News: After reconciliation rebuff, paid leave and child care advocates refocus

Monday, August 1, 2022

After reconciliation rebuff, paid leave and child care advocates refocus

Aug 01, 2022

With help from Nick Niedzwiadek

QUICK FIX

FIRST IN SHIFT: One of the top advocates for paid family and medical leave, Dawn Huckelbridge, is launching a hybrid PAC to back federal candidates who commit to enacting the policy after Democrats reached agreement on a significantly slimmed-down Build Back Better .

"We realize that this is a political problem, and we need to build the political power to get it done," Huckelbridge told your host Sunday evening. "I want to ensure that every candidate has paid leave at the top of their agenda."

Huckelbridge, who also serves as the director of Paid Leave for All, is launching the PAC in solely a personal capacity after the broader campaign to wrap paid leave into congressional Democrats' budget reconciliation package failed.

"This is something that has been an idea in progress for a long time, but really was cemented when we saw that this was not going to be happening this Congress and the reconciliation package," Huckelbridge said.

"As someone who's been working for a few years now in this movement, I feel really strongly that we did everything right," Huckelbridge added. "This was a moment where everything was coming together, and it felt like the stars were aligned."

Since then, "it's been made clear that issues disproportionately impacting women and families have been sidelined time and time again. And we need to build a much stronger political presence."

The PAC launched with a "major commitment," Huckelbridge said, from Colorado-based philanthropist Merle Chambers' Chambers Initiative.

As far as candidates go, she declined to name names. What she would say: that "we want to reward true champions."

"It's not like I already have a list. But of course, we know who has been vocal and who has been fighting, and we're going to be really paying really close attention to who prioritizes paid leave going forward for the rest of the campaign cycle."

ICYMI: " Can the midterms save care policies? " from your host

The House-passed paid leave program would have cost around $200 billion — in line with the $225 billion President Joe Biden initially proposed. It would have covered all workers wishing to take paid time off to deal with the birth of a newborn, care for a family member or recover from an illness or injury, among other situations, beginning in 2024.

Democrats preemptively cut that language in an attempt to win over Joe Manchin, who said he favored a bipartisan path forward .

The West Virginia moderate signed off on a deal last week that did not include any kind of investment in care — not even the billions floated for child care, which many had thought was a sure thing.

The news riled child care advocates, who are now turning their attention to the forthcoming amendment process.

"The Inflation Reduction Act does not, so far, include a single cent for one of the fastest rising expenses that families face — child care. This is unacceptable," The Century Foundation's Julie Kashen told your host Sunday. "Congress must fix this oversight."

Failure to do so "will force more completely avoidable economic hardship onto families who simply want what's best for themselves and their children," the First Five Years Fund's Sarah Rittling said. It's "It's just a question of whether our leaders in Washington are willing to put up a fight to get even a fraction of the original funding back into this package."

By the numbers: More than 3.86 million U.S. adults were not working between June 29 and July 11 because they were caring for themselves or someone else with Covid-19, according to the U.S. Census Bureau . Another 6.13 million were not working because they were caring for a child not in school or daycare. Around 2.31 million were not working because they were caring for an elderly person.

GOOD MORNING. It's Monday, Aug. 1. Welcome back to Weekly Shift, your go-to tipsheet on employment and immigration news and where we wonder how one gets in the business of being a chiropractor to babies . Send feedback, tips, exclusives to emueller@politico.com and nniedzwiadek@politico.com . Follow us on Twitter at @eleanor_mueller and @nickniedz .

The Women Rule series brings together rising stars, accomplished professionals, and women at the pinnacle of their careers to inform, empower and connect women across diverse sectors and career levels. Attendance to our quarterly in-person POLITICO Women Rule meetings, is by invitation-only. Join our interest list and learn more here .

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.

On the Hill

THE WORKERS MISSING FROM CHIPS: As Biden signs into law more than $52 billion in "incentives" designed to lure chipmakers to the U.S., an unusual alliance of industry lobbyists, hard-core China hawks and science advocates says the president's dream lacks a key ingredient — a small, yet critical core of high-skilled workers, Brendan Bordelon and Eleanor report .

Decades of declining investments in STEM education means the U.S. now produces fewer native-born recipients of advanced STEM degrees than most of its international rivals.

Foreign nationals, including many educated in the U.S., have traditionally filled that gap. But a bewildering and anachronistic immigration system, historic backlogs in visa processing and rising anti-immigrant sentiment have combined to choke off the flow of foreign STEM talent precisely when a fresh surge is needed.

On top of that, the abandoned House and Senate competitiveness bills both included provisions that would have enhanced federal support for STEM education and training. Among other things, the House bill would have expanded Pell Grant eligibility to students pursuing career-training programs.

"We have for decades incentivized degree attainment and not necessarily skills attainment," said Robyn Boerstling, National Association of Manufacturers' vice president of infrastructure, innovation and human resources policy. "There are manufacturing jobs today that could be filled with six weeks of training, or six months, or six years; we need all of the above."

But those provisions were scrapped, after Senate leadership decided a conference between the two chambers on the bills was too unwieldy to reach agreement before the August recess.

Katie Spiker, managing director of government affairs at National Skills Coalition, said the abandoned Pell Grant expansion shows Congress "has not responded to worker needs in the way that we need them to."

HOW UNIONS HELPED SWAY MANCHIN: "When Joe Manchin balked at the clean energy incentives in Democrats' expansive spending bill two weeks ago, the corporate C-suites and union boardrooms jumped into action," our Zack Colman, Josh Siegel and Kelsey Tamborrino report .

"The United Mine Workers of America engaged throughout the 13-day period with Manchin's staff, though largely over another issue both Manchin and the union had fought for years to secure: a tax on coal companies to pay into a trust fund for miners suffering from black lung disease."

"UMWA spokesperson Phil Smith said Manchin's staff 'were all for it.' Yet, it was still a surprise to see that tax fully and permanently restored in the bill because 'nobody told me or anybody else that, yes, this is going to be in there,' he said."

RELATED: " Manchin to Sinema: Believe in this bill ," from POLITICO

MORE HILL NEWS: " Big Labor Takes the House of Representatives ," from The Wall Street Journal

Around the Agencies

COURT KNOCKS NLRB ON BROWNING-FERRIS: The D.C. Circuit Court ruled Friday that the NLRB should revisit a Trump-era ruling regarding joint-employer status, Reuters' Daniel Wiessner reports .

A panel said the "ruling for Browning-Ferris Industries Inc in 2020 failed to explain why it had applied a decades-old standard for determining when companies are so-called 'joint employers' of contract and franchise workers."

"The NLRB's 'precedent on the joint-employer standard was anything but static,' the panel said, noting the board's test shifted numerous times in the years leading up to its 2015 ruling in the Browning-Ferris case that established a more union-friendly standard."

What happens next: "The court said given the board's precedent on joint employment was changing, the agency must take a closer look at the proper standard to apply in the case and more fully explain its reasoning."

IFA HOLDS FIRE ON LOOMAN: The business group that mounted a ferocious effort to sink David Weil's nomination to head DOL's Wage and Hour Division is taking a different tack with his recently named replacement.

Matthew Haller, president of the International Franchise Association , told Morning Shift that the organization believes Jessica Looman, who was nominated by President Joe Biden last week, has demonstrated a willingness to hear their concerns about policy and take them into consideration in her stint as WHD's acting administrator.

"It was pretty clear David Weil was not a fair dealer, based on the biases he showed in his academic writings and previous tenure at DOL," Haller said in an interview.

"But we have already appreciated the approach of Ms. Looman and her team's outreach to the business community, and we look forward to continuing to work with her."

That lighter touch approach could bode well for Looman's chances, though she'll still have to win over the three Democratic senators who joined up with Republicans to vote down Weil earlier this year .

A spokesperson for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he has not yet taken a position on Looman's nomination, and representatives for Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema did not respond to requests to comment.

In the Workplace

LABOR COSTS CONTINUE TO CLIMB: Seasonally adjusted compensation costs increased 1.3 percent for civilian workers for the three-month period ending June 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday .

The trend "could keep inflation elevated and give the Federal Reserve cover to continue its aggressive interest rate hikes," Reuters' Lucia Mutikani reports .

"Other data on Friday showed consumer spending accelerating in June, though the uptick was tied to higher costs for gasoline as well as a range of other goods and services, with monthly prices surging by the most since 2005. Soaring inflation contributed to the economy's 1.3% contraction in the first half of this year, leaving it on the brink of a recession."

"The Fed will continue to grapple with trying to tame inflation without tipping the economy into a recession," said Dante DeAntonio, an economist at Moody's Analytics in West Chester, Pa., told Mutikani. "The data on wage and price growth will not do them any favors as upward pressure clearly remains even as the overall economy has weakened."

AT LEAST 4M WORKERS SIDELINED WITH 'LONG COVID': Experts estimate that at least 4 million full-time equivalent workers are out of work because of so-called long Covid-19, NPR's Andrea Hsu reports .

"As the number of people with post-COVID symptoms soars, researchers and the government are trying to get a handle on how big an impact long COVID is having on the U.S. workforce. It's a pressing question, given the fragile state of the economy. For more than a year, employers have faced staffing problems, with jobs going unfilled month after month."

"The Biden administration has already taken some steps to try to protect workers and keep them on the job, issuing guidance that makes clear that long COVID can be a disability and relevant laws would apply. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, employers must offer accommodations to workers with disabilities unless doing so presents an undue burden."

Unions

UAW PRESIDENT SNUBS CONVENTION SPEECH: United Auto Workers President Ray Curry skipped the typical rah-rah address given at the union's convention last week, the Detroit News' Jordyn Grzelewski and Breana Noble report .

It was a high-profile sign of the ongoing friction between factions of the UAW, which is climbing its way out of a major corruption scandal that ensnared two past presidents, among others.

"Some delegates also left the convention furious and confused about a move late in the day to reverse a vote that increased strike pay," the News reports.

"Still, numerous delegates to the quadrennial event said they felt it was the most democratic convention they'd been to yet and were encouraged by progress they felt had been made on key reforms and policies."

RELATED: " United Auto Workers Seek to Shed a Legacy of Corruption ," from The New York Times

INTRODUCING POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don't miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY .