| | | | |  | | By Lawrence Ukenye and Nick Niedzwiadek | | | A LONG TIME COMING: President Joe Biden sealed a victory public sector unions have been pushing for decades by signing the Social Security Fairness Act into law on Sunday. “Social Security is a bedrock of financial security for retirees and survivors, and for millions of Americans with disabilities” Biden said at a White House bill signing event. The law expands benefits for public sector workers by eliminating two Reagan-era elements of Social Security that limited certain benefits: the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset, also known as WEP/GPO. “We have never stopped fighting to repeal these unjust penalties that steal earned benefits by public servants, like educators and their spouses,” National Education Association Vice President Princess Moss said at a rally on Capitol Hill last month. Passed last month amid the end-of-session chaos on Capitol Hill due to stopgap funding negotiations, the law could mark Biden’s last major act to secure benefits for organized labor, despite Democrats’ union support failing to help usher Vice President Kamala Harris to the White House. Unions are already looking ahead to President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, with many approving of his pick to lead the Labor Department in former Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer. “We've had a good relationship with the Trump administration, and we look forward to partnering to protect the people in this country and the firefighters,” Ed Kelly, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which notably decided not to endorse a presidential candidate this past election cycle, told Shift. Organized labor was able to get House Republicans on board to help the bill pass the House before Sen. Chuck Schumer ultimately decided to bring it to the floor of the Senate. However, it remains to be seen if similar bipartisan pro-labor legislation gets traction in a Congress set to be dominated by Trump’s and Republicans' desire to overhaul immigration and pass new tax cuts. GOOD MORNING. It’s Monday, Jan. 6. Welcome back to Morning Shift, your go-to tipsheet on labor and employment-related immigration. Imagine having the president sing to you at the White House on your birthday. Send feedback, tips and exclusives to nniedzwiadek@politico.com and lukenye@politico.com. Follow us on X at @NickNiedz and @Lawrence_Ukenye. 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.
| | WHAT E&W HAS BEEN UP TO: Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce Committee at the end of last year took a pair of swipes at Biden’s Labor Department. In one letter, outgoing Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), her successor, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and two others called on DOL to extend the comment period on its proposal to sunset the 14(c) certificate program, which allows certain employers to pay people with disabilities less than the standard minimum wage. The window is set to close days before Trump takes office, though any final rule would not be complete before Biden departs. “DOL’s decision to close the comment period only three days prior to the incoming Trump administration created an inappropriately rushed process for an issue that requires great thought and care on behalf of the impacted workforce and employers,” they wrote. The committee, in another letter, also rapped DOL’s knuckles for not sufficiently responding to oversight requests regarding snafus at the Bureau of Labor Statistics — and for publicizing a report it commissioned on the matter. “Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris DOL has made willful deficiency the norm when the Committee conducts oversight,” the letter states. Foxx also slipped while walking down a Capitol staircase and hurt herself on Friday, the first day of the new Congress, our Daniella Diaz reports. Foxx posted on social media later in the day that she had “just a few small cuts and I’m doing just fine.” More from the Hill: "Alsobrooks, Blunt Rochester new Dems on HELP Committee," from our Chelsea Cirruzzo for Pro Subscribers.
| | | NO DEAL: Biden blocked Japanese firm Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel, delivering a major victory for organized labor despite angering proponents of foreign investment in the U.S. “Nippon remains a serial trade cheater that for decades worked to undermine our domestic industry by dumping its products into our market, and even now, it continues to add to global overcapacity,” United Steelworkers President David McCall told reporters last week. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States outlined national security concerns that the acquisition posed, yet U.S. Steel and Nippon argued the win would help keep support for America’s steel industry afloat despite Biden’s desire to keep the company domestically owned. Both companies have threatened to take legal action to revive the deal. Our Doug Palmer, Andrew Howard and Adam Cancryn have more. More on U.S. Steel: “Biden rejected appeals of several top advisers in blocking U.S. Steel bid,” from The Washington Post. ROLLOVER IN HANOVER: Supporters of the effort to unionize the Dartmouth men’s basketball team withdrew their petition at the end of December, a defensive maneuver before Trump has a chance to remake the National Labor Relations Board. “By filing a request to withdraw our petition [Dec. 31], we seek to preserve the precedent set by this exceptional group of young people on the men’s varsity basketball team,” SEIU Local 560 President Chris Peck, whose union represents various workers on Dartmouth’s campus, said in a release. Players on the team voted 13-2 back in March to join SEIU after a NLRB official in Boston ruled that an election could proceed — building upon a memo issued by General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo that college athletes are covered under the National Labor Relations Act (at least for private universities.) Dartmouth had strongly opposed the unionization effort and had sought a board review of the regional director’s decision in hopes of setting aside the results. The NLRB had not decided that case before Chair Lauren McFerran’s term expired, and withdrawing the petition lessens the possibility that a Republican-controlled board could use it to establish a precedent that would constrain future unionization attempts. A Dartmouth spokesperson did not return a request for comment Friday. ICYMI: “New York’s Fastest-Growing Union Is Management’s Best Friend — and Some Workers Don’t Even Know They’re Members,” from THE CITY.
| | | CLOCKING OUT: A federal judge in Texas last week set aside the Labor Department’s expanded overtime pay rule, driving another dagger in the moribund regulation. District Judge Sam Cummings, an appointee of Ronald Reagan, in a two-page order granted a Lubbock, Texas-based software firm’s challenge that the overtime rules exceeded its authority in issuing the rule — which if fully implemented would have made roughly 4 million workers newly eligible for time-and-a-half pay when working more than 40 hours in a week. Cummings briefly stated that he agreed with the reasoning laid out by a different judge, Sean Jordan, in November putting the kibosh on the regulation. DOL has appealed that decision, though the incoming administration is likely to shift course in some fashion. More workplace news: "Forklifts Hurt Thousands of Workers Each Year. Factories Are Seeking Alternatives," from The Wall Street Journal.
| | | BIZ GROUPS PUSH BACK: California business groups are challenging a state law that prevents employers from disciplining workers who refuse to attend meetings typically aimed at discouraging unionization, commonly known as captive audience meetings, our Lindsey Holden reports for Pro subscribers. The law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last September, drew the ire of the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Restaurant Association, which argue that the bill violates the First and 14th Amendments by discriminating against employers’ views on political issues and chilling businesses' speech. Other states, including Alaska, have also recently enacted provisions aimed at protecting employees from captive audience meetings. More from California: "In labor-friendly California, 2025 ushers in more worker protections. Here’s what to know," from the Los Angeles Times. Even more: "Maine businesses say H-1B visas are critical to filling labor gaps," from The Portland Press Herald.
| | | BERNIE SIDES WITH MAGA OVER MUSK: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) weighed in on the raging debate within the MAGA world last week by voicing his opposition to the H-1B visa program, taking aim with Elon Musk's argument that the program allows the U.S. to recruit elite talent from across the globe, our Anthony Adragna reports. "The main function of the H-1B visa program and other guest worker initiatives is not to hire ‘the best and the brightest,’ but rather to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad,” he wrote in a statement. “The cheaper the labor they hire, the more money the billionaires make.” Context: Debate erupted on Musk's social media platform during the holidays after the Tesla CEO voiced support for the H-1B visa program with Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy — both of whom have been tasked to lead the president-elect's new "Department of Government Efficiency." Both men faced backlash from some of Trump's supporters, who argued that the program gives companies an incentive to avoid hiring American workers, with some referring to H-1B workers as "indentured servants." More immigration news: “'He owes them': MAGA activists worry about Musk's influence over Trump in legal migration spat,” from our Alice Miranda Ollstein, Holly Otterbein, and Megan Messerly.
| | — “The Ghosts in the Machine,” from Harper’s. — “Help Wanted: U.S. Factories Seek Workers for the Nearshoring Boom,” from The Wall Street Journal. — “6 former Florida State players file lawsuit against coach Leonard Hamilton over NIL compensation,” from Yahoo Sports. — "Elaine Chao's advice for Trump's Labor and Transportation secretaries," from our Shia Kapos. THAT’S YOUR SHIFT! | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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