Posts tagged House Committee on Education and the Workforce
Journalists are hyping up a supposed golden age for unions while ignoring their corruption and declining popularity.
September 12, 2024 // The mainstream media’s coverage of Big Labor clearly misses the mark. Beyond recent labor reporting centering on hot-button events such as organization efforts at Starbucks and Amazon amid 2023’s “hot labor summer,” coverage of unions creates a false sense of reality. Headlines such as “Unions targeting Big Business: Disney, Mercedes-Benz, CVS face organizing campaigns,” for example, suggest sweeping unionization efforts across the private sector. But in the pharmacy industry, just 30 CVS pharmacists in Rhode Island and Las Vegas voted to join the Pharmacy Guild, a fraction of the 30,000 employed by the drugstore giant.
Trader Joe’s workers look to decertify union at first unionized store
August 16, 2024 // Workers at a unionized Trader Joe’s location in Hadley, Massachusetts, have petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold a vote to determine whether to remove Trader Joe’s United from its role representing employees at the store, according to a Monday announcement from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which is assisting the workers. The petition includes signatures from “well over” 30% of workers at the store — above the threshold the NLRB requires to trigger a decertification election — the foundation said.
Hadley, MA, Trader Joe’s Employees Seek Vote to Remove SEIU-Backed Union Officials from Store
August 13, 2024 // Employees at the Hadley, MA, location of grocery chain Trader Joe’s have submitted a petition seeking a workplace election to remove the Trader Joe’s United union, an affiliate of the large Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Trader Joe’s employee Les Stratford submitted the petition to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 1 in Boston with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys.
Has Pushback to Full of ‘S’ Labor Unions Finally Arrived?
June 10, 2024 // Written by I4AW’s Sam Adolphsen and F. Vincent Vernuccio, the study warns that the initial “Environmental” focus of ESG is being supplanted by labor leaders, who are focusing on the leftist acronym’s “social” component in order to intimidate companies and force membership growth: With help from the whole of Biden’s big government, Big Labor is replicating the ESG strategies used by environmentalists and other activists. These groups aim to cajole fossil fuel-producing companies and other businesses they consider socially unacceptable into abandoning profitable business ventures. The tactics of the Big Labor plan call for hijacking the shareholder resolution process through proxy voting and shareholder activism to force pro-union policies. Unlike typical shareholder proposals, those supported by Big Labor do not seek to advance shareholder value. Instead, they seek to increase union membership and strengthen Big Labor’s power.
Congressional Testimony Exposes Union Tactics to Undermine Elections
May 27, 2024 // One of the most popular tactics unions use to drive support is a process known as card check. Union organizers hand workers cards to sign as a way to indicate support for the union. Workers are typically asked to sign these cards in front of organizers, adding an extra layer of pressure when a vote is done publicly. Some unions have intimidated workers who may be reluctant to sign, showing up at people’s homes and threatening a worker’s family. As Delie explains in his testimony, a better way to ensure that an election is fair and workers are free from intimidation is to use secret ballots in union elections.
COMMENTARY: Julie Su Subpoenaed Again After Failure to Comply with House Committee
May 9, 2024 // Julie Su has shown a flagrant disregard for congressional oversight. She already made clear that she does not believe Congress’s advice and consent is necessary for her to serve indefinitely as Acting Secretary, having sat in the position for over a year despite being rejected by the Senate. Now Su has shown repeatedly that she does not care about Congress’s power to request department records and hold the executive branch accountable for its actions.
Opinion: Gambling With a Worker’s Job
May 1, 2024 // But the job losses go beyond anecdotal evidence. In our recent analysis of California’s AB5, which is the first empirical investigation of the law, my co-authors and I find that it is associated with a significant decline in overall employment and self-employment for affected occupations. Self-employment fell by 10.5 percent for non-exempt occupations. Overall employment fell by 4.4 percent in the same professions. Not only that, but AB5 didn’t appear to make up for these job losses by putting more employees on traditional payrolls with better stability, benefits or protections. Our study found no consistent evidence of more workers becoming W-2 employees.
Commentary: Congress Should Close This Labor Union Loophole
April 24, 2024 // Workers themselves have made clear that salting is manipulative. In Buffalo, New York, many Starbucks employees became upset after learning that their supposedly neutral coworkers were union salts. One employee called salts “very scheme-y,” saying they were “unsettling” because “some of these people I thought were my friends.” Another Starbucks employee lamented that salts were more interested in their job with the union than their fellow baristas. At least 25 Starbucks stores have begun the process of decertifying their unions, potentially reflecting employee anger at having been tricked by salts. Since unions won’t make these disclosures on their own, Congress must intervene. The SALT Act would require unions to do exactly what businesses do, filing detailed public reports within 30 days of hiring or otherwise entering into an agreement with a salt. Labor unions say they respect workers, but their continued use of undisclosed salts shows profound disrespect for the men and women who make our economy run. Workers deserve better than union manipulation. They deserve the transparency, accountability, and honesty that help them make a fully informed decision about whether unionization is right for them.
My Congressional Testimony: Flexible Benefits for a Flexible Workforce
April 17, 2024 // My testimony today focuses on legalizing independent contractors’ access to fringe benefits. My three key points are: 1. Independent contractors lives would be enhanced if they had access to benefits. 2. States are experimenting with various portable benefits models so that workers care not forced to choose between structured employment with benefits or flexible work without benefits. 3. Federal policy can provide a safe harbor for state and local experimentation with these portable benefits systems.
House Seeks Information from Unions on Policies to Prevent Corruption
March 20, 2024 // Each of the letters asks for a comprehensive description of the policies and procedures the union has in place to monitor and deter fraud, corruption, and improper accounting, including any third-party audits, the types of training and education provided to prevent fraud or corruption, internal reporting mechanisms, and disciplinary policies. These questions apply both to each union’s headquarters as well as its locals. U.S. House Subpoenas UAW Local over Controversial Resolution Chairwoman Foxx cites specific examples of corruption for each union. For example, in the Teamsters letter, she cites a state senator from Illinois who was indicted for taking more than $245,000 in fraudulent income and other benefits from Teamsters Joint Council 25 while purporting to be a union organizer.