Posts tagged Marty Walsh
Julie Su: At Big Labor’s beck and call
May 1, 2023 // While at the LWDA, she supported anti-worker laws like AB 5, a law that reclassified contractors and freelancers as regular employees. The implementation of AB 5, which happened under Su’s watch, was perceived as heavy-handed and punitive towards contractors and freelancers. Su openly stated that she was willing to conduct “investigations and audits” to enforce reclassification, which negatively affected contractors and freelancers. But contractors and freelancers disagreed with Su’s interpretation of AB 5’s effects on workers. An independent truck driver, who was forced to reclassify after AB 5’s passage, said that AB 5 will “kill the liberty of being a trucker” because of all the “regulatory stuff in an over-regulated and complex industry.”
Senate panel advances Biden Labor nominee Julie Su
April 26, 2023 // “Today’s party-line vote is another reminder that Julie Su is no Marty Walsh, who advanced in a bipartisan 18-4 vote only two years ago,” said Michael Layman, a top lobbyist at the International Franchise Association, in a statement following Wednesday’s vote. The AFL-CIO is fighting back, running ads in Arizona and D.C. backing Su’s efforts to counter wage theft in California. The ads tell viewers that workers are “tired of getting ripped off by big corporations.” The labor federation is also mobilizing its members to lobby senators. “We’re going to defend Julie against these baseless corporate special interests attacks,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told reporters last week. “Every senator, especially those that haven’t yet said that they’ll vote yes, needs to be aware of how much this confirmation means to working people’s lives.”
Unions pour on support for Biden’s Labor pick amid confirmation worries
April 24, 2023 // The AFL-CIO this week began rolling out a campaign to drum up support for Su, with an emphasis on getting local affiliates to lean on undecided senators and a six-figure ad buy running in Washington, D.C. and Arizona. The “Stand with Su” effort is a direct counterweight to some of the forces that have been lobbying against her — including the name choice, as one of the main anti-confirmation groups is called “Stand Against Su.” Administration officials are holding nightly “war room” calls with Su’s backers to discuss the game plan for the following day and to track developments, according to a White House official. The administration also holds 15 to 20 check-in calls per day across labor and business groups. Walsh has also been actively engaged in the process and advocating for Su with labor and business leaders and senators, according to an administration official.
Rep. Kevin Kiley Fights for Freelancers Against Julie Su Nom in First Workforce Protection Subcomittee Hearing
April 21, 2023 // Through the PRO Act, DOL rulemaking, and installing those who will do their bidding atop federal government agencies, the establishment Democratic Party, in lockstep with the Big Labor lobby hopes to force tens of millions of Americans out of freelancing and independent contracting and into “employee” status, which would allow the unions to focus on organizing new sectors in the face of dwindling membership. Rep. Kiley has fought against these efforts every step of the way, first in the California State Assembly and now in Congress, and called the hearing to highlight just how destructive the Biden/Su agenda will be to all Americans, and not just Californians, and has called Su “the architect and lead enforcer of AB-5.”
Julie Su Chastised by House Committee Chairwoman for Blowing Off Oversight Requests
April 20, 2023 // Congressional oversight involves conducting hearings with the heads of executive-branch departments, and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce is, understandably, interested in having the secretary of labor testify. But Julie Su is blowing the committee off. Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) sent a letter to Su yesterday demanding that she appear before the committee on May 17. There’s a history of failing to respond to committee requests in a timely manner, Foxx writes. “During the week of March 27, Committee staff engaged with the Department to determine a time for you to appear before the Committee. However, despite offering dates that provided you with between nearly one month and nearly two months to prepare, we understand that you do not plan to make yourself available to the Committee before June,” the letter says.
Biden Doubles Down on California Blundering With Julie Su Nomination
April 17, 2023 // In California, Su was secretary for the Labor and Workforce Development where she oversaw the Employment Development Department with deals involving unemployment insurance claims. She did not shine in this role, as even members of her own party will point out. California Democratic Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris of Laguna Beach, for instance, said that Su “has not done a good job at running the Employment Development Department and, as a result, has wasted billions of dollars and, more importantly, caused heartache for millions of Californians.” A report for the California Business & Industrial Alliance (CBIA) pointed out that a state auditor had “urged EDD to address its mailing system after millions of Social Security Numbers were included in a mailing sent to wrong addresses.” Unfortunately, “Under Su, the EDD did not prioritize addressing the auditor’s recommendation,” and thus when the COVID shutdowns happened, the system was dysfunctional and trust in her leadership was compromised. Su herself eventually admitted the department was “woefully unprepared” to handle those claims.
Opinion: Julie Su Keeps Failing Up, and Biden Doesn’t Care
April 10, 2023 // How in the world did Julie Su get nominated to run the federal Department of Labor? Su is a former civil rights attorney, former head of the California Department of Labor under Gov. Gavin Newsom, and head of California’s Department of Labor Standards Enforcement under former Gov. Jerry Brown. She was deputy director of the federal DOL and now is acting director as she awaits a tough Senate confirmation in the next few months. I had immediately thought that the Peter Principle might explain it. Coined by Canadian sociologist Laurence Peter in his 1968 book of the same name, it postulates that the tendency in all organizations is for “every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence,” as Investopedia put it. But that surely can’t explain Su, who already reached that level in her previous employment. Investopedia also mentioned the Dilbert Principle, named after the comic strip: that big organizations promote people precisely because of their incompetence. In other words, they promote them to get them out of the way. Su was California’s top labor official and ultimately responsible for the Employment Development Department when a major scandal rocked that unemployment insurance–disbursing bureau. “California has given away at least $20 billion to criminals in the form of fraudulent unemployment benefits, state officials said Monday, confirming a number smaller than originally feared but one that still accounts for more than 11 percent of all benefits paid since the start of the pandemic,” according to a 2021 Los Angeles Times report.
DOL Contractor Watchdog Chief Yang Exiting for White House Post
March 29, 2023 // Yang will leave her post at the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs effective this week. She’ll become deputy assistant to the president for racial justice & equity at the White House Domestic Policy Council, a DOL spokesperson told Bloomberg Law.
Federal Employee Union Membership is Up 20%
March 29, 2023 // The task force asked federal agencies to foster collaborative relationships with their union partners, involve labor organizations in predecisional policy discussions, and remove barriers from unions trying to increase their membership or organize new bargaining units. The group recommended that the Office of Personnel Management instruct agencies to provide information on whether job openings are represented by unions and encourage agencies to provide unions more opportunities to communicate with new hires. In a blog post last week, the vice president’s office announced that just a year after agencies began implementing the task force’s recommendations, the initiative is already paying dividends: over the last year, nearly 80,000 federal employees have joined a union, increasing the total number of dues paying union members at federal agencies by 20%. And in the private sector, petitions for union representation increased 53% from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2022, while overall union membership grew by 273,000 last year.
White House Urged to Intervene in West Coast Port Labor Talks
March 28, 2023 // A group of more than two hundred importers, exporters, logistics providers, and retailers urged the White House to intervene in West Coast port labor talks that have been underway since last May. In a letter March 24 to President Joe Biden, groups including the National Retail Federation, the American Trucking Associations, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urged the administration to help speed the agreement on a new labor contract between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, after the contract governing dockworkers from California to Washington State expired on July 1. “While we appreciate that the parties agreed not to engage in a strike or a lockout, we are aware of several instances of activities that have impacted terminal operations. We need the administration to ensure these activities do not continue or escalate,” the March 24 letter said.