Advocacy

Groups representing booksellers and authors joined in filing an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, December 2, to urge the court to review a lower court decision that found Apple violated antitrust law by conspiring to influence e-book pricing.

The weekly roundup features minimum wage stories from around the country to help keep booksellers on top of local developments affecting their businesses.

The Small Business Majority has presented Christin Evans of The Booksmith in San Francisco and Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, California, with a regional Small Business Advocate Award.

The Book Industry Charitable Foundation has launched a year-end fundraising campaign with the hopes of raising $10,000 to continue its work providing emergency financial assistance to booksellers in times of crisis.

Some of the students involved in campus protests over racial discrimination have demonstrated hostility toward the free speech rights of others. Should booksellers side with a minority that is trying to make itself heard or condemn those who violate the very rights that make protest possible? asks ABFE Director Chris Finan.

Advocates for Independent Business has created an eye-catching infographic providing data on the real costs of shopping at Amazon — and why shopping locally is better for the local community.

Left Bank’s Jarek Steele talks about the struggle to pay employees a living wage and the need to stay competitive, the effects a $15 minimum wage would have on his business, how he presents his concerns to community leaders, and more.

The minimum wage movement has become a topic in the presidential race, with candidates in both parties addressing questions on the issue in their recent debates. Here is a look at the latest minimum wage news from around the country. 

Across the nation, labor groups and many legislators are working to increase the minimum wage. Here’s a look at some of the minimum wage issues in the news during the past week.

Media Coalition, whose members are eight media and entertainment trade associations, including ABA, has been defending First Amendment rights since 1973. Its latest challenge to a law threatening those rights was filed this week on behalf of Garden District Book Shop and Octavia Books, among others.

Bookstore owners and managers can head to HealthCare.gov at any time during the year to see what health care plans they can offer to their employees.

ABA has joined two New Orleans bookstores in filing a legal challenge to a new Louisiana law that requires website owners to post a page where customers must indicate whether they are 18 or older before accessing material that is “harmful to minors” because of its sexual content.

The weekly roundup features minimum wage stories from around the country to help keep booksellers on top of local developments affecting their businesses.

A fact sheet released by Advocates for Independent Business and the Institute for Local Self-Reliance provides eye-opening data that reveals how tax incentives and other assistance provided by local governments to Amazon does more harm than good to local economies.

European Commission rules against tax advantages given to Starbucks, Fiat; 2015 Kirkus Prize winners announced; Beyond Lolita to raise money for PEN America’s Writers’ Emergency Fund