Posts tagged House Committee on Education and Workforce
Commentary 2 Bills Cutting Red Tape for Employee Benefits Advance in House
April 28, 2025 // By amending the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to treat child care and elder care subsidies the same as other fixed-cost workplace benefits such as health and life insurance, the Empowering Employer Child and Elder Care Solutions Act (H.R. 2270) would make it easier for employers to provide these benefits without having to include them in workers’ “regular rate” of pay calculations for overtime. This bill was introduced on March 21 by Rep. Mark Messmer, R-Ind., and was reported favorably out of committee on April 9. The Flexibility for Workers’ Education Act (H.R. 2262), introduced by Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, would exclude voluntary, employer-provided “upskilling” opportunities from the “hours worked” calculation used to determine overtime pay, so long as employees do not perform work for their employer during that time and the education occurs outside of working hours. This bill was also reported favorably out of committee on April 9.
Backgrounder: Executive Order: Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs
March 31, 2025 // The practice of “official time” is when unionized federal employees perform union-related activities, rather than their actual public service duties, while being paid by taxpayers. The Federal Unions EO requires that agencies, upon termination of an applicable collective bargaining agreement, reassign any workers who performed “official time” to positions where they perform solely agency business. It also contains language regarding existing grievance proceedings and allows for the head of each agency to submit a report to the President within 30 days highlighting any agency subdivisions that were not covered but should have been covered under the Federal Unions EO.
House panel probes Labor Department’s leak of revised jobs data to Wall Street firms
September 26, 2024 // The House Committee on Education and Workforce, which is chaired by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), sent a letter early Wednesday morning to the acting secretary of the Labor Department, Julie Su, asking for more information on the botched release of the revised data. “At best, BLS’s botched release of the job numbers caused significant uncertainty and confusion and undermined confidence in the data,” the committee’s letter to Su read.
Biden Bypasses Senate Confirmation in Labor’s Julie Su
October 3, 2023 // According to the GAO, she can stay in the top Labor Department post without Senate confirmation. That effectively cuts out the voters and sets a poor precedent. Now, should some federal secretary depart, the president need only appoint an “acting” replacement. According to the Government Accountability Office, that person can avoid Senate confirmation and remain on the job, regardless of their suitability for the post.