Posts tagged Bill Cassidy
Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Cassidy Introduce Bill Recouping Pension Bailout Sent for Dead People, Increasing Oversight of Pension System
January 31, 2024 // In November, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) published a report disclosing that the PBGC overpaid the Central States fund by $127 million after the plan included at least 3,479 dead participants in its bailout request. According to the PBGC OIG, the PBGC’s review process did not require cross-checking the plan participant list with the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Full Death Master File (Full DMF), despite this practice being recommended as a standard procedure by the OIG. As far back as 2018, the OIG instructed PBGC that using the Full DMF is not only crucial, but essential, to prevent overpayments of annuities to people who are already dead. Under questioning from Sen. Cassidy, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who represents nearly 350,000 Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund (Central States Pension Fund) retiree participants, stated that the fund should return $127 million in taxpayer dollars that were wrongfully paid to it. However, the PBGC has indicated it does not intend to recoup this money, even though it has the legal authority to claw back wrongfully obtained funds. Further, the Central States Pension Fund has not returned the overpayment of taxpayer funds and is treating them as a fund asset. We still do not know how much the PBGC has overpaid for ghost annuities in total to all multiemployer pension plans.
Commentary: Biden’s Independent-Contracting Rule Destroys Worker Independence
January 16, 2024 // A recent regulatory change by the Biden administration is so poorly designed, there’s no telling exactly how many workers will be hurt.
Ranking Member Cassidy Releases Troubling Report Detailing Weaponization of NLRB Against American Workers, Demands Accountability
January 10, 2024 // Alarming reports highlight that under the Biden administration, the NLRB ignored its statutory obligation of neutrality and abused its authority by influencing union elections in favor of union organizers. In early 2023, a whistleblower came forward with information and documents alleging that NLRB regional officials in St. Louis, MO improperly coordinated with Starbucks Workers United (SWU) to tip union elections in favor of SWU. Following an investigation into the claims, the NLRB Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that NLRB officials in St. Louis engaged in “gross mismanagement” in an attempt to promote a union election victory at a Starbucks retail location. Similar allegations of improper election management have also been made at the NLRB’s Buffalo, NY office. As a result of its investigation, the OIG urged NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo to take steps to reform the NLRB’s regional offices engaged in improper conduct with SWU.
Opinion: Senate minimum wage bills make bipartisan compromise possible
January 7, 2024 // Setting a national minimum wage is difficult politically. State and local economies vary significantly . For example, both average salaries and cost of living in states with the highest, Massachusetts and Hawaii, respectively, are more than 70% greater than in Mississippi, one of the poorest, where the average salary is $45,000 and the cost of living is $32,000. As of Monday, 22 states increased their minimum wages, raising pay for an estimated 9.9 million workers and resulting in $6.95 billion in additional income, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute estimates. Minimum wages in Maryland, New Jersey, and upstate New York reached or exceeded $15 an hour for the first time, joining California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Washington, and the rest of New York. Seven more states have passed legislation or ballot measures to reach or surpass $15 an hour in the coming years: Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Nebraska, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Washington has the highest state minimum wage, increased from $15.74 to $16.28 due to an inflation adjustment. Still, by increasing the federal minimum to $17 an hour over five years, the Democrats’ Raise the Wage Act of 2023 would affect 28 million workers,
Senate left without voting to confirm Julie Su as labor secretary. She’ll stay on the job though.
December 26, 2023 // “We are going to be very clear — Julie Su will be renominated (as) Secretary of Labor in the new year. That is something that we are committed to,” said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre. Sen. Bill Cassidy, top Republican on the committee that would first have to approve the nomination, remained opposed to Su as secretary. Democrats have a committee majority, and control 51 Senate votes, but have been unable to get enough votes to formally confirm Su. Cassidy, R-La., said in a statement last week that “We need a qualified Secretary of Labor who can impartially enforce the law, properly manage a department, and refrain from partisan activism. Ms. Su failed to show her ability to do any of those three thing “It is clear Ms. Su lacks the necessary votes for confirmation. I urge President Biden to put forward a nominee who is committed to fair enforcement of our nation’s labor laws and is capable of being confirmed in the Senate.”
Opinion: NLRB says ‘common law’ — and common sense — defines joint employers
December 5, 2023 // The mandate, to take effect Dec. 26, says when two employers — think a local McDonald’s franchise and McDonald’s headquarters in Chicago — control a worker’s toil, from wages and hours to duties and work rules to hiring and firing to uniforms and training, then both are responsible for obeying or breaking Labor law. And that means it should be easier for workers to organize and bargain without being bounced from pillar to post when it comes to whom to bargain with. Using that same “basic common sense” explanation, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler called the new rule “an important win” for workers.
U.S. labor board delays new unionization rule after business groups sue
November 20, 2023 // The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups — including the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the International Franchise Association and the National Retail Federation — sued the NLRB in federal court in Texas last week to block the rule. They say the rule upends years of precedent and could make companies liable for workers they don’t employ at workplaces they don’t own. But the NLRB says the current rule makes it too easy for companies to avoid their legal responsibility to bargain with workers.
New federal rule could allow millions of workers to more easily unionize at big companies
November 16, 2023 // The rule only applies to labor relations. The Department of Labor sets its own joint employment standards for issues like meeting minimum wage requirements. Still, the new rule could have a major impact. Local franchise owners employ more than 8 million people in the U.S., according to the International Franchise Association. Millions more work for subcontractors or temporary agencies.
Ranking Member Cassidy Rebukes DOL’s Failure to Provide Requested Information on New Policy Unfairly Targeting Businesses
October 25, 2023 // U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, rebuked the Department of Labor (DOL) for failing to provide details on its new policy that compels businesses to produce information related to union activity beyond the scope of DOL’s authority. Earlier this year, Cassidy requested DOL provide details about its enforcement of this policy as well as its legal authority to force businesses to provide this information. To date, DOL has failed to provide adequate responses to Cassidy’s inquiry. Under the Landrum-Griffin Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), employers are required to disclose any funds spent on “persuader activity,” or funding used during union representation campaigns to persuade employees against unionizing. The Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), the office within DOL responsible for enforcing LMRDA, has begun enforcing a new policy that compels employers to provide information such as employee wages that is not related to LMRDA and beyond the scope of its enforcement power.
Labor Day 2023: Here’s a principled way for workers ‘to make their own choices’
September 1, 2023 // The best way to help workers and families is to remove barriers to their freedom and opportunity, instead of erecting new ones. That means empowering workers to make more of their own choices instead of letting bureaucrats and union officials control what they earn, where they work, and how our economy functions. Workers don’t need more leaders who advocate the failed ideas of the past. They deserve leaders who respect their role as the protagonists in their own and their families’ lives and will deliver better jobs, bigger paychecks, and a brighter future.