| | | | |  | | By Nick Niedzwiadek | With help from Juan Perez Jr.
| | MARCH MADNESS: The Dartmouth men’s basketball season comes to a close against Harvard at 7 p.m. Tuesday. But the real action will be roughly six hours earlier, when members of the Dartmouth team are expected to find out whether they will have voted to become the first Division I team to unionize. It would be a shock if the vote is not heavily (perhaps even unanimously) in favor of joining SEIU Local 560, as all 15 members of the team signed union authorization cards last fall when petitioning for representation. Nevertheless Dartmouth officials have also been jockeying players to think twice before voting to unionize, according to an internal memo obtained by Sportico last week. The National Labor Relations Board scheduled the ballot count for Tuesday after its regional director in Boston, Laura Sacks, in early February ruled the players are workers entitled to union rights under federal labor law. Dartmouth has contested Sacks’ determination and disputes that college athletes should be considered under the school’s employ. It has asked the Democrat-controlled board to overrule Sacks and filed an emergency request that the NLRB either delay the election or prevent the ballots from being counted until the matter of whether athletes are employees is settled. Dartmouth’s attorneys also argue that holding the election at the end of the season would be wrong because it would allow graduation seniors who “will not be impacted by the vote whatsoever … to make this considerable choice on the behalf of others who will [be] faced with the long-lasting implications of a union representative they did not choose.” Alternatively, the school wants the NLRB to impound the ballots indefinitely, as it did when the Northwestern fFootball team tried to unionize nearly a decade ago. That would deny supporters of college athlete unionization the potentially powerful symbol of a successful vote, while the myriad reviews and appeals play out. A Dartmouth spokesperson did not return a request for comment. College sports’ leaders are anxious that union fervor will quickly spread, upending the multi-billion dollar industry and roiling athletic departments across the country. “You really can’t do collective bargaining without doing employment,” NCAA President Charlie Baker told reporters in February. “I’m telling you, most of [Division] I and all of DII and DIII would have trouble sustaining their athletic programs with that model.” Others keen on accelerating the evolution of college sports are also hoping to use the Dartmouth case as a springboard. POLITICO’s Morning Education has more on that here. Related: “NCAA is pausing investigations into third-party NIL deals with athletes,” from The Associated Press. GOOD MORNING. It’s Monday, March 4. Welcome back to Morning Shift, your go-to tipsheet on labor and employment-related immigration. Hell hath no fury like a hobbyist scorned. 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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| | OVERSIGHT GOP EYES EEOC: The House Oversight Committee on Friday pressed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for information on how it's policing corporate diversity initiatives following the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling last year, your host reports for Pro subscribers. “As the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal laws against illegal racial discrimination in all types of work situations, it is critical that EEOC is taking all available measures to prevent and end unlawful employment practices that discriminate on the basis of an individual’s race or color,” Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) and Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) wrote in a letter to EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows. The pair asked EEOC to provide documents and internal communications related to how the agency enforces prohibitions on racial discrimination in the workplace, as well as material related to last June’s Students for Fair Admissions ruling that sruck down race-conscious admissions policies. TROUBLE ON THE HORIZON?: The Labor-H nickname for the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill is something of a misnomer, as the shorter part of the moniker often dwarves the rest when it comes to political attention and partisan clashes. Our colleagues at Inside Congress on Friday report that Labor-H could once again be a major hangup to a government funding deal later this month, particularly over abortion-related issues. House Republicans want to tack on a number of policy riders to the bill, while Senate Democrats are holding the line in opposition to what they see as “poison pills.”
| | MORE MEETING MOVEMENT: Last week’s edition of Shift highlighted the Illinois AFL-CIO’s push to join a growing number of states in enacting restrictions on employers’ ability to call meetings related to religion, politics or unionization by barring them from disciplining employees who refuse to comply. One of those is Minnesota, which is facing a lawsuit filed last month by the state arm of the Associated Builders and Contractors, in conjunction with a local electric company, that argues the state law is both preempted by federal law and is a form of illegal “viewpoint-based discrimination,” according to the complaint filing. It’s unclear if anyone has tried yet to invoke the Minnesota law since it took effect in August. But the lawsuit is a proactive step to prevent it from chilling employers’ speech, ABC’s Adam Hanson said in an email. Connecticut’s so-called “captive audience” ban has also been fending off a legal challenge on similar grounds filed shortly after it passed in 2022. The Connecticut law was the one that reinvigorated interest in the idea after Oregon’s was the only one on the books for about a decade. But the prospect of litigation has done little to stop progressive lawmakers. As Bloomberg Law reports, state lawmakers in Washington passed captive audience legislation on Feb. 29 with proposed bills in another eight states. More state news: “What's Driving the Changes to Child Labor Laws?” from Governing magazine. Even more: “Why the Oklahoma Farm Bureau is fighting an effort to increase the state’s minimum wage,” from Investigate Midwest.
| | | BEAR BRYANT DROVE A CADILLAC: A Mercedes-Benz plant called in former Alabama football coach Nick Saban for a mandatory all-hands meeting amid an organizing drive by the United Auto Workers, Al.com reports. The company said that Saban, who owns several Mercedes dealerships across the Southeast and has visited the facility in the past, was brought in after he announced his retirement in order to talk about “ leadership and team performance.” In recent years Saban has appeared somewhat sympathetic to the idea of college athlete unionization, including drawing parallels to the auto industry. More union news: “Big Labor Gamble: Push to Unionize Every U.S. Auto Plant,” from The New York Times. Even more: “CN, United Steelworkers in New Tentative Three-Year Agreement,” from The Wall Street Journal.
| | TSA EMPLOYEES BEMOAN TSA: A new Government Accountability Office report found that despite recent pay improvements, the Transportation Security Administration still has an employee morale problem. “TSA screeners said they still struggle with work-life balance, due to a combination of understaffing and mandatory overtime, high passenger volumes at airports, difficulties securing child care and the inability to secure leave, a process that still relies on a paper-based system at some airports,” Government Executive reports. Among the other complaints identified in the GAO report, employees reported frustrations with how the agency handles performance metrics, career development and communication with security officers. More agency news: “Labor Laws in Danger After Texas Judge Rejects House Proxy Votes,” from Bloomberg Law.
| | | WHEN GOOD NEWS IS BAD NEWS: Workers in rural areas are just as likely as urban peers to hold good-paying jobs, and those with a high school degree or less education may even have better prospects than city dwellers. However, the draw of the job market may be a contributing factor to the ongoing declines in student enrollment at many rural colleges, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. “These good jobs can help workers support their families right out of high school, but many of them come with limited futures — they involve manual labor that can take a toll on the body and are often dependent on economic whims.” More workplace news: “Construction Safety Firm Charged With Faking Training of Worker Who Died,” from The New York Times. Even more: “CBS accused of ‘blatant’ bias against white male ‘SEAL Team’ writer amid diversity rules: suit,” from the New York Post.
| | | BAND-AID SOLUTIONS: Businesses in many parts of the world, including the U.S., are becoming increasingly reliant on cheap immigrant labor to meet workforce needs in the face of local demographic challenges. “To some economists, however, dependence on imported workers is approaching unhealthy levels in some places, stifling productivity growth and helping businesses delay the search for more sustainable solutions to labor shortages,” The Wall Street Journal reports. "Those solutions could include bigger investments in automation, or more radical restructurings such as business closures, which are painful but may be necessary long-term, these economists say."
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