Posts tagged Congress
DOL gets flexible on overtime
May 18, 2026 // The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) requires that workers be paid time-and-a-half once a work week exceeds 40 hours. However, employers may exempt workers classified as managerial who meet a salary threshold. In 2023, The Biden administration raised the income threshold from $35,500 to $44,000, and planned to increase it again to $59,000 annually by 2025. This was intended to expand the number of people receiving overtime. The administration’s union allies and labor-sympathetic lawmakers have long argued that companies abuse the exception by designating regular employees as managerial to get out of having to pay them overtime. Raising the threshold was meant to prevent this. This one-size-fits-all approach did not necessarily benefit all workers.
Commentary: Josh Hawley’s Pro-Union Bill Would Let Washington Write Your Contract
May 16, 2026 // A Hawley-backed bill, known as the Faster Labor Contracts Act (FLCA), seems to be picking up steam and may soon pass the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, the FLCA is a trifecta of bad public policy: It suffers from constitutional infirmities, revives a corrupt government agency, and takes away the voice of both businesses and workers. Earlier this Congress, Hawley introduced the FLCA in the Senate, alongside one other Republican senator and three Democratic senators; he has since picked up another Republican and 10 more Democrats. Companion legislation in the House has 99 cosponsors, 17 of which are Republican.
Congress Should Reject the “Faster Labor Contracts Act”
May 15, 2026 // “What would happen if workers lost that ability to ratify a contract?” Cassidy asked. “That would be removing democracy from the workplace,” replied the Democrats’ witness, himself a union organizer. Despite this, the Faster Labor Contracts Act has since gained more cosponsors, which are almost entirely Democrats. In the House, Democrats are pushing for the passage of a discharge petition to force the bill through Congress. Union bosses such as Teamsters President Sean O’Brien are running an aggressive campaign to push for the bill’s passage, including attempts to fool Republicans into signing on.
MLB, players’ union meet to begin labor talks, sources say
May 14, 2026 // MLB intends to pursue a salary cap system, a financial structure that players staunchly oppose. The current deal, which came after a 99-day lockout by the league that threatened the beginning of the 2022 season, expires Dec. 1. If there is no agreement by the time the deal lapses, MLB is expected to again lock out the players, causing a work stoppage that could jeopardize games in the 2027 season. During the opening presentations, sources said, the sides outlined their views on the game, noting challenges they see and opportunities to use labor negotiations as a tool to move it forward.
Workers at Planned Parenthood’s largest affiliate are unionizing, citing Trump cuts
May 13, 2026 // Sotoa said union representation would secure workers' voices in decisions over staffing and resources under threat by the cuts. Planned Parenthood workers at affiliates in Oregon, Maine, Minnesota, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and other parts of California, have already formed unions in response to the Trump administration and the changes they have prompted in their clinics' staffing, pay and workplace conditions.
Three-quarters of USDA researchers tapped to relocate tell union they’re not going
May 11, 2026 // USDA relocated hundreds of ERS and NIFA positions to Kansas City in 2019, but about 85% of impacted employees quit their jobs or retired, rather than relocate. The American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403, which represents USDA researchers, expects to see similar results this year. An internal survey conducted by the union found that 76% of its members have indicated they are not planning to relocate. AFGE Local 3403 said in a statement that these relocations, which are expected to go into effect by the end of the summer, will trigger a “brain drain” within the department.
Shrinking unions grasp hold of power through ESG activism
May 11, 2026 // Under the ESG pretense, unions are pushing shareholder resolutions that would ditch secret-ballot elections at companies. That’s a key labor demand because it enables unions to harass and intimidate workers into publicly signing cards in favor of unionization. Unions also push shareholder resolutions ordering companies to adopt “non-interference policies,” ensuring a business can’t talk to its employees about the downsides of unionization. Practically, unions promote these policies in two significant ways. The simplest approach is to use their own pension funds, which invest hundreds of billions of dollars, to demand that the businesses they invest in adopt pro-union policies. Union officials are also appointed to pension boards, where they directly support activist investment strategies based on ESG. Public pension plans have great clout thanks to the trillions of dollars at their disposal, enough to take significant ownership stakes in banks or investment funds. Either approach lets organized labor push shareholder proposals that tilt the scales in unions’ favor.
How the Faster Labor Contracts Act could hurt workers
May 7, 2026 // Contracts can take a long time to negotiate because one or both sides are new to the process, have unreasonable demands, and are negotiating complex terms that will affect all future contracts. It’s not uncommon for collective bargaining agreements to address dozens of workplace provisions (well beyond just pay and benefits) and to span hundreds of pages. A Bloomberg Law analysis of first contracts reached between 2004 and 2021 found an average length of 409 days between election certification and contract ratification. The Faster Labor Contracts Act would provide a maximum bargaining period of 120 days — 90 days of bargaining followed by 30 days of mediation — before either party could invoke mandatory arbitration.
Building trades unions emerge as a key ally of tech giants in push for AI data centers
May 4, 2026 // Unions have aggressively answered complaints about data centers in ways that executives at tech giants and the development firms rarely do, unafraid to bluntly confront concerns about energy and water shortages, rising electric and water bills, or noise and quality-of-life objections. “When people say, you know, ‘data centers are the root of all evil,’ we’re just saying, ‘look, they do create a hell of a lot of construction jobs, which we live and work in your communities,'” said Rob Bair, president of the Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council.
DAVIS: An Example Of A Big Government Overreach We Seriously Do Not Need
May 1, 2026 // A Mercatus Center analysis of 147 studies over three decades found that when union contracts are driven by outside pressure rather than mutual agreement, the result is slower job growth, reduced business investment, and a higher likelihood of layoffs down the road. Big wins at the bargaining table, secured by outsized union leverage rather than cooperation, have a way of costing workers more than they gained. The FLCA also isn’t a new proposal. It is a single provision pulled from the PRO Act, the Democrats’ broad rewriting of labor law. That legislation has failed to make it into law for good reason—it would hurt the very workers it claims to protect.