Posts tagged DOL
Racketeering trial starts for former KC-based union leaders accused of $20M theft
May 4, 2026 // “What makes this trial so significant is that it is not only about the individuals who were indicted,” he said. “It is also about the system and the culture that allowed this to ever happen. “Newton Jones and what federal prosecutors have described as the ‘Jones Enterprise’ would not have been able to allegedly racketeer, embezzle, or misuse union resources if the people sworn to uphold their constitutional duties had taken that oath seriously.” The Boilermakers deserve better, Sulivan said. “This trial should be a turning point, not just for accountability for the past, but for rebuilding and restructuring our organization for the future,” he said.
Acting Labor Sec. Sonderling likely to move up to top job
April 28, 2026 // Sonderling, 43, is a veteran of Trump's first administration, in which he served as acting administrator of the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division and later as a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The West Palm Beach attorney and grandchild of Holocaust survivors has been widely considered a voice for conservatives within the Labor Department. This contrasts with Chavez-DeRemer, who was appointed largely due to support from Teamsters union President Sean O'Brien and drew criticism on the right for her past opposition to right-to-work laws.
Trump Labor Department proposes rule redefining workplace violations for franchises
April 23, 2026 // The proposed rule sets four standards for use in every case of potential vertical joint employment: (1) whether the potential joint employer hires or fires the employee in question, (2) whether it supervises or controls the employee’s work schedule or conditions of employment to a “substantial degree,” (3) whether it controls the employee’s rate and method of pay, and (4) if it maintains the worker’s employment records. Wage and Hour Division Administrator Andrew Rogers said that the proposal would “deliver much-needed regulatory clarity in the face of divergent judicial precedent throughout federal courts of appeals.”
Freelance Busting: The ABC Test Defense
April 22, 2026 // And perhaps most important, according to all of the oral testimony and thousands of written public comments submitted to New Jersey’s Labor Department, there are zero people being unknowingly classified as independent contractors. You can download and read here the eight (yes, only eight out of about 9,500) public comments that individuals supporting the proposed rule change filed. Not a single one of them says the person was unknowingly working as an independent contractor.
LLINOIS: 15,600 IFT members don’t exist, according to a union filing
April 16, 2026 // In a required annual report, the union’s own words reveal that: It has 15,600 fewer members than it claims on its website. Less than 28% of its spending is on representing teachers — what should be its main focus. The union spent over $1 million on politics in 2025. Nearly half of the IFT’s officers and employees made over $100,000 last year.
Op-ed: Congressional Republicans Should Unshackle Entrepreneurs
April 16, 2026 // Efforts to restore clearer regulations around contractor standards recognize these realities. However, a future administration can scuttle any regulation its Labor Department issues. Legislative clarity solves that problem, and Congress has a vehicle to provide it. The Modern Worker Empowerment Act clarifies standards for independent work, protecting legitimate independent businesses while preserving safeguards against worker misclassification. A law, duly passed and signed, means real, future-proofed certainty for entrepreneurs, freelancers and the organizations that rely on them.
Trump taps veteran labor lawyer to fill out Republican NLRB majority
April 14, 2026 // Trump's appointees are expected to target a series of labor board policies favored by unions that have helped fuel a spike in union organizing in recent years. But board rules require three members to vote in favor of overruling existing precedent, and Murphy and Mayer said during confirmation proceedings that they would not break with that practice. Murphy and Mayer have already revived a rule adopted by the NLRB during Trump's first term that makes it more difficult to hold companies liable as the "joint employers" of contract and franchise workers, and relinquished jurisdiction over a case involving Elon Musk's SpaceX to a different federal labor agency.
In another letter to court, member urges monitor investigate UAW local
April 13, 2026 // The latest letter, submitted by UAW retiree Rick Michael, a former parole officer represented at UAW Local 6000 in Lansing, requests that the monitor look beyond President Shawn Fain and his administration's conduct. Previously, Michael wrote in December to ask the monitor to investigate claims of discrimination taking place at Local 6000. He had previously been told it was outside of the monitor's purview.
Teamsters still bankrolling Democrats, including Jay Jones, despite openly flirting with Trump and GOP
April 9, 2026 // “As for whether the Teamsters is compatible with the GOP, the union officialdom isn’t,” Mike Watson, an organized labor expert and director of research at the Capital Research Center, told the Washington Examiner. “The members are more open to the GOP for social-issues reasons, but the staffer class and officers are largely committed Everything Leftists.” “Everything Leftism” is a turn of phrase used to describe the tendency of some liberal staffers and activists to adopt causes seemingly unrelated to their primary area of focus;
Commentary: The Labor Department Just Freed Contractors—Again. Congress Still Needs To Act.
April 6, 2026 // Fortunately, at the state level, more durable change is happening. Rather than trying to reclassify workers as employees, numerous states have begun experimenting with what's known as a portable benefits model. Under this framework, independent contractors in the gig economy are given access to SEP IRA–style accounts in which both they and gig companies can contribute. The funds from these accounts follow the contractors from job to job, rather than being tied to a single company, and they can be used for benefits like health insurance, retirement funds, or paid time off.