Posts tagged Republican
Hawley Sells Moreno on Government Control of Private Contracts
February 7, 2025 // PunchbowlNews has reported that Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) is cosponsoring one of the bills based on Senator Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) recently released legislative framework implementing a “new direction” for Republican labor policy, which ironically appears to consist entirely of provisions stolen from Senator Bernie Sanders’ (D-VT) Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act (S 567, HR 20, 118th Congress) and Senator Markey’s bill that brings the warehouse sector under government control and creates a new subagency at the Department of Labor (Warehouse Worker Protection Act, S 5208, 118th Congress). The framework is expected to be broken down into five pieces, and Moreno is reportedly cosponsoring the legislation that would implement government control over management-union contract negotiations. The legislation, the Faster Labor Contracts Act, requires employers and unions to begin negotiating collective bargaining agreements within 10 days after a union wins a representation election and execute their agreement within months
Commentary: Is employment exploitation?
February 5, 2025 // The people who believe employment is exploitative see that employers want to pay workers as little as they can and will replace them at the slightest inconvenience. That business owners make more money when they lower their costs. Thus, they see that minimum wage laws and paid sick leave rules counter the business owners’ incentive to exploit workers. The laws ensure employers can’t pay too little and keep them from firing people who get ill. On the opposite side, some people believe that employees have options about where to work. Workers can earn an honest wage at another employer if one treats them poorly or doesn’t offer them what they’re worth. Many employers pay well because they recognize workers’ worth, but even miserly employers must compete for workers. Part of that competition is over how well employees are treated.
Commentary: Who Is Big Labor, Anyway?
February 5, 2025 // If the Current American Plurality wants to hold together, it will need to find ways to support workers as a whole, not cheaply chase the union members that BLS and other data reveal to be unripe for recruitment by throwing more traditional members of the coalition under the bus. The Taft-Hartley Consensus approach to labor relations, which Republicans have advanced for 80 years, offers the opportunity for those workers who freely choose to organize unions to continue to do so while protecting the rights of workers who choose not to form unions or choose to work independently. It should not be cheaply abandoned in service to myths about whom the conservative movement is seeking to court.
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.
Conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice steps aside in pivotal union rights case
January 31, 2025 // A conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice said Thursday he will not participate in a pending case that will determine whether tens of thousands of public sector workers regain collective bargaining rights that were taken away by a 2011 law. Justice Brian Hagedorn drafted the law, known as Act 10, when he was chief legal counsel for then-Gov. Scott Walker. His decision to recuse himself from the case leaves the court with four liberal justices and two conservatives.
New Hampshire to consider ‘right to work’ proposal
January 29, 2025 // Not surprisingly, union leaders oppose the 'right to work' legislation, arguing that it prevents workers from negotiating higher wages and conflicts with contractual agreements between workers and employers. ‘Right to work’ legislation has been debated in New Hampshire for decades but has failed to win enough support to become a law. The Legislature approved a ‘right to work’ bill in 2011 but was vetoed by then-Gov. John Lynch. The most recent effort came in 2021 when Democrats blocked a Republican-led proposal to prevent labor unions from collecting dues from private sector workers.
Trump fires US labor board member, hobbling agency amid legal battles
January 28, 2025 // As a board member, Wilcox voted to bar employers from holding mandatory anti-union meetings, to create a new path for unions to represent workers outside of the decades-old election process, and to make it easier to require companies to bargain with contract and franchise workers. Abruzzo in a statement said the board's efforts to empower workers in recent years would have a lasting impact. "So, if the Agency does not fully effectuate its congressional mandate in the future as we did during my tenure, I expect that workers with assistance from their advocates will take matters into their own hands," she said.
‘We Are Hopeful’ Q&A with Patrice Onwuka and Kim Kavin
January 24, 2025 // Congress should consider enshrining the Trump-era definition for independent contractors, and/or consider ways to get ahead of the opposition to flexible work. The Employee Rights Act was a federal bill that, among many pro-worker provisions, sought to protect independent contractors as a counter to a national ABC Test in the now-defunct Protecting the Right to Organize Act. Portable benefits also provide a pathway for companies to provide independent contractors with workplace benefits without triggering a reclassification.
Competitive Enterprise Institute Opinion: Time to End the ESG Shakedown
January 21, 2025 // Any agency that is not charged by Congress with pursuing those specific goals should not have staffers assigned to those goals. The Environmental Protection Agency is the place for climate policy; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the place for workplace discrimination claims. The executive branch does not need an infinite regress of staff, in each agency, assigned to advance every progressive policy priority under the sun. New leaders at the independent agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, will receive less direct instruction from the new president. Still, they will have broad discretion to set the agenda at their respective agencies for enforcement, future rulemakings, and repeals. SEC chairman-designate Paul Atkins, for example, will have the ability to fully reverse the pro-ESG mission creep seen over the last four years. He can, instead, focus the SEC on such charmingly old-fashioned goals as encouraging capital formation and new investment opportunities rather than micromanaging the board decisions of every public company in America.
How lavish benefits pushed by NY teachers’ unions ramped up school spending — to highest in nation at $36K per kid: reports
January 21, 2025 // Empire State teachers were the second-highest compensated in the US during 2024, raking in an average of $92,696, according to a National Education Association study. And their generous pay has only increased from the 2020-2021 school year, when New York teachers’ $87,738 was the highest average pay in the nation, the Empire Center for Public Policy found. Employee benefits at that time were between 200% and 250% higher than the national average, according to the report from the Albany-based government watchdog group.