Posts tagged President Biden
As Federal Cash Flows to Unions, Democrats Hope to Reap the Rewards
February 13, 2023 // In places like West Virginia, money from three major laws passed by Congress is pouring into the alternative energy industry and other projects. “I think it’s a renaissance for the labor movement,” said one union official. Beyond the inflation act, Democrats, with help from a few Republicans, were able to add prevailing wage requirements to the semiconductor bill. And both the Energy and Transportation Departments are making clear that access to unions, payment of prevailing wages and commitments to local hiring will be big advantages for competitive bidders seeking infrastructure and highway electrification projects, though Republican governors like Joe Lombardo in Nevada are trying to block some of those requirements.
Ex-NYC mayor Bill de Blasio lobbying for Joe Biden to make him Labor secretary
February 10, 2023 // During de Blasio’s eight years as mayor, the Big Apple’s municipal workforce ballooned from 297,349 in June 2014 to a record high of 326,739 in June 2019. As of June 30, 2022 — six months after he left office — the number had declined to 304,095, due to a hiring freeze and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. De Blasio, 61, also struck deals with the city’s labor unions that included a retroactive pact that gave the nearly 100,000 members of District Council 37 annual raises of 2%, 2.25% and 3%. Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Enter your email address By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The combined effects of his actions pushed total payroll spending from $41 billion to $53.4 billion, a 30% increase.
‘It’s about damn time’: College workers organize amid nationwide labor unrest
February 8, 2023 // A historic strike at the University of California kicked things off in November. And the six-week standoff among 48,000 campus workers, a broader surge in labor strikes across industries, a depleted pandemic workforce and a friendlier atmosphere in Washington has culminated in a wave of uprisings.+
FREEDOM FOUNDATION CALLS OUT FEDERAL SCHEMES TO EXPOSE MORE WORKERS TO UNION PRESSURE
January 31, 2023 // The wage and hour requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the excessively complicated regulations of the Wage and Hour Division and the collective bargaining requirements of the National Labor Relations Act all give employers incentives to use independent contractors rather than employees when possible. Oblivious to the role they play in encouraging the use of independent contractors, Biden’s operatives insist the “misclassification” of employees as independent contractors constitutes a national emergency. In fact, a far greater threat is posed by the new regulations to the livelihoods of independent contractors in the gig economy just to appease Biden’s benefactors in Big Labor.
PBGC Bailed Out Five More Union Pensions Last Week
January 30, 2023 // Last week, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) announced five more failing union pension plans will receive taxpayer moneys to ensure the pensions maintain the ability to pay plan participants. In total, the PBGC will dole out $277.6 million in “special finance assistance,” covering 2,274 pension plan recipients—which averages to nearly $125,000 per participant, with some receiving nearly up to $158,000 from the PBGC.
The ‘Union Renaissance’ Is All PR
January 27, 2023 // The union membership rate — the percent of wage and salary workers who were members of unions — was 10.1 percent in 2022, down from 10.3 percent in 2021. . . . The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.3 million in 2022, increased by 273,000, or 1.9 percent, from 2021. However, the total number of wage and salary workers grew by 5.3 million (mostly among nonunion workers), or 3.9 percent. This disproportionately large increase in the number of total wage and salary employment compared with the increase in the number of union members led to a decrease in the union membership rate. The 2022 unionization rate (10.1 percent) is the lowest on record.
Unions are “Baking In” Remote Work for Federal Employees
January 19, 2023 // But the prospect of conflict with union contracts, uncovered by TechTarget, adds a wrinkle to any plans. “Remote work policies are also getting baked into federal employee union agreements, which could make it difficult for federal agencies to order workers back to the office even if they wanted to,” the story said. The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) claims to be “made up of over 281,000 workers in almost every agency of the federal and D.C. governments, spread across 936 local unions.” In December 2022, after some extended legal struggles with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the union said that the two parties had reached a settlement over immediate flexible work arrangements “while we negotiate terms for a permanent telework program.”
Reuters Analysis: Biden’s climate agenda has a problem in not enough workers
January 17, 2023 // The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law last year, provides for an estimated $370 billion in solar, wind and electric vehicle subsidies, according to the White House. Starting Jan. 1, American consumers can take advantage of those tax credits to upgrade home heating systems or put solar panels on their roofs. Those investments will create nearly 537,000 jobs a year for a decade, according to an analysis by BW Research commissioned by The Nature Conservancy.
UC strike energizes unprecedented national surge of union organizing by academic workers
January 3, 2023 // In 2022 alone, graduate students representing 30,000 peers at nearly a dozen institutions filed documents with the National Labor Relations Board for a union election. They include USC, Northwestern, Yale, Johns Hopkins, the University of Chicago, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Caltech plans to officially kick off its organizing campaign this month, and other academic researchers are working to form unions at the University of Alaska, Western Washington University, the National Institutes of Health and such influential think tanks as the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute. Princeton University, Columbia, University of Pennsylvania, Pasadena, Caltech, Pardee Rand Graduate School, University of Wisconsin–Madison
NLRB: Employment Law Update, December 21, 2022
December 26, 2022 // The NLRB's Been Busy We've long previewed the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB's) action on a number of issues, now that Board membership reflects President Biden's appointees and embodies his pro-labor priorities. In recent weeks, we've seen several updates come through from the agency, including