News: PRO Act passes

Monday, May 13, 2024

PRO Act passes — in Vermont

May 13, 2024

With help from Eleanor Mueller

QUICK FIX

BEN AND UNIONIZE: Vermont lawmakers last week gave final passage to a series of progressive labor reforms that backers have dubbed the Green Mountain State’s version of the PRO Act.

The bill S. 102, was one of organized labor’s priorities for the legislative session, along with taking a step toward putting a ballot measure enshrining collective bargaining rights in the constitution to voters, though not before 2026.

“It demonstrates to labor and unions that we have their back and stand on the side of collective bargaining,” said state Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, a progressive Democrat who ran in 2022 for the congressional seat left by now-Sen. Peter Welch before endorsing Rep. Becca Balint. “We are attempting to be more than symbolic.”

Though there’s some similarity with its federal namesake, Vermont’s legislation is actually comprised of several policies that have trickled through Democratic-controlled states of late.

It would neuter so-called “captive audience meetings;” open the door to public sector workers to prove union support via card check, rather than a full-blown vote, and allow domestic workers to band together.

“There is a lot of popular support for these measures addressing the devastating effects of employers abusing their power over their employees and the ability to take away their livelihood,” Liz Medina, executive director of the Vermont State Labor Council — an arm of the AFL-CIO that has occasionally found itself crosswise with the national organization in recent years.

The bill originally also would have given farmworkers the right to organize. But the House amended it to instead create a committee to study the issue following pushback from some in the agricultural sector, which remains an integral part of Vermont’s pastoral identity.

“Trying to expand collective bargaining and the right to strike is a dangerous direction to go when farms need to tend to, care and milk their cows,” the Vermont Dairy Producers Alliance said in a statement.

The bill now has to get past GOP Gov. Phil Scott, a moderate, though it passed the General Assembly with enough of a majority that legislators could override a veto.

GOOD MORNING. It’s Monday, May 13. Welcome back to Morning Shift, your go-to tipsheet on labor and employment-related immigration. Another win for nominative determinism. Send feedback, tips and exclusives to nniedzwiadek@politico.com and lukenye@politico.com. Follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @NickNiedz and @Lawrence_Ukenye.

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In the Workplace

FIRST IN SHIFT: 8 in 10 voters want a boost to workforce development. National Skills Coalition is out with a new poll today that found 82 percent of voters support spending more on skills training, our Eleanor Mueller reports.

The poll, conducted by Impact Research, also found that about 7 in 10 voters said they would be more likely to support a candidate who wants the same — a jump from 6 in 10 in 2019. Some 7 in 10 also said they believe that investing in skills training is an “extremely or very important way to improve the economy.”

More workplace news: “Could banning noncompetes help close the gender gap?” by our Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing.

Unions

PLAYING OFFENSE: Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign manager has been spearheading an effort to provide air cover for the pro-union vote as Alabama Mercedes-Benz workers begin voting Monday on whether to join the United Auto Workers.

Faiz Shakir, the executive director of More Perfect Union — a non-profit that runs a digitally savvy, labor-friendly media outlet — in recent weeks has been heading up a parallel 501(c)(5) called More Perfect Union Solidarity that has been running aerial banner flyovers, hosting cookouts and running TV ads in support of UAW’s effort.

“We're not involved in organizing workers inside,” Shakir told POLITICO. “What we're owning is the responsibility of trying to help people in the community be supportive of what the workers are doing.”

He said that the outreach is intended as a counterweight to the villainization of unions from business groups and Republican elected officials, such as Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, particularly for communities that have little familiarity with organized labor outside of high-profile fights with employers.

Shakir said that the six-figure campaign is designed as solely a one-off “special project,” but if successful, could be something that other unionization efforts might explore.

Related: “Unions Struggled in the South for Years. The Economy Gave Auto Workers an Opening,” from The Wall Street Journal.

More union news: "Apple Store in New Jersey Votes Against Unionizing" from Bloomberg.

On the Hill

TAKING ON TELEWORK: Retiring Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) are pushing a bill that would require federal workers to spend at least 60 percent of their time in person.

“The legislation limits telework usage to 40% of the work days in any given pay period, with exceptions in cases where the employee is a military or federal law enforcement spouse or if a federal position requires ‘highly specialized expertise,’ frequent travel or difficult to recruit for,” Government Executive reports.

Speaking of telework: The Labor Department said it was in the process of producing additional information on the agency’s telework policies when House Education and the Workforce Republicans issued their subpoena last week.

“We responded to the Committee's letter on April 18th with substantial information about the Department's telework practices, and communicated to them just hours before the subpoena that we were in the midst of preparing an additional response,” a DOL spokesperson said.

That did not assuage Foxx, who followed through on her vow to Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su at a hearing this month.

“DOL should spend less time spinning what it believes to be ‘substantial information’ and more time answering the Committee’s questions completely and accurately,” a committee spokesperson said in a statement.

The Hill is a workplace: “Nancy Mace says staff 'sabotaged' her: Republican accuses ex-aides of mismanaging $1million, hacking her phone, spying on medical records and dumping office devices in water in extraordinary interview,” from the Daily Mail.

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Immigration

SPOUSAL PRIVILEGE: A D.C. appellate court is set to take up a case Monday over whether spouses of certain H-1B visa holders should be allowed to legally work in the U.S.

The legal challenge started nearly a decade ago from a group of IT workers who say they lost their jobs to foreign-born ones due to the H-1B program. But the focus of their case is on a Department of Homeland Security rule allowing H-4 visa holders — meaning spouses of H-1B workers — to apply for work authorization.

The group, Save Jobs USA, argued that DHS lacked congressional authority to issue extended work authorization to these visa holders. The Trump administration had revoked eligibility for H-4 visa recipients on its regulatory to-do list, but the idea ended up as a casualty of Covid-era disruptions.

Fast-forward to March 2023 and Judge Tanya Chutkan sided with the government that DHS’s rule was valid.

More immigration news: “Greece to bring in Egyptian farm workers amid labour shortage,” from Reuters.

WHAT WE'RE READING

— "Corporate America Never Really Quit Forced Labor," from Bloomberg.

— ”A German Initiative to Keep Workers Employed by Retraining Them,” from The New York Times.

— "How Poor Tracking of Bird Flu Leaves Dairy Workers at Risk," from The New York Times.

THAT’S YOUR SHIFT!

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