Posts tagged Senate
Harris faces challenge with union voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania
October 9, 2024 // One labor official who requested anonymity said many members of his union come from more culturally conservative households and aren’t very familiar with Harris’s record on labor issues. “We have a lot of Republicans in our membership,” the official said, adding that union members reflect society’s spectrum of different political views. That diversity within union membership, however, didn’t stop labor groups from embracing Biden in 2020, as well as Clinton in 2016 and former President Obama in 2012 and 2008.
New proposed federal law would bar unions from promoting antisemitism
October 7, 2024 // Title VII of the Civil Rights Act allows employees not to pay dues or fees to a union based on their religious beliefs or practices. But Cassidy said many workers were unaware they have the right to pull their union dues from activities that have nothing to do with union bargaining for salaries and benefits. As part of the Senate committee’s probe into antisemitism, the senator also found that unions make it difficult to opt out of these unrelated costs — including bogging down workers with lawsuits that end up costing more than the actual dues. “Union members pay unions to represent before management. This legislation keeps unions focused on that,” said Cassidy.
Senate Recesses without Vote on Controversial NLRB Nominee
October 1, 2024 // The U.S. Senate left Washington, DC, on September 27 without having voted on the controversial nomination of Lauren McFerran to serve another term as Chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Employment Policy Network has posted several times on McFerran’s inappropriate nomination and tenure leading the NLRB, including the lack of a confirmation hearing on her nomination and a Wall Street Journal op-ed condemning McFerran’s legacy. McFerran’s tenure on the Board has included severe criticisms from federal courts, its own Office of the Inspector General, and Congress. Many of the most egregious condemnations are listed below.
Feeding the Kitty
September 30, 2024 // Unions have pursued shareholder resolutions asking for a “free and fair election process,” meaning card check and neutrality. They have also sought to pass resolutions demanding audits of a company’s labor practices. It’s not hard to see how a future resolution could explicitly try to prohibit companies from using independent contractors.
NLRB Chair Sows Discord, Disruption for Workers & Businesses
September 11, 2024 // Under her leadership the actions of the NLRB have created an unlevel playing field filled with procedural landmines that undermine historical commonsense policies for the workplace that work for employees and employers. She has allowed increasingly aggressive, untenable, and at times unlawful positions on many significant issues that have only increased uncertainty in the workplace and litigation in the courts, making retail business operations more difficult for workers and the communities they serve.
Trump and Harris, with starkly different records on labor issues, are both courting union voters
September 5, 2024 // By comparison, two days after taking office in 2021, Biden issued an executive order that established masking guidelines, and his administration made health and safety protocols on the job during the rest of the COVID-19 pandemic a high priority. Compared with the inaction by the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration has been more active in proposing health and safety measures. For example, in July 2024 it proposed rules designed to protect some 36 million workers from health risks associated with extreme heat. After a period for written comments, public hearings will be held on the bill. When Trump tried cutting OSHA funding for 2018 by approximately US$10 million, Congress blocked his efforts. The Biden administration is seeking a 3.7% increase in OSHA’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year.
Commentary: Kamala Harris Is Bad News for Gig Workers
August 8, 2024 // Though framed as an overdue deliverance for besieged workers, AB 5 was a gift to labor bosses who dreamed of organizing California gig workers, especially ride-share drivers, and who lusted after the potential dues they could rake in. It was also one of the most-detested laws passed in California in memory. There was no grassroots movement behind AB 5, no uprising among freelancers. It was a top-down scheme fueled by union agitation and then, like so many other lousy public policies hatched in California, unleashed across the country. AB 5’s impact was immediate — and ugly. Workers’ opportunities were narrowed. Many lost their incomes. Businesses faced higher labor costs, and entrepreneurs felt the chill of the dead hand of activist policy-making. The promise of the gig economy, expected to expand globally by roughly 123 percent over the next five years, turned bleak in California. With their businesses in the balance, Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash generously funded a ballot initiative, Proposition 22, that would classify “drivers for app-based transportation (rideshare) and delivery companies as ‘independent contractors,’ not ‘employees.’” Voters approved it overwhelmingly. App-based drivers favored Prop. 22 — four out of five said they were “happy” that it passed, 76 percent said it “benefits me personally,” and 75 percent recommended that lawmakers pass “similar laws in other states so drivers across the country can benefit.”
How did Clovis Unified’s Faculty Senate violate labor rules? What’s next for teachers?
June 30, 2024 // At some point – the district said it’s not sure exactly when – Clovis Unified started financially supporting the Faculty Senate, and controlling it in other ways, which made it less of an employee representative body and more an employee relations arm of management, according to state labor officials. This included paying for supplies, a car and cell phone for leadership, stipends and other expenses. The state said that Clovis spent $610,000 on its Faculty Senate from 2020-2022. Meanwhile, none of these resources and access was granted to the Association of Clovis Educators (ACE), a teacher group attempting to unionize since 2020, or other groups attempting to unionize or form other representative groups.
Commentary: Tough Lessons of the CRA: Part III
June 17, 2024 // They need to hear it from all of us who wish to remain independent contractors. That means truckers. Translators. Graphic artists. Financial advisers. Nurses. Tutors. Sheep shearers. Writers. They need to hear it from every kind of independent contractor that exists in more than 600 professions identified as being affected so far.
Opinion | A Reckoning for Biden’s Lawless Labor Chief
June 11, 2024 // Mr. Biden has timed his appointments to the labor board to minimize resistance. He broke with tradition by not choosing a Republican to fill an open seat when the previous chairman, picked by President Trump, retired in 2022. Instead Mr. Biden waited until now to select a Republican at the same time he has renominated Ms. McFerran. He hopes presenting the two as a package will make it easier for vulnerable Democrats to approve Ms. McFerran. It’s an offer the Senate should refuse. Reapproving the sitting chairman would be business as usual in a Senate that has whooped through too many of Mr. Biden’s progressive nominees. The economy and the rights of workers will suffer if Ms. McFerran is confirmed again after her demonstrably lawless record.