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Oil and gas workers have traditionally had some of the highest-paying blue-collar jobs — just the type that President Trump has vowed to preserve and bring back. But the West Texas oil fields, where activity is gearing back up as prices rebound, illustrate how difficult it will be to meet that goal, the New York Times reported today. As in other industries, automation is creating a new demand for high-tech workers — sometimes hundreds of miles away in a control center — but their numbers don’t offset the ranks of field hands no longer required to sling chains and lift iron. Roughly 163,000 oil jobs were lost nationally from the 2014 peak, or about 30 percent of the total, while oil prices plummeted, at one point by as much as 70 percent. The job losses just in Texas, the most productive oil-producing state, totaled 98,000.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) on Monday announced the formation of the Task Force on Responsible Retirement Reform for Local Government to address unfunded long-term liabilities for retirees and municipalities, Crain’s Detroit Business reported yesterday. The group is made up of more than 20 experts who represent labor and management, investment managers, insurance and finance professionals, and legislators to provide recommendations on reforming pension and health care by Spring. The effort comes as the state attempts to shift workers away from pensions. More than 330 municipalities offer either retiree health care or a retiree defined benefit pension plan, with some providing both. There is approximately $10 billion in total unfunded health care liabilities and $4 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, a news release stated.

The Connecticut state Senate narrowly approved Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's pension restructuring agreement with state unions on Wednesday when Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman broke a party-line tie to seal the deal, the Hartford Courant reported yesterday. The pension restructuring deal was approved in the state House of Representatives by 76 to 72 with two members absent on a largely party-line vote. The two debates had been conducted simultaneously as lawmakers discussed separate resolutions on the same issue. The deal between Malloy and state employees restructures future payments into the pension fund, but does not change the benefits or contributions of any retirees or current employees. Republicans offered an alternative to the restructuring, but their request to delay the vote was rejected by Malloy. Lawmakers charged that extending the deal would increase the overall payments by $11 billion.

For more than 400 employees recently laid off by Wells Fargo, the aftermath of the bank’s scandal over sham accounts has had an unexpected consequence: The bank is prohibited from paying the severance it owes them, the New York Times reported today. In mid-November, Wells Fargo’s federal regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, imposed additional restrictions on the troubled bank. The rules, part of which are intended to curb golden parachute packages, limit what payments Wells Fargo is permitted to make to terminated employees without explicit regulatory approval. Former employees at all levels of the company, from rank-and-file branch workers to corporate executives, are affected by the hold. Wells Fargo’s severance packages typically run from six weeks of pay to as long as 16 months, depending on the employee’s length of service.

A New York pension fund seeking $31 million from Hanjin Shipping Co. asked court permission to investigate ties between the South Korean carrier and its parent entity, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Yesterday’s filing in U.S Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey marks an attempt to draw the Hanjin Group conglomerate into the U.S. bankruptcy of Hanjin Shipping, which filed in August for receivership proceedings in Korea. The maritime carrier sought recognition of its insolvency in the U.S. days later by filing for chapter 15 protection, the section of the U.S. bankruptcy code covering foreign corporate debtors. A longshoremen’s pension fund is pursuing a $31 million “withdrawal liability” from Hanjin Shipping in the courts of both countries, according to yesterday’s filing. That represents the amount the New York Shipping Association-International Longshoremen’s Association Pension Trust Fund says that the carrier owes for pension benefits that will be paid out in the future. The pension fund says it wants to know whether the Hanjin Group conglomerate’s other businesses, including the world’s third-largest cargo airline, Korean Air, may be a close enough relative of the shipping unit that they, too, are liable for the $31 million tab.

Hundreds of Michigan residents may have been forced into bankruptcy by false fraud allegations leveled by Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency, irreversibly damaging their ability to obtain credit or buy a home, the Detroit Free Press reported yesterday. The state has conceded its Michigan Integrated Data Automated System (MiDAS), which began making fraud determinations in October 2013, had a 93 percent error rate. Since that system went online, there’s been an explosion in the number of cases the Attorney General’s Office has brought in federal bankruptcy court to recover alleged overpayment of unemployment insurance benefits. Now, attorneys are asking whether claimants who felt forced into settlements of unemployment insurance debt they may not have owed can have their bankruptcy cases reopened. The massive error rate is compounded by the state’s highest-in-the-nation 400 percent penalties, and huge problems Michigan Auditor General Doug Ringler has identified with a lack of adequate notice sent to claimants about the alleged overpayments, including notices sent to the wrong addresses or through online unemployment insurance accounts that former claimants had no reason to log on to and check. Since the law allows for debts owed to the state Unemployment Insurance Agency to live on after a bankruptcy in which most other debts are erased, those caught up in a bankruptcy have a strong incentive to pay up to settle the state’s claims and end their wage garnishments, even when they don’t believe they have done anything wrong.

The share of American workers in unions fell to the lowest level on record in 2016, showing a return to the downward trend for organized labor after membership figures had stabilized in recent years, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The total number of union members fell for both private- and public-sector workers last year, the first overall decline in four years, the Labor Department said yesterday. New policies from the Trump administration threaten to put more downward pressure on organized labor’s last stronghold, government employees, but might help stem membership losses among manufacturing and construction workers. Only 10.7 percent of workers were union members last year, down from 11.1 percent in 2015, and from more than 20 percent in the early 1980s.