Posts tagged congressional Republicans
Opinion: We can’t abolish America’s largest teachers union. But Congress can do something else
August 7, 2025 // If this is what happens when NEA completely controls an event and its programming, the union’s tremendous influence over classrooms is a five-alarm fire not just for public education, but the future of our country. Congressional action addressing the pernicious influence of the teachers unions is long overdue. That’s why I (Mr. Fitzgerald) and Sen. Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming have introduced the Stopping Teachers Unions from Damaging Education Needs Today (STUDENT) Act, which would overhaul the NEA’s federal charter to make the union more accountable and less partisan.
A Taft-Hartley Roundup of Recent Labor News
June 25, 2025 // For just shy of 80 years, conservative Americans and the Republican Party that provides their imperfect electoral vehicle have sought to advance a policy consensus on labor relations based on three principles: ensuring union membership and participation is voluntary, scrutinizing unions’ operations in exchange for their government-granted powers, and protecting the public from the fallout from labor disputes. As America sits by the pool at the beginning of what might prove to be a long, hot summer, what news is there about the Taft-Hartley consensus?
Labor secretary nominee defends ESG rule in tense House testimony
June 9, 2023 // Mr. Allen introduced a bill last year with Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., similar in scope to a rule finalized late in the Trump administration that said retirement plan fiduciaries could not invest in "non-pecuniary" vehicles that sacrifice investment returns or take on additional risk. Mr. Allen said he's working on reintroducing the bill during this Congress. Under the Biden administration, the Labor Department rescinded the Trump-era rule. On Tuesday, Ali Khawar, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Labor Department's Employee Benefits Security Administration, said the rule is neutral and doesn't require consideration of ESG factors when making an investment decision.
Unions lobby Biden for bolder approach to student debt relief
June 8, 2022 // Labor organizations have already had some success in pushing Biden on student debt relief over the past year. Unions representing teachers, fire fighters, health care workers and government employees were a driving force behind the Education Department’s decision last year to use emergency powers to expand the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program.
How did $1.2M in PPP loans get to Pennsylvania unions? Congressional Republicans want to know
April 18, 2022 // The PPP loans were made quickly by the Small Business Administration in the early days of the pandemic to avoid mass layoffs. Yet the speed in which $800 billion of taxpayer money was doled out left the program liable to waste, fraud, and abuse. An NBC News investigation estimated the cost of fraud at $80 billion, or 10% of the overall fund. That’s in addition to a $900 billion COVID-19 relief fund that may have been defrauded of $90 billion-$400 billion.
Contesting the PRO Act’s Coercive Vision
April 1, 2022 // The Employee Rights Act presents a firm contrast with the vision outlined in the PRO Act and supported by Big Labor and its allies in Congress and the Biden administration. Where the PRO Act increases union financial coercion of workers to aid its political allies, the ERA reduces it. Where the PRO Act infringes on workers’ informed consent on union formation, the ERA protects it. Where the PRO Act limits worker privacy, the ERA expands it. Where the PRO Act fails to provide financial transparency and scrutiny in union operations, the ERA provides it. And where the PRO Act endorses Big Labor’s every-job-a-factory-job vision, the ERA promotes modern understandings of compensation and flexibility in working arrangements.
Opinion HOFFMAN: Freelancers Shouldn’t Be Regulated Out Of Existence
March 8, 2022 // Moreover, there’s a disconnect between regulators’ and lawmakers’ perceptions of worker misclassification and reality. The truth is freelancers don’t want to be liberated from independent contracting and saved by labor unions. In fact, most flexible workers reject these assertions as misinformation.