| | | | |  | | By Nick Niedzwiadek | With help from Grace Yarrow
| | IT’S CAPTIVATING: The Illinois AFL-CIO is putting its shoulder into a bid to prevent employers from holding mandatory meetings on unionization or certain other highly charged topics like religion and politics, making it one of its top legislative priorities in Springfield this year. The federation is riding high after leading a successful ballot campaign to embed collective bargaining rights within the state’s constitution and pushing for a law that went into effect in January guaranteeing that employers offer paid leave to workers. Now it's targeting what critics call “captive audience meetings.” Organized labor has long sought to curb the practice arguing that it unfairly allows employers to pepper workers with anti-union messaging — and the right to punish or fire workers who refuse to attend. “This was just a no-brainer for us to keep our momentum and keep trying to improve on the rights of all workers,” President Tim Drea told Morning Shift. “It's the only place where you can have a campaign where one side gets to talk and the other side doesn't.” For more than a decade Oregon stood alone with a law preventing employers from penalizing workers who opt-out of meetings on “religious or political matters,” but the issue has gained momentum in the Biden years. “It’s not just a union issue … [workers] have their own ideas and thoughts, and they don't need an employer saying, ‘This is how it should be,” Drea said. The National Labor Relations Board’s Jennifer Abruzzo has sought to outlaw them and five states — Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota and New York — have recently enacted laws in the same vein as Oregon’s. Employers contend that such bans infringe upon their free speech rights and present practical hassles to communicating with employees effectively, including on subjects not covered by these restrictions. Illinois’ legislation, sponsored by the chairs of the legislature’s labor committees in both houses, would task the state Department of Labor with policing the law. Enforcement, or lack thereof, has been one of the limitations in other states. GOOD MORNING. It’s Monday, Feb. 26. Welcome back to Morning Shift, your go-to tipsheet on labor and employment-related immigration. YNWA. Send feedback, tips and exclusives to nniedzwiadek@politico.com and gyarrow@politico.com. Follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @NickNiedz and @YarrowGrace.
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| | JURISDICTION JOSTLING: Attorneys for SpaceX on Friday made clear they want to keep the company’s challenge to the NLRB’s constitutionality in the 5th Circuit because doing so would give them a better chance to prevail. “But in our legal system, plaintiffs are allowed to prefer forums with favorable caselaw,” SpaceX wrote in a legal filing. “Defendants, on the other hand, cannot cite unfavorable caselaw to escape someplace else.” Earlier this month Judge Rolando Olvera granted the NLRB’s request to transfer the case from the Southern District of Texas — where it was originally filed — to the Central District of California, where SpaceX is headquartered and much of the underlying events occurred. SpaceX argues that Olvera’s reasoning used the wrong legal standards and has asked the conservative-leaning 5th Circuit to intervene. Meanwhile the NLRB has floated an aggressive move of its own, writing to Central District Judge Consuelo Marshall that in the event the 5th Circuit requests the case back he “is not obliged to honor the request if it determines that retransfer is not appropriate or warranted.” (RE)MARK YOUR CALENDARS: The NLRB’s joint employer rule will not go into effect today after a judge ordered a temporary freeze while he weighs a legal challenge brought by business groups. Eastern District of Texas Judge J. Campbell Barker delayed the regulation’s start by two weeks to March 11, though additional extensions could be possible. Barker earlier this month held a hearing but has yet to rule on the case. As with SpaceX, the NLRB is trying to get the case moved elsewhere — D.C. in this instance — in order to lump it in with a related case filed by the labor union SEIU.
| | FIRST IN SHIFT: Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), top Republican on the Senate HELP Committee, on Monday is continuing to press for the return of a $127 million overpayment issued as part of the American Rescue Plan. The misallocated money stems from the $36 billion in assistance funding awarded in 2022 to the beleaguered Central States Pension Fund, a Teamsters-backed multiemployer plan, from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The PBGC’s inspector general in November reported that Central States’ application included nearly 3,500 dead participants who shouldn’t have been included as part of the calculations, and the agency has angered the GOP by not trying to recoup that money. Cassidy is sending out letters Monday to both PBGC and Central States demanding that the pension fund explain why it is not returning the $127 million and asking for information about what is being done to prevent similar errors. APPRENTICESHIP TIME: House Education and the Workforce Chair Virginia Foxx last week pressed the Labor Department to extend the public comment period for its proposed overhaul of the National Apprenticeship System. DOL announced the revamp in mid-December, and the proposal was published in the Federal Register a month later. In her letter to acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, Foxx pointed to the length of the document to argue that the initial 60-day window to submit critiques is “wholly inadequate,” and asked for an additional two months. “Without an extension of the deadline, many smaller employers may simply be unable to participate effectively in the public comment period,” Foxx wrote. More Hill news: “Congressional leaders float punting shutdown deadline to March 22,” from our Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes.
| | ADDRESSING AI TENSION: Structural lack of workplace protections by policymakers and regulatory agencies causes “anticipatory anxiety” surrounding new technology like AI, according to a new report from the Roosevelt Institute. Beth Gutelius, author of the report, argues that effective technology policy should expand the rights of workers to organize and advocate for technology regulations. Gutelius pointed to several high-profile labor standoffs last year such as those involving WGA, SAG-AFTRA and the Teamsters where workers’ concerns about technology played a major role. “Workers are the ones who are every single day working with these new technologies and working in these occupations, and so they are intimately aware of what's happening,” Gutelius told Morning Shift. The report proposes that policy should protect workers first, rather than scramble to regulate new and developing technologies. “We should only be trying to pass more laws and give workers more rights on the job and protect them,” Gutelius said. More workplace news: “Labor Dept. says Tennessee firm employed minors to clean meat saws, head splitters at slaughterhouses,” from NBC News.
| | POSTAL PUSH: The AFL-CIO and National Association of Letter Carriers are leaning on the Biden administration to reconfigure how it values pension assets and liabilities to ease the financial stress the Postal Service faces as a self-funded agency — and provide a clear picture of its fiscal health as contract talks ramp up. Audits of the assets by the Postal Service Office of the Inspector General found that the Office of Personnel Management allocated too much of the cost to USPS and not enough to the federal government. Current law includes a mechanism to allocate Postal Service pension liabilities and transfer any surpluses to the USPS retiree health benefit fund. The existing allocation amounts to a “raid” on the pension fund, the unions say. NALC's president sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Feb. 1 asking him to direct OPM to update its evaluation of pension liabilities ahead of the next surplus transfer in 2025. NALC President Brian Renfroe said a change is needed soon to provide adequate time for that recalculation. Renfroe told Grace that failure to make those changes directly hurts NALC’s current collective bargaining efforts with the USPS. “If there's policy things like this that can be fixed to put them in a better financial position, it puts them in a position to be able to invest more in employees, which directly relates to collective bargaining,” Renfroe said. The AFL-CIO launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at the White House to boost the effort, with around 75,000 participants as of Friday. The 2022 Postal Service Reform Act marked a step forward in relieving the USPS of excessive pension costs, Renfroe said, allowing for the independent agency to work more effectively. “The bottom line here would be that they would experience a net cash infusion that they could use to invest in a lot of different things that are sorely needed,” Renfroe said. More union news: “Is Hollywood Sleepwalking Toward Strike Three?” from The Hollywood Reporter. Even more: “The Fight Over Control of NYC’s Lifeguard Union Reaches NY’s Highest Court,” from Hell Gate.
| | | FL TARGETS UNIONS AGAIN: The Florida Senate passed a new slate of organized labor reforms Thursday, dealing a blow to union leaders who are angling for lawmakers to scale back the proposal, our Andrew Atterbury reports for Pro subscribers. The bill passed by the Senate, FL SB1746 (24R) is a sequel to the so-called 2023 “paycheck protection” law named after a provision that prevents some union members from having their dues automatically withdrawn from their paychecks. Senators passed the bill 21-14, with three Republicans joining Democrats in opposition. The 2023 law specifically carved out certain groups like law enforcement officers and firefighters, and the new bill would also exempt 911 call operators, emergency medical technicians and paramedics. More state news: “Striking Workers Could Soon Qualify For Unemployment Benefits,” from HuffPost.
| | | | Don’t sleep on it. Get breaking New York policy from POLITICO Pro—the platform that never sleeps—and use our Legislative Tracker to see what’s on the Albany agenda. Learn more. | | | | | | | | | — “How Biden’s Labor Chief Is Thinking About AI’s Threat to Hollywood Workers,” from The Hollywood Reporter. — “Half of College Grads Are Working Jobs That Don’t Use Their Degrees,” from The Wall Street Journal. — “Federal judge blocks NCAA from enforcing NIL rules,” from The Athletic. — “Mercedes US Executive Warned Against Unionizing at Mandatory Meeting, UAW Says,” from Bloomberg. THAT’S YOUR SHIFT! | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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