Posts tagged Markwayne Mullin
Scoop: GOP fight coming over labor unions
January 31, 2025 // The senator pitched his bill at a dinner Tuesday night with Teamsters president Sean O'Brien and a small group of Republican senators — Roger Marshall of Kansas, Jim Banks of Indiana, and Ohio's Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted, sources familiar said. "We look forward to advancing meaningful legislation for working people this Congress," Hawley's office told Axios.
Ranking Member Cassidy, Kiley Introduce CRA to Overturn New Biden Regulation Threatening 27 Million American Independent Contractors
March 6, 2024 // Independent contractors, or freelancers, make their own hours to fit their schedule and decide where and how they want to work. The Biden administration rule attempts to restrict the ability of American workers to be an independent contractor and take advantage of the flexibility it provides. The rule creates a non-exhaustive, six-factor litmus test for unelected bureaucrats to interpret and decide who is and who is not classified as an independent contractor. It also casts as large a net as possible and gives less legal certainty to independent contractors impacted by the regulation. “The Biden administration’s priority should not be to do whatever makes it easier to forcibly and coercively unionize workers. It should be to increase individual freedom and opportunity,” said Dr. Cassidy. “This new Biden rule does the opposite, jeopardizing 27 million workers’ ability to make their own hours and make a living without being pressured into joining a union.”
Ex-MMA Star Senator Challenges Union Boss To Cage Match
June 27, 2023 // Mullin and O’Brien repeatedly clashed March 8 in a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, with O’Brien calling the senator a “greedy CEO” and accusing him of “hid[ing] money” in his company. Mullin said in the hearing he was “not afraid of a physical confrontation,” and accused O’Brien of “intimidating” workers into joining a union. The two resumed their feud on Twitter, as O’Brien tweeted a picture of Mullin standing behind a podium and standing on a platform. O’Brien called him a “clown [and] fraud” with “#LittleManSyndrome.” “An attention-seeking union Teamster boss is trying to be punchy after our Senate hearing. Okay, I accept your challenge. MMA fight for charity of our choice. Sept 30th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ll give you 3 days to accept,” Mullin fired back.
Sean O’Brien’s summer of the strike
June 26, 2023 // It’s the spark for the combative spirit that permeates Teamsters headquarters, where a whiteboard charts a long-term battle plan on a timeline — “practice picketing,” “CAT trainings” (for “contract action teams”), “identify strike teams” … and finally, on the July 31 spot that marks the end of the current contract: “STRIKE.” Why strike now? As O’Brien himself acknowledged in his Senate testimony, UPS already offers the most plum jobs in the logistics industry, with driver salaries starting at $93,000. But O’Brien argues that the pandemic gave UPS workers the greatest leverage they’ve had in decades. In 2020, union members risked their health to keep packages moving. UPS’s profits surged and have remained high, with customers still hooked on the online shopping habits they adopted during the lockdowns. “Our members are fed up” and remain convinced, he said, that “the only concern that was being addressed was UPS’s bottom line and their balance sheet.” No better time, O’Brien reasons, for workers to go to the mat to demand wages beginning at $20 an hour, tighter safety provisions and an end to the two-tier employment system ushered in by the last contract.