Posts tagged Biden administration
Federal Employees Face Telework Limits, Hiring Freeze on Trump’s First Day
January 14, 2025 // The inauguration of Donald Trump is fast approaching. Reports of Executive Orders on his first day on telework and a federal hiring freeze are now surfacing.
With Port Strike Averted, Dockworkers Draw New Curbs on Automation
January 12, 2025 // The pact would allow operators of automated equipment at ports in New Jersey and Virginia, where multiple machines are managed by a single dockworker at a time, to continue to use the semiautonomous cranes, according to people familiar with the matter. But the agreement says that companies that add semiautonomous equipment must hire one dockworker for each new crane added, the people said. That means that a gateway such as the Port of Virginia, which operates 116 semiautonomous cranes, will have to hire one extra dockworker for each of 36 new semiautonomous cranes it plans to add over the next few years. “That’s a pretty significant gain,” said a shipping industry official familiar with the contract talks.
Opinion: Mitch McConnell: Nippon Steel Isn’t the Enemy
January 10, 2025 // In Georgetown, Ky., hundreds of skilled workers build automotive parts at a facility owned by Nippon Steel. About 5 miles away, another Japanese firm, Toyota, employs nearly 10,000 people full-time at the company’s largest vehicle-manufacturing plant in the world. Toyota recently announced more than $2 billion in new investments to expand and modernize its facilities there. Japan likely wonders why the Biden administration considers a major investment in American jobs and manufacturing a national-security risk but not its purchase of cutting-edge American military technologies.
FTC Moves to Allow Independent Contractors to Collectively Bargain
January 10, 2025 // On January 7, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced its tentative agenda for its January 14 open commission meeting. One of the topics for discussion centers around whether the agency should issue a policy statement allowing independent contractors to collectively bargain.
Independent Contracting in 2025
January 8, 2025 // Independent contractors forgo workplace benefits that employees receive. Portable benefits are a way to give them access to benefits untethered from employment with one employer.
US Steel Boss: Biden’s Block of Sale Shameful, Corrupt
January 5, 2025 // Pres. Trump Sees China as #1 Threat, See More Here Home | Newsfront Tags: bien | steel | sale | corruption US Steel Boss: Biden's Block of Sale Shameful, Corrupt By Michael Katz | Friday, 03 January 2025 07:51 PM EST facebook sharing buttontwitter sharing buttonlinkedin sharing button Comment|Print| A A David Burritt, the president and CEO of U.S. Steel, said Friday that President Joe Biden’s decision to block the company’s sale to a Japanese rival was “shameful” and “corrupt.” Biden’s long-awaited decision on the deal came in a presidential order posted Friday on the White House website, declaring Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion bid for the U.S. steelmaker “prohibited.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Biden was acting on a recommendation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States that the acquisition “would place one of America’s largest steel producers under foreign control and create a risk for our national security and our critical supply chains.” “President Biden’s action today is shameful and corrupt,” Burritt said in a news release. “He gave a political payback to a union boss out of touch with his members while harming our company’s future, our workers, and our national security.”
Dockworkers to resume contract negotiations as strike threat looms
January 4, 2025 // The big sticking point holding up a deal is automation. The union wants to hold it back and stop the installation of more semi-automated cranes at the ports. (Two ports, in Norfolk, Virginia, and Bayonne, New Jersey, already use the technology.) The group representing port employers, the United States Maritime Alliance, wants to advance its use of technology.
Steelworkers Union Applauds as Biden Blocks Sale of US Steel to Japanese Giant
January 4, 2025 // The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a federal committee that has the power to review certain transactions involving foreign investment in the United States to evaluate a deal's impact on national security, decided to forgo making a formal recommendation about whether the deal should be allowed to proceed last week. The proposal also became ensnared in election year politics, with both presidential candidates saying that U.S. Steel should remain a domestically-owned firm. Rust Belt lawmakers in both parties, including Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)—both of whom lost re-election in November—and Vice President-elect JD Vance, an Ohio Republican, expressed opposition to the deal.
Trump Faces Federal Employee Unions in Government Efficiency Battle
January 3, 2025 // “For President-elect Trump to succeed at making the federal bureaucracy more efficient and accountable to the American people, he’ll have to once again do battle with federal unions,” Max Nelsen, a labor policy expert at the Freedom Foundation, told The Center Square.
From Amazon warehouse to port strikes, shippers and the DOT are preparing for an unpredictable 2025
January 2, 2025 // In recent years, the logistics industry has become familiar with "black swan" events, the biggest being Covid, which brought the global supply chain to a halt. The lessons learned during the pandemic led to new digital solutions for companies to track trade and solve for the lack of communication and data sharing that contributed to massive congestion at ports. Those solutions will continue to play a major role in dealing with trade disruptions.