Posts tagged Congress
As House dining shake-up nears, food workers take fight to court
July 29, 2025 // They allege FCW Investments LLC, which will run a Jimmy John’s in the Rayburn Building, and Elite Management Group, which will operate a Starbucks out of the former Dunkin’ in the Longworth Building, are failing to comply with a local law that protects some workers from displacement when contracts change hands. “The simple fact is every one of these contractors should be offering existing employees their jobs,” said Jesse Seitel, an organizing director at Unite Here Local 23, the House food service workers’ union. “We hope that these companies come to their senses.” On their boycott list are Starbucks, Jimmy John’s, PX Tacos, Java House, CHA Street Food and Black Crown Collective, all of which are set to open on the Hill in the coming weeks.
Michigan-Based Rieth-Riley Asphalt Worker Submits Legal Brief Urging 6th Circuit to Protect Workers’ Right to Vote Out Unpopular Union
July 28, 2025 // While Kent and his fellow employees were eventually able to exercise their right to vote on the IUOE, the NLRB in 2022 dismissed his petitions and halted the election, declining to count the already-cast ballots just hours before the vote tally, calling it a “merit-determination” dismissal. This dismissal was based on unfair labor practice allegations the IUOE filed against Rieth-Riley management in 2018. But the NLRB never held a hearing on whether those alleged practices had any connection to Kent and his coworkers’ desire to oust the union. Kent’s brief urges the Sixth Circuit to use Rieth-Riley Construction Co. as an opportunity to invalidate the NLRB’s “merit-determination” dismissal policy. The brief also asks the Court to order the NLRB to take the long-overdue step of counting the ballots in Mr. Kent’s decertification election, so he and his coworkers can properly exercise their right to vote on the union.
Unions rally in Pittsburgh against Trump’s cuts to worker protections and research funding
July 23, 2025 // The event was a stop on the AFL-CIO’s “It’s Better in a Union: Fighting for Freedom, Fairness & Security” bus tour. Labor leaders including AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, USW International President David McCall and Allegheny/Fayette Central Labor Council President Darrin Kelly took the mic to address the impacts of the administration’s cuts to university research funding, Medicaid and the firing of workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs, both in Pittsburgh and across the country. After the speeches, volunteers handed out a sheet of paper with a phone number to reach the House of Representative and a QR code with a prewritten email in support of a discharge petition to force a vote in that chamber on the Protect America’s Workforce Act, a bill that aims to reverse Trump’s executive order that eliminated collective bargaining rights for federal workers.
Opinion: Democrats Attack Gig-Worker Benefits
July 23, 2025 // In a committee hearing on the bill last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders sidestepped the issue of worker benefits to address his party’s real concern—giving unions more power over individual workers. “These bills are about giving corporations the freedom to deny workers the right to form a union,” he said. Independent contractors can’t unionize under the National Labor Relations Act, so unions and the Democrats they support want to outlaw contract work, or at least deprive it of benefits that could attract workers. Democrats on the committee were united in opposition. This political opposition has deterred several gig companies from offering benefits. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has pledged more than $650 million a year to fund health insurance and paid time off if lawmakers would withdraw the threat of reclassifying the company’s drivers.
Commentary: Ivy Leaguers Aren’t Auto Workers
July 21, 2025 // In general, NLRB decisions are fake law made by fake judges who have to interpret a poorly written statute from 90 years ago that is based on assumptions about industrial organization that no longer obtain in the United States. But the NLRB remains powerful nonetheless, and its decisions matter. That’s why Russell Burgett, a doctoral candidate at Cornell University, which is private, is asking the NLRB to overturn the 2016 Columbia ruling. He isn’t a member of the Cornell graduate students’ union, a UE affiliate, and he said in charges filed with the NLRB on Monday that his choice not to join makes it harder for him to complete his education.
Democrats press discharge petition to restore federal worker union rights stripped by Trump
July 20, 2025 // Golden’s proposal has been endorsed by 221 other House lawmakers, including co-sponsor Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and six other Republicans. And the discharge petition already has two GOP signatures attached: Fitzpatrick and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). To force a vote on the bill requires 218 signatures, meaning supporters will need four more Republicans to endorse the petition for it to be successful, assuming all 212 House Democrats sign on. Golden said he’s in conversations with the other Republican co-sponsors of the underlying bill — singling out New York Reps. Mike Lawler and Nick LaLota by name — in hopes of getting them to endorse the petition, as well.
The Roadmap To Modernizing Federal Labor Laws: Matt Kittle, F. Vincent Vernuccio
July 20, 2025 // That's one of the main things that we want to see at I4AW. Is workers having a choice in a voice, having. The ability to say who they want to be represented by, how they want their money spent, and how they want to work. And I know we talked about it briefly with the ERA, but the ability for an independent contractor to work for themselves, not be considered an employee, small business owner, to own a franchise, all those things are core to what the flexibility and the entrepreneurship of the modern worker, and those are the concepts that are embraced, you know, not just on the union end of the Employee Rights Act, but on the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit and pro worker end of the ERA.
Workers striking by choice could lose unemployment benefits in blue states under GOP proposal
July 20, 2025 // Legislation targets policies in Oregon, Washington, New York and New Jersey that provide financial support during strikes The legislation is co-sponsored by Reps. Aaron Bean, R-Fla.; Mike Kelly, R-Pa.; Blake Moore, R-Utah; Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas; Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y.; and Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas. The governors of both Oregon and Washington signed laws earlier this year allowing for striking workers to receive unemployment benefits.
Op-ed: She looked like a pro-worker Trump cabinet appointee. But now she’s gutting the Labor Department
July 17, 2025 // The standards on the chopping block include those issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a unit of the Labor Department, that were developed after years of effort. OSHA standards, Reindel told me, take an average of seven years — and as long as 20 years — to draft. “This is an onslaught on people’s basic protections at work.”
Pay caps are a ‘slap in the face’ for some in Capitol Police
July 17, 2025 // The department has a biweekly pay cap of $8,680 and an annual cap of $225,700, set by the Capitol Police Board. That limits what officers can make by working overtime — and in some cases, means they pull long hours without being paid like it. One officer described the scene earlier this month, as the Senate wrapped up Republicans’ mammoth reconciliation package. “What we’re struggling with right now is this pay period, the Senate’s been in for three straight days, working 24 hours a day. … Everyone’s got to work overnights,” said the officer, who was granted anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.