| | | | |  | | By Nick Niedzwiadek | With help from Shayna Greene
| | | — JOLTS data comes out this morning, with May unemployment figures on their way Friday. — Sen. Richard Burr is pressing DOL, DHHS and DOE about the administration's telework policies for agency staff. — A bunch of unions are leaning on Biden to make a move on student debt. GOOD MORNING. It's Wednesday, June 1! Welcome back to Morning Shift, your go-to tipsheet on employment and immigration news and where your host spent the holiday weekend reading Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" for the first time. Send feedback, tips and exclusives to emueller@politico.com and nniedzwiadek@politico.com. Follow us on Twitter at @eleanor_mueller and @nickniedz. Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You'll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day's biggest stories.
| | | JOLTS STRIKE: The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for April at 10 a.m. today. The March data released in early May showed a record high 11.5 million job openings, on a seasonal adjusted basis. Economists are closely watching to see if there will be any change in that figure as the country heads into the summer, or any shifts in other indicators like the number of workers voluntarily quitting their jobs — which also hit a record in March at 4.5 million. The report comes as the stock market had been slumping until showing signs of life in the past week or so, and as the Federal Reserve continues to try throttle inflation without upsetting the broader economy.
| | | BURR EYES AGENCY TELEWORK (OR NOT WORK): The top Republican on the Senate HELP committee sent letters to a trio of federal agencies on Tuesday about how they're monitoring employees' productivity while they're out of the office. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) sent oversight requests to Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, as well as the Cabinet heads of the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services, seeking additional information regarding the rate at which government employees are logging into their respective virtual private networks — a rough proxy for how engaged employees are with their work stations. "Congressional oversight is about answering the questions Congress asks, not about answering the questions you want to answer," the letter to Walsh states. Burr's letters follow a previous round he sent that, in his estimation, were not adequately answered by Biden administration officials. He is seeking responses by the end of the week.
| | | MINING UP CONTROVERSY: A Republican appointee on the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission solicited personnel advice from outside advisers — including a coal industry executive — potentially violating ethics rules, our Matthew Choi reports. The disclosures come as the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, an independent agency, is mired in partisan infighting among its members and numerous other allegations of financial malfeasance that have attracted the attention of federal investigators. What's in a name: The moniker of the informal group was the "Network." Marco Rajkovich, who chaired the agency during the Trump administration, kept the existence of the group private and the identity of its members confidential to guarantee "complete candor, and to guard against any improper reprisal and/or retaliation from anyone," he wrote in a memo obtained by POLITICO. DEPARTURE LOUNGE: Brent Parton is taking over as the Labor Department's acting assistant secretary for the Employment and Training Administration, Secretary Marty Walsh announced Friday. Parton succeeds Angela Hanks, who is set to join Demos in July as the progressive think tank's chief of programs, she tweeted. (Hanks also got stuck in one of DOL's elevators on her last day.)
| | | LABOR PRODUCTIVITY UP IN 2021: Labor productivity increased in the private sector in 39 states and D.C. in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More findings: In the same year, hours worked rose in all 50 states but decreased in D.C. Washington state and New Hampshire had the largest increases in labor productivity at 6.4 percent and 5.2 percent, respectively. The highest growth in hours worked were in Nevada (9.8 percent) and Florida (9.1 percent). Labor productivity decreased in nine states (Alaska, Wyoming, Nevada, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Delaware, Florida, Georgia and New Jersey) because increases in hours worked were larger than increases in output. AUTOMATION ON THE RISE: There is a booming market for workplace robots, the machines that swing around along assembly lines and manufacturing plants — fueled in part by workforce shortages and other business challenges. "Orders for workplace robots in the U.S. increased by a record 40% during the first quarter compared with the same period in 2021, according to the Association for Advancing Automation, the robotics industry's trade group," the Wall Street Journal reports. "Robot orders, worth $1.6 billion, climbed 22% in 2021, following years of stagnant or declining order volumes, the group said." These types of machines continue to get more sophisticated in the tasks they can handle, and employers — by choice or necessity — are growing more comfortable with the technology, even in more consumer-facing spaces. For instance in Singapore there are "more than 30 metro stations set to have robots making coffee for commuters," Reuters reports. — This has been a decades-long (centuries, even) concern for unions and labor advocates, who fear that such machines inevitably mean killing jobs previously performed by wage-earning humans, and it is one of the major tension points in the ongoing negotiations for the West Coast ports and dockworkers.
| | | WHILE YOU WERE HEADED OUT OF TOWN: Several of the nation's largest and most prominent labor unions backed sweeping student loan forgiveness as the White House finalizes its plans to cancel student debt, our Michael Stratford reported. Who's involved: United Auto Workers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and United Food & Commercial Workers were among the major labor organizations that, for the first time, called on President Joe Biden to use his executive authority to cancel student loan debt "immediately." The AFL-CIO earlier this month called on Biden to "cancel, not collect" student debt. Other major unions, including the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association, have long pushed loan forgiveness. FIRST IN POLITICO: SEIU and unionized nursing home workers in 13 states are launching a campaign to highlight and address a series of concerns within the sector. Those issues include low pay and benefits for nursing home workers, as well as staffing levels that workers say are inadequate and unsafe for both patients and employees. "The status quo in our nursing homes is not working—not for workers, residents, or for families," SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said in a statement. The effort is set to kick off June 8 and include workers in California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington and West Virginia.
| | | COLORADO EXPANDS COUNTY WORKER BARGAINING RIGHTS: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday signed into law a bill significantly expanding the ability of county workers to unionize and collectively bargain. The bill, CO SB22-230, was significantly pared back relative to its original aims — which would have also included higher education, city workers and school districts. The legislation faced strong opposition from Republicans and county elected officials, who worried about the budgetary effects of such a dramatic change. Polis was among the Colorado Democrats who shared some of those reservations and supported narrowing its scope to include most — but not all — counties. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees estimates that about 36,000 workers will now have the opportunity to organize. The law will go into effect July 2023.
| | | H-2B CAP REACHED: Employers have submitted enough applications to hit the cap on additional seasonal worker visas the Biden administration made available, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Tuesday. In May USCIS opened up 35,000 supplemental visas for non-agricultural seasonal jobs, about two-thirds of which were reserved for workers who had been approved or granted H-2B visas in the prior three years. The rest were allotted to workers from Haiti or the Central Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and USCIS said it is still taking submissions for those visas. CALI FARMS HIT BY IMMIGRATION CLAMPDOWN: Visa workers and technology have taken the places on California farms left by workers who historically migrated illegally from Mexico to harvest and process food, the New York Times reports. "For all the anxiety over the latest surge in immigration, Mexicans — who constitute most of the unauthorized immigrants in the United States and most of the farmworkers in California — are not coming in the numbers they once did." The reasons: Mexico's aging working-age population, improved economic situation and the U.S.'s stepped-up border enforcement have all contributed to the dwindling number of undocumented migrants working in the fields.
| | | — "The Tech Crash Could Be a Talent Bonanza for Big Tech," from The Wall Street Journal. — "Coal ash workers dying as lawsuit over illnesses drags on," from the Associated Press. — " Japan Set to Make Companies Disclose Gender Pay Gap This Year," from Bloomberg. — "Former exec sues CIBC for $1 million over sexual, racial discrimination," from Reuters. — "A Strong Summer Job Market for Teenagers," from The New York Times. — "Fewer Pilots Will Lead to a Summer of Flight Cancellations," from Bloomberg. — "U.S. says GM Mexican plant workers' vote shows bargaining benefits," from Reuters. — "Workers' Share of Economic Pie Isn't Growing ," from The Wall Street Journal. — "South Africa Jobless Rate Declines for First Time Since 2020," from Bloomberg. — "German unemployment falls more than expected in May as pandemic curbs ease," from Reuters. — " Menopause Discrimination Cases in UK Job Courts Are on the Rise," from Bloomberg. — "Chevron California refinery workers ratify contract; ending strike," from Reuters. — "17 States Where Unemployment Is at Record Lows," from The Wall Street Journal. — "Danish Unemployment Hits 14 Year-Low, Defying Signs of Cooldown," from Bloomberg. THAT'S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT! | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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