Posts tagged Rick Allen
Secret ballot vital in union elections
February 17, 2023 // Consider one example from the public sector. In 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that public employees can’t be forced to join unions or pay union dues. The Commonwealth responded by passing legislation that allows public employee unions to agree to different terms for union members and non-members, giving unions the sole right to negotiate lesser pay and reduced benefits on behalf of the non-members. The law also promotes tried and true intimidation tactics by giving unions access to employees’ personal information, including home addresses; work, home, and personal cellphone numbers; along with work and personal email addresses. Anyone in Massachusetts public policy circles knows the Commonwealth’s unions aren’t interested in using that information to augment their holiday card lists.
Unions want it to be ‘game over’ for the secret ballot
January 17, 2023 // The Employee Rights Act is a worker-centric bill that will make sure people considering unionization are able to do so without the intimidation and coercion associated with card check organizing. If the CWA is offering good value for potential members, it should not be afraid of a private vote.
Reps Foxx and Allen Call For Greater OLMS Oversight
November 18, 2022 // It’s no secret unions aren’t always the best arbiters of members’ funds. Just look at the UAW — several high ranking officials recently went to prison for a wide-scale corruption scandal that included embezzling hundreds of thousands of members’ dues dollars. For the sake of union members across the country, let’s hope we get better insight to OLMS enforcement sooner rather than later.
U.S. House Republicans urge labor board to curb mail-in union elections
October 21, 2022 // The 2020 decision requires officials to consider six factors, including the local COVID-19 positivity rate and whether a workplace has had a recent COVID outbreak in determining whether to hold elections via mail. Before the pandemic, the vast majority of union elections were held in person. Between October 2021 and late January of this year, 304 of the 378 elections overseen by the NLRB were conducted via mail ballot, according to a recent board decision. During that period, the voter participation rate in mail-in elections was about 68%, compared to 86% in in-person elections.
SBA OFFICIALS PLEAD IGNORANCE OF UNION RELATED COVID RELIEF FRAUD
October 19, 2022 // SBA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report on Sept. 26, the stated objective of which was to “determine whether PPP loans to nonprofit organizations were made in accordance with eligibility requirements.” Since unions were categorically excluded from the program as 501(c)(5) nonprofits, and since the Freedom Foundation filed a formal complaint with the SBA OIG back in February based on its findings, the report would have been an excellent opportunity to address the issue. Unfortunately, the OIG report only analyzed more traditional 501(c)(3) nonprofits that may have been too large to qualify for PPP funds, leaving unions out of the analysis
House, Senate GOP Workforce Leaders Demand Investigation into NLRB Misconduct
August 25, 2022 // Today, House Education and Labor Committee Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC); Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Republican Leader Richard Burr (R-NC); House Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Republican Leader Rick Allen (R-GA); and Senate Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee Republican Leader Mike Braun (R-IN) sent a letter to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Inspector General David Berry to request an immediate investigation into allegations that NLRB officials intervened inappropriately in ongoing union organization efforts at Starbucks stores across the country. Inspector General David Berry,
Foxx, Burr, Allen, Braun Call NLRB to Account for Curbing Employers’ Freedom of Speech
June 27, 2022 // Today, House Education and Labor Committee Republican Leader Virginia Foxx (R-NC); Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Republican Leader Richard Burr (R-NC); Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Subcommittee Republican Leader Rick Allen (R-GA); and Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee Republican Leader Mike Braun (R-IN) sent a letter to National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo regarding guidance that flies in the face of decades of precedent and threatens employers’ First Amendment rights.
When Unions Harm Workers’ Ability to Get Raises
June 13, 2022 // Starbucks no longer has the right to raise unilaterally the compensation for employees for those stores that have opted for unionization. By law, Starbucks can’t do that, and unions like it that way so that they can take credit for workers’ gains. This is not solely the union’s fault. It is baked into the outdated one-size-fits-all model of collective bargaining. This model is over a century old and was created for another time and workforce. Thankfully, the Employee Rights Act , sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA), would address at least one of these issues. The ERA would allow unionized employers to give their employees raises without having to go through a union. Joe Thompson
How did $1.2M in PPP loans get to Pennsylvania unions? Congressional Republicans want to know
April 18, 2022 // The PPP loans were made quickly by the Small Business Administration in the early days of the pandemic to avoid mass layoffs. Yet the speed in which $800 billion of taxpayer money was doled out left the program liable to waste, fraud, and abuse. An NBC News investigation estimated the cost of fraud at $80 billion, or 10% of the overall fund. That’s in addition to a $900 billion COVID-19 relief fund that may have been defrauded of $90 billion-$400 billion.
The Employee Rights Act Puts American Workers, Not Union Bosses, in the Driver’s Seat
April 13, 2022 // The Employee Rights Act contains several other provisions to protect workers from union intimidation. The bill criminalizes union threats in the workplace and bans unions from using personal employee data for anything unrelated to campaigns, taking Big Labor’s most aggressive and unethical tactics off the table. The bill also prohibits union “salting,” a tactic where a union pays an individual to apply for a job within a company that has not yet been unionized. Instead of becoming a productive employee, the “salt” is there to organize a union and be Big Labor’s mole on the inside.