They can’t find the workers.

You have probably seen the signs all over Metro Detroit. More and more businesses are struggling to find workers.

Michigan is dialing back its COVID-19 workplace rules as the state prepares to fully reopen.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is supporting a proposed bonus payment for essential employees who worked throughout the COVID pandemic.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has announced a new back-to-work incentive in Michigan.

People currently receiving unemployment benefits are going to start experiencing new changes.

It starts with a knock on the door and right now many are getting more knocks than ever.

LIVONIA, Mich. – Social workers will be sent out with Livonia police officers when officers are responding to a mental health crisis call through a new Crisis Support Team. “We’re going to have two social workers in our police department to assist us with handling mental health crisis runs where people are in crisis and they need our help and they need the public’s help,” Livonia police Captain Tom Goralski said. The program has been in the works for a while, but Goralski said it is needed now more than ever. “Livonia has experienced an increase in mental health crisis runs. Putting a Crisis Support Team, in that has social workers embedded in our police department, addresses better than ever before the needs, the mental health needs of our community,” Brosnan said.

But in most states, meatpacking workers are still waiting for their turn to be vaccinated and are ranked behind health care workers, residents of long-term care centers and people aged 65 and older. Marc Perrone, UCFW president, argues that meatpacking workers, grocery store employees and other essential workers should be vaccinated ahead of older people who don’t have other health conditions. In a recent union survey that also included grocery and other food production workers, 70% of respondents said they want to be vaccinated. The UFCW, which represents roughly 80% of the nation’s beef and pork workers and 33% of its poultry workers, estimates that at least 21,900 meatpacking workers have been infected or exposed, and 132 have died of COVID-19. “Meatpacking workers like me are still facing risks every day.”___Associated Press writer Stephen Groves in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, contributed to this report.

DETROIT – The battle over the minimum wage heated up Friday. A Fight for $15 rally took place at a McDonald’s near the intersection of Livernois Avenue and West McNichols Road on Detroit’s west side. They want the minimum wage to increase to $15 an hour. Demonstrators want the incoming Joe Biden administration to raise the federal minimum wage within Biden’s first 100 days of taking office. The federal minimum wage hasn’t been raised since July 2009.

YPSILANTI, Mich. – Construction workers are asking for something to change after two of their own were killed on the job in Ypsilanti earlier this month. On smaller projects, like patch work, there’s usually just barrels separating workers, who are spread out for miles. We all have to work together to make change,” Crowl said. Workers said the change should be industry-wide, and agencies like the Michigan Department of Transportation need to implement them. “Drivers didn’t slow down because they were thinking of construction workers, they were afraid of tickets.

Over the next two years, employment and incomes are forecast to increase, with Michigan’s construction and automotive industries expected to see growth. “On the one hand, it is encouraging that the recovery from the COVID-19 recession is likely to create a nearly complete jobs recovery in higher- and middle-wage industries,” the report says. In that scenario, Michigan would end 2022 with 152,000 fewer jobs than it had in the first quarter of 2020—a 3.4% shortfall. In level terms, personal income in 2022 is expected to come in 5.8% higher than in 2019. They forecast a recovery of 22,600 jobs in 2021 and 13,300 in 2022.

DETROIT – Michigan workers who returned to work after being on unemployment and are now temporarily unemployed again should reopen their claims online, officials said. The Unemployment Insurance Agency released this information as the state’s COVID-19 restrictions are set to be tightened Wednesday (Nov. 17) through Dec. 8. WATCH Local 4 News at 11Metro Detroit weather: Snow showers linger before warmer temperatures arriveSnow showers linger before warmer air rescues us for the second half of the week. Originally, two Republican members voted not to certify and two Democratic members voted to certify. Read MoreMonday, Nov. 16, 2020 --

Workers prepare mail-in ballots for counting, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2020, at the convention center in Lancaster, Pa., following Tuesday's election. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)If you need help with the Public File, call (313) 222-0566.

In every recession since the 1970s, older workers had persistently lower unemployment rates than midcareer workers — partly because of seniority benefits. But in the current recession, older workers experienced higher unemployment rates than midcareer workers in each month since the onset of the pandemic. The older workers’ unemployment rates from April through September were 1.1 percentage points higher than mid-career workers — at 9.7% versus 8.6%. “The higher rate of unemployment for older workers might be because this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for employers to shed older workers and not fear investigation by the labor department," Ghilarducci said. The researchers who conducted the new study recommended that Congress increase and extend unemployment benefits for older workers, discourage withdrawals from retirement accounts, lower Medicare eligibility to 50 and create a federal Older Workers Bureau to promote the welfare of older workers.

DETROIT – Grocery store giant Meijer is hiring more than 1,000 new workers in southeast Michigan. Additionally, the stores are looking for team members to assist with its Meijer Pickup service. Meijer team members receive weekly pay, team member discounts, paid parental leave, educational reimbursement, and flexible scheduling. They also have career advancement opportunities, access to health insurance options and the option for 401k retirement planning. Meijer was recently named one of the Midwest’s “Great Places to Work” for the second year in a row.

DETROIT Detroits Greektown Casino-Hotel is laying off 43 workers due to revenue loss from the coronavirus pandemic. These layoffs at Greektown Casino-Hotel are the unfortunate result of COVID-19 related business circumstances that were sudden, dramatic and beyond our control, said the company in a statement announcing the layoffs. The 43 union employees will be laid off beginning Sept. 28 or the 14 day period commencing on that date. The layoffs come as Michigan casinos along with other businesses were closed down for months because of the pandemic. The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Michigan has risen to 106,215 as of Saturday morning, including 6,534 deaths, state officials report.

Tlaibs spoke in response to the recent statement from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about concerns of current conditions inside post offices nationwide and worries about mail in ballots. DeJoy released a statement stating, The postal service is ready today to handle whatever volume of election mail it receives this fall.But the changes were already made. We stand before the United States Postal Service to say, heroes work here and we have your back, said Rep. Haley Stevens. People who work for the United States Postal Service have come to work, have put themselves at risk, in order to meet the commitment, said Rep. Dan Kildee. Several voters are concerned that the ballots wont be counted but Benson said theyre working to make sure that wont happen.

DETROIT – Many businesses in Metro Detroit and around the state of Michigan are having a hard time finding workers since the coronavirus (COVID-19) unemployment bonuses don’t expire until the end of the month. Help wanted signs have been popping up all around town as businesses battle a lack of workers. “The economy can’t restart fully until employees are willing to return to work,” Block said. The shortage of workers should end after July, unless Congress decides to approve another stimulus. The state unemployment rate is at around 20% despite the many job availabilities.

LANSING, Mich. – On Friday, the Unemployment Insurance Agency provided an update on unemployment claims related to COVID-19 in Michigan. The agency also announced that it has now cleared a majority of all accounts that were flagged for further identity verification due to criminal attacks. This includes the clearing over 200,000 of the 340,000 active claims with claimants’ benefits resuming within days. In just the last week alone, the UIA has cleared a combined 150,000 active and new claims flagged for identity verification. With an additional 60,000 cleared active accounts announced today, coupled with more than 140,000 announced last week, the UIA has cleared more 200,000 active accounts suspected of fraud.

Kohl is the director of the University of Michigan Workers Rights Project, which helps workers get unemployment benefits free of charge. The CARES Act created the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) to cover more workers who are not typically covered by many state unemployment programs (like low-income workers, part time workers, self-employed workers, independent contractors, etc.). See the above example about how receiving a pension in Michigan will reduce or eliminate that claimant's ability to collect unemployment benefits. Discuss the balance between a healthy worker not feeling comfortable with returning to a now-opened business that may want to end the unemployment benefits. Plus, the unemployment benefits from workshare programs are paid from the CARES Act's funds rather than states' trust funds.

DETROIT – Some 200 furloughed workers are now back on the job across the city. Crews are back mowing the fields and cleaning the sidewalks while sweeping city streets. Hundreds of Detroit city workers were allowed back to work Monday after Gov. I know the employers are happy, they’ve been chomping at the bit to get back, providing service to the residents and the city. Each worker is required to fill out a symptom questionaire and must have it approved before being assigned to a part of the city.

DETROIT – To better serve Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) claimants experiencing MILogin and Michigan Web Account Manager (MiWAM) technical difficulties when applying for benefits, the Dept. of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) has implemented new online tools to help users report and resolve technical issues. “We’ve built online prompts and other resources into the systems to help unemployed workers resolve technical issues when trying to login to submit their claim,” said LEO Director Jeff Donofrio. All eligible workers will receive benefitsThe UIA assures that every eligible worker in Michigan who applies for unemployment benefits will receive them. Last names beginning with letters M-Z: file claims on Sundays, Tuesdays, or Thursdays.

While many of us are safely snuggled inside our homes, there are still many people out there bravely working for us so that we can have all the things we need during this strange time. Whether you’re stocking shelves, making food, protecting us, delivering packages, providing a service or helping those who are ill, we would like to show our appreciation! Send us a photo of you doing your job during the shutdown, and we may air it on Local 4. If you are submitting a group photo or submitting a photo on behalf of someone else, you must have their permission to submit. USE THE FORM TO SUBMIT A PICTURE:

DETROIT – Ford workers will get $9,000 each if they ratify a new four-year contract with the company, but Ford will close a factory in the deal, a person briefed on the pact said Thursday. Ford reached a tentative four-year contract agreement with the United Auto Workers union Wednesday night. The deal with Ford’s 55,000 U.S. union workers doesn’t match the $11,000 signing bonus that General Motors workers will get. The work will instead be moved to other factories as part of the $6 billion in U.S. factory investments, the person said. If local union leaders vote to recommend the contract to Ford workers, nationwide voting likely will take another week.