News Type: Articles

Thirty years ago – nearly a decade before I was sworn in as a member of the bar – I had a job bussing tables at a swanky restaurant in beautiful Del Mar, California. I showed up for work on Friday and Saturday nights – and Sundays for brunch – and made myself busy clearing plates, utensils, wine glasses and anything else diners wanted out of their way. The tips were nothing to sneeze at, and I couldn’t have asked for a better part-time gig while in college in San Diego.

But there was something about the job that makes me scratch my head all these years later. On my night shifts, I closed the restaurant and was the last to leave. Yet before heading home, my responsibilities included bundling up trash from the kitchen and hauling the bags to dumpsters located on the opposite end of the building. Separately, I had to spray off the rubber mats that covered the kitchen floor and hang them over an outside railing to dry overnight. Here’s the rub. I wasn’t to do any of these tasks – which took me about 10 minutes, max – without first clocking out, setting the restaurant’s alarm and locking up.

No matter how you parse them, the numbers are staggering. On average, females in the U.S. workforce are paid $0.80 for every dollar earned by their male counterparts—this according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). The news is even worse for women of color, with African Americans making $0.63 and Latinas $0.54 compared to each dollar paid to white men—figures that make it hard to imagine the Equal Pay Act was passed more than 55 years ago.

The aggregate statistics are even more mind-blowing. According to the National Committee on Pay Equity, the total estimated earnings lost by a woman compared to a man over the span of a nearly 50-year career are $700,000 for a high school graduate, $1.2 million for a college graduate, and $2 million for a professional school graduate. There is more. Research by the IWPR suggests that if the sexes were compensated equally, the poverty level in this country would be cut in half and women would add $513 billion to the nation’s economy.

Call it what you will – the gig economy, sharing economy, freelance economy, on-demand economy, platform economy, [fill-in-the-blank] economy – the nuts and bolts of how we go about accessing people and services has changed dramatically in recent years. Want a ride? Grab an Uber. Hungry? DoorDash delivers. Need groceries? Instacart to the rescue. With just a couple of taps on a smart device, our every wish can seemingly be granted.

This genie-in-a-bottle approach to commerce extends beyond everyday consumers and into the corporate sphere as well, especially when it comes to staffing. Worldwide, an ever-growing force of independent workers available for short-term engagements is just a few clicks away. No doubt about it, the phenomenon most commonly referred to as the gig economy is shaking up “business as usual” across industries as technology transforms the manner in which companies – hotels and resorts included – fill vacant positions. And while this can certainly be a boon for hoteliers, the shifting employment paradigm is not without potential pitfalls.

The headlines are seemingly nonstop: “Wage gap is even worse than we had thought,” reads the Chicago Tribune, “Women still earn lower salaries, fewer promotions,” proclaims USA Today, and “America doesn’t just have a gender pay gap. It has a gender wealth gap,” reports the Washington Post.

This drumbeat of news regarding the divide between what men and women in the U.S. earn reflects numbers that are stunning, to say the least. Here we are, more than 56 years after the passage of the Equal Pay Act, and females in this country are paid $0.80 for every dollar made by their male counterparts – this according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). For women of color, the data is far worse, with African Americans making $0.63 and Latinas $0.54 compared to each dollar paid to white men.

With a population just shy of 40 million people, California is by far the most populous state in the nation. How big is the Golden State? Consider this: California’s economy-around $2.7 trillion-is the fifth largest in the world, putting it ahead of the United Kingdom, India, France, South Korea and even Russia.

Bottom line: Californians represent a significant percentage of consumers, not just in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and cities and towns in between, but throughout the U.S. Which should give hoteliers pause when pondering this additional fun fact: California is also home to the nation’s strictest privacy law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which comes online January 1, 2020.

An article by Dana Kravetz and Taylor Foss titled, “The Importance of Protecting Your Hotel’s IP Portfolio,” was published by Hotel Business Review on January 19, 2020.

An article by Seth Darmstadter titled, “A Lesson from COVID-19: Why Wait for a Crisis To Begin Managing It?” was published in Corporate Counsel on April 28, 2020.

An article by Richard Reice titled, “INSIGHT: Coronavirus Raises OSHA Safety, Union Issues for White Collar Employers,” was published in Bloomberg Law on March 10, 2020.

An article by Taylor Foss titled, “Apparel Trademarks: How the Mere Ornamentation Technicality May Be Undermining Your Brand,” was published in IP Watchdog on August 26, 2020.

An article by Mark Robinson titled, “Admitted VS. Non-Admitted Carriers: What Insurance Agents and Brokers (and Their Clients) Need to Know,” was published in American Agents Alliance Newsletter on September 2, 2020.