UAB Minimum Wage Increase Goes Into Effect This Weekend
One of Alabama’s largest employers is increasing its minimum wage to $11 an hour, officials say. The decision was made before a contentious minimum wage fight between city and state lawmakers.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham made this decision in January, long before Birmingham City Council and the Alabama Legislature fought over the city’s choice to raise its minimum wage. That battle ended with a new state law banning cities from changing their minimum wage.
UAB officials say they raised the minimum for hourly employees to keep pace with other organizations that can offer more money to potential hires.
“It was making it difficult for us to get the best talent for our entry-level positions, and then keep them,” says Alicia Jones, UAB Chief Human Resources Officer. The increase will cost the school a total of $391,000, she says.
The increase takes effect March 20, for roughly 1,100 university employees. The increase does not affect part-time student workers, Jones says. UAB’s current minimum of $8.24 an hour is already higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
YouTube agrees to pay Trump $24 million to settle lawsuit over Jan. 6 suspension
YouTube is the latest social media company to pay Trump tens of millions of dollars to resolve lawsuits brought before he returned to power. The money will fund a new ballroom at the White House.
From painting to producing: Birmingham DJ Andrea Really releases first album
Birmingham DJ Andrea Really wasn't always a music producer. She used to be a prolific painter. But when her art studio burned down in 2017, she pivoted careers. Really spoke with WBHM about that journey upon the release of her first album this summer, called Zeitgeist.
A year after Helene, a group of raft guides embarks on a river clean-up mission
A popular rafting river in the Appalachian mountains is still closed a year after Hurricane Helene, because there's just too much debris. Now, rafting guides have come together to help clean it up.
Lesotho’s Famo music: from shepherd songs to gang wars
In Lesotho, a style of traditional accordion music called Famo has become entangled with deadly gang rivalries. Once the soundtrack of shepherds and migrant workers, today it's linked to killings, government bans — and a fight over cultural identity.
Comic Cristela Alonzo grew up in fear of border patrol. ICE has ‘brought it all back’
For the first seven years of her life, Alonzo lived in an abandoned diner in a south Texas border town. Her new Netflix stand-up special is called Upper Classy.
Compass-Anywhere real estate merger could squeeze small brokerages
The deal, announced earlier this week, would combine the two largest U.S. residential brokerages by sales volume.