Posts tagged CARES Act
Commerce agency near ‘collapse’ over telework, layoffs, union says
June 3, 2024 // Lawmakers, especially Republicans, have been wary of widespread remote work, saying customer service backlogs at government agencies including the Social Security Administration and the IRS prove the case for more in-person staff. Just last week, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s HR department, assured lawmakers that more than half of all federal employees work in-person full time.
Stalled Labor Pick Julie Su Lets Herself Off the Hook for California’s Missing Billions
April 2, 2024 // California’s auditor notes that the U.S. Department of Labor has issued helpful “guidance” for state finance officials in “Unemployment Insurance Program Letter 05-24.” Flip over to the U.S. Department of Labor’s DOL 05-24 letter and you learn what Julie Su is up to. The DOL memo says a Covid-era agreement between the feds and state unemployment departments “required states to use the CARES Act funds ‘for the purpose for which the money was paid to the state’ and to ‘take such action as reasonably may be necessary to recover for the account of the United States all benefit amounts erroneously paid and restore any lost or misapplied funds paid to the state for benefits or the administration of the Agreement.” But how will the federal DOL know whether states took “such action as reasonably necessary to recover” the billions stolen by fraudsters? Because the states will tell them so, or, as the DOL put it in inimitable Orwellian language: “Applying state finality laws to the CARES Act UC programs means that, in many instances, the state will not need to take retroactive action to resolve monitoring findings.”
Behind the last-ditch effort to save a trucking company that owes $700M to taxpayers
December 1, 2023 // Estes Express earlier this fall offered $1.53 billion "stalking horse" bid for Nashville-based Yellow's shipment centers. That would easily be enough to repay around $500 million in debt held by senior lender Citadel — which purchased the notes from Apollo, post bankruptcy — plus other creditors and the CARES Act loan. Then we got a wrinkle, just ahead of the bankruptcy auction kicking off this past Tuesday. It was a bid led by the owner of auto trucking company Jack Cooper to restart Nashville-based Yellow, not just scoop up logistics properties or other assets. This new proposal, as reported by the NY Times, would repay private creditors immediately, but postpone the Treasury loan repayment to 2026 from 2024. It's this second deal that's being supported, at least in principle, by a chorus of U.S. senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Rep. French Hill
In Michigan, a Modicum of Justice for a COVID-Exploiting Teachers’ Union
March 21, 2023 // According to a January 2022 Freedom Foundation report, labor unions and related organizations procured some 223 loans totaling $36.1 million during the period between the passage of the CARES Act in March 2020, which created the PPP program, and the American Rescue Plan in March 2021, which modified it. Leading recipients included teachers’ unions, government employees’ unions, and AFL-CIO advocacy groups. As the Freedom Foundation asserted in its report: The ineligible loans diverted resources away from the purpose of the PPP, namely helping businesses keep employees on payroll. Further, given that union revenue derives primarily from dues deducted from members’ paychecks, direct support to unions was unnecessary; to the extent the PPP loans to businesses allowed union employees to keep working, it also allowed unions to continue collecting dues from their paychecks.
Op-ed: Small Business Administration should fight for entrepreneurs, not unions
June 24, 2022 // Nonetheless, a recent Freedom Foundation analysis of SBA’s PPP loan database identified 223 loans totaling $36.1 million made to labor unions and related organizations between March 2020 and March 2021 that, as mostly 501(c)(5) nonprofit groups, were not eligible to participate in the program. The recipient list included a dozen teachers unions and advocacy groups, such as the Michigan Education Association and the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, ironically among the fiercest champions of lockdown policies, the effects of which PPP funds were intended to alleviate. Alabama State Employees Association, Maryland Public Employees Council, Alaska AFL-CIO, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, Isabel Guzman, Small Business Committee,
Firing Of 3 Town Employees For ‘Triple-Dipping’ During Pandemic Upheld
May 11, 2022 // It also is noted that each "blatantly" continued to file unemployment claims despite knowing they were not eligible, documents show. It was argued the three conspired: "There is one aspect of the conspiracy argument that is worthy of comment: the strikingly similar answers from all three Grievants at times, and the group amnesia at other times. The Arbitrators interest was piqued at the similar and non-committal testimony at times.
Report: Unions Collected Millions in Federal COVID Relief They Weren’t Eligible for While Cheerleading Lockdowns
March 2, 2022 // And, to top it off, a recent Freedom Foundation report documents how as many as 226 forgivable loans totaling $36.7 million were provided to labor unions and related organizations that were apparently ineligible for the funds.