Posts tagged Obama administration
Let’s Address the Real Challenges for Independent Contractors and Gig Workers
February 5, 2024 // Self-employment fell by 10.5 percent on average for non-exempt occupations, while overall employment fell by 4.4 percent on average for non-exempt occupations Occupations with a greater prevalence of self-employed workers saw greater reductions in both self-employment and overall employment In other words, on average, 1 in 10 self-employed individuals may have lost self-employment opportunities in California among occupations not exempt from AB5, while there is no evidence of an accompanying increase in traditional employment opportunities among workers in non-exempt occupations.
New Study on California AB5 and Implications for the Department of Labor’s Independent Contractor Rule
January 18, 2024 // 1. First, employers may have hired some, but not most, independent contractors as employees, while other employers may have stopped working with their contractors based in California altogether. 2. Second, some employers may have extended employment opportunities to independent contractors who then declined such offers. Workers with a strong preference for flexible hours or for working with multiple clients, for instance, may not have wanted to work as traditional employees with one company. 3. Third, some small business owners may have been forced to shut down if they relied heavily on independent contractors and could not afford to hire them as employees or stopped working with independent contractors because of fear of compliance. This was highlighted by interviews of small business owners in the wake of AB5.
US House Votes to Repeal Labor Board Rule on Contract, Franchise Workers
January 16, 2024 // The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives on Friday voted to repeal a federal labor board rule set to take effect in February that would treat companies as the employers of many contract and franchise workers and require them to bargain with those workers’ unions. The House voted 206-177 to nix the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rule, which has been heavily criticized by business groups. The vote sends the proposal to the Senate where Democrats hold a one-seat majority but Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, has said he opposes the rule.
Commentary: Is the NLRB Unconstitutional? The Courts May Finally Decide.
December 6, 2023 // While many agencies act politically, the Board is a special problem. Unlike other agencies, the Board makes almost all its decisions not through rulemaking, but through one-off panel decisions. That means it can change policy much faster. The “law” can swing wildly from case to case. In fact, according to one study, the Board during the Obama administration reversed a group of decisions that had been on the books for more than a collective 4,500 years. The Board’s constitutional flaws are also different from those of other agencies. For example, in a recent case involving the SEC, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the agency’s structure violated the Seventh Amendment. That was because the SEC can impose civil fines—the kind of claims that must be tried to a jury. The Board has no authority to impose civil fines, so it doesn’t have the same Seventh Amendment problem. Its problem instead comes instead from its unchecked power to decide cases. It controls the outcome in disputes affecting a range of private rights. And those disputes, according to Article III of the Constitution, should be decided only by real judges.
New federal rule could allow millions of workers to more easily unionize at big companies
November 16, 2023 // The rule only applies to labor relations. The Department of Labor sets its own joint employment standards for issues like meeting minimum wage requirements. Still, the new rule could have a major impact. Local franchise owners employ more than 8 million people in the U.S., according to the International Franchise Association. Millions more work for subcontractors or temporary agencies.
Commentary: New Biden ‘Joint Employer’ regulation is a boon for unions
November 13, 2023 // In short, joint employment is a possible means for unions to organize major corporations all at once, rather than the piecemeal process of organizing workers at one location at a time. Incidentally, two of the board’s three Democrat majority members are David Prouty, former general counsel of the service employee union UNITE HERE, and Gwynne Wilcox, a former lawyer for the Service Employees International Union. Chairwoman Lauren McFerran served as a staffer of former Sen. Tom Harkin, a longtime union ally.
Case Headed to NLRB Might Prohibit Employers from Holding ‘Captive Audience’ Meetings
October 12, 2023 // Another term for a captive audience meeting is "employer speech during a union campaign," said Daniel Johns, an attorney with Cozen O'Connor in Philadelphia. The purpose of the communication is to give the employer the opportunity to speak to employees about unionization during a campaign, a right protected by the First Amendment, he said. Such meetings are currently prohibited only within 24 hours prior to a union election. If the NLRB bans captive audience meetings across the board, employers "would be severely limited in their ability to communicate with their employees regarding unionization," Toppel said. A captive audience meeting educates employees about unions, the cost of unions, and what unions can and can't do, said James Redeker, an attorney with Duane Morris in Philadelphia. Also, there is education about how unions get employees to sign union authorization cards.
Why the Obama era ‘car czar’ thinks striking autoworkers risk overplaying their hand
October 3, 2023 // Because you have to put the whole thing in context. GM and Ford and Chrysler are doing quite well at the moment. They have cash, they have profits, they have the ability to pay them more, but they also have to compete against other companies. And in the South, you have companies like Toyota and Honda that don't have unions at all. In Mexico, you have workers making literally $9 or $10 a day and are very productive, according to what auto executives tell me. And so, if the Detroit companies have an excessively high burden of wage costs, or fringe benefit costs, then they can't compete. They lose car sales. Ultimately, the workers lose jobs and the jobs move to these other places.
Biden administration working overtime to regulate working overtime
September 5, 2023 // ederal law says employees must be paid time and a half once they work more than 40 hours in a week. However, businesses may exempt workers from the requirement if their duties are “managerial” in nature and they reach a certain salary threshold. Currently, workers had to earn at least $35,500 annually before they were covered. The new rule, which goes into effect at the end of the year, raises that by almost $20,000. The administration estimates this would extend the rule to 3.6 million additional workers. The problem with the change is that it limits employers’ ability to work out alternate arrangements with employees where they work more than 40 hours in exchange for some other consideration, such as additional time off on other weeks. Under the new rule, employers are more likely to simply cut hours than to have to pay overtime at all.
OSHA Prepares to Join Administration-Wide Effort to Aid Unions
June 20, 2023 // OSHA has indicated it will push a labor agenda with an anticipated rulemaking that would allow union officials to join OSHA officials during walk-around inspections at non-union locations.